Page 295 - Copper and Bronze in Art: Corrosion, Colorants, Getty Museum Conservation, By David Scott

published by Ebers in 1875 and known as the Papyrus Ebers (Ebbell 1937), mentions various
preparations using copper compounds in both medicinal and cosmetic contexts. One of these
preparations, a mascara analyzed at the British Museum, proved to be of resin and verdigris
(Stetter 1993).
Weser notes that more than twenty copper proteins are known that have specific biochemi­
cal reactivity, and the efficacy of copper compounds in many biochemical systems has been con­
firmed by medical research. Copper has excellent chelating ability that enables it to interfere
with the reproduction of many microorganisms, and the protein known as copper-zinc super­
oxide dismutase has one of the fastest reaction rates measured in biochemical systems. In labo­
ratory studies, Weser demonstrated that copper chelates of some simple amino acids display
enzymatic activity similar to the natural dismutase. There is, therefore, a good biochemical basis
for ancient recipes that use copper for the treatment of skin infections and muscular pain. Pliny
records the following medicinal treatments using verdigris:

[VJerdigris in a crude state is used as an ingredient in plasters for wounds also. In combi­
nation with oil it is a marvelous cure for ulcerations of the mouth and gums and for sore
i
lips, and f wax is also added to the mixture it cleans them and makes them form a cicatrix.
Verdigris also eats away the callosity of fistulas and of sores around the anus either applied
by itself or with gum of Hammon. 9

The use of verdigris as a medicinal compound lasted until the beginning of the nineteenth
century. According to Ebers (1875), Buchner wrote in I8I6 of the preparation of "Das Kupfer-
sauerhonig" (JJnguentum Aegyptiacum), or Egyptian unguent. Chambers (1738) gives a formula
for Aegyptiacum, "improperly called an unguent," which may have been used to treat canker
sores in children. In 1895 Robert reviewed the medicinal copper salts used by Swiss-born alche­
mist and physician Paracelsus (1493-1541) and confirmed that they had a beneficial reactivity. In
the eighteenth century, verdigris — called "verdegrease" at the time—was used in pharmaceuti­
cal preparations (Benhamou 1984). Surgeons used these preparations to cleanse old ulcers and
to treat fungal infections; this is very reminiscent of the use of verdigris in Pliny's time, eigh­
teen centuries earlier.
Although supposedly controlled in pharmaceutical preparations, verdigris had a well-
deserved reputation as a poison. Benhamou notes that an eighteenth-century periodical blamed
the verdigris that formed in untinned copper boilers used for Parisian beer production for mak­
ing that beverage unwholesome and that some deaths were attributed to eating bread baked in
an oven fueled by green-painted wood.

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