As long as humanity is alive, it will always seek the elixir of eternal youth. Nowadays, there are many means and ways of rejuvenating: unique injections, ointments, serums, developed only for your skin.
Back in 16th century France, aristocrats sought to get rid of wrinkles, folds and skin pigmentation with the help of a deadly substrate - gold.
The favorite of the French King Henry II, Diane de Poitiers, daily took a solution of gold and ethyl alcohol. Most likely, this destroyed her.
Diane de Poitiers.
Diana de Poitiers never possessed royal power, but she had great social and moral power at the king's court. Contemporaries called her "a clever whip in the Renaissance." She was a patron of the arts and supervised the upbringing of royal children.
Her beauty was considered canonical. All aristocrats tried to imitate her and meet the following rules: the skin should be pale, light, black eyelashes, pink lips, rosy cheeks, graceful waist, magnificent arms and hips, miniature head. Diana was considered ageless. Some suspected her of witchcraft.
The French historian Bruntom once recalled meeting Poitiers six months before she died. She was 66 years old. He confessed that he did not know much about "liquid gold" and other means of promoting beauty, which she used every day. The historian wrote that if this high society lady had lived for another hundred years, she would never have grown old. Her face and figure were so well built.
In the fight against old age, pharmacists invented such unusual means as scorpion oil and spider elixirs.
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How many heroes of this French engraving drank gold in order to preserve their youth.
The tradition of using gold has existed since antiquity. Pliny the Elder prescribed it as a medicine for papillomas and wounds.
Wei Boyang, a Chinese alchemist who lived in the second century AD, wrote of gold as a medicine for immortality. He described those who drank it as "enjoying a long life." The ancient Egyptians referred to "golden water" as a cure for old age. These ideas were based on the fact that gold was not destroyed, it was durable.
Scientists Lydia Kang and Nate Pedersen write that the use of gold turned from curiosity to passion, especially when alchemists figured out how to turn solid gold into liquid gold. Liquid in the 16th century was advertised as a panacea. It cured everything from epilepsy to psychiatric delusions.
Recipes using gold were present in all chemistry textbooks of that time - from the French physicians Jean Beguin and Christophe Glaser to the Pope from Portugal, John XXI.
Pope John XXI.
His works on medicine were very popular in the Middle Ages. In one of them, the Pope described a recipe for making water, which included gold. This remedy was supposed to help preserve youth. It included, in addition to gold, iron, lead, copper, silver, steel components.
This compound had to be placed in the "urine of a virgin child," then added to it white wine, fennel juice, egg whites, human milk, red wine and again egg whites. And do this over and over again for six days.
Liquid gold has a criminal history. It was used by the Spanish Inquisition to poison witches, sorcerers, and sinners.
It was only after many centuries that people realized that the golden essence used for rejuvenation can be fatal.
Apparently, this is what happened to Diane de Poitiers. She died at the castle of Anet in France in 1566. Her bones were unearthed during excavations of a general burial in the area. It was generally accepted that her body was exhumed and her grave destroyed during the French Revolution.
After examining the hair of Diane de Poitiers, scientists concluded that, most likely, she died from slow poisoning associated with the constant use of gold.
This does not mean that the use of drinks with elements of gold is completely a thing of the past. For example, Goldschläger liqueur. This Swiss schnapps sells for $ 300 a bottle and contains 13 mg of 24-karat gold per liter.
Consuming this drink, however, does not give us eternal youth.
Pavel Romanutenko
