Potion

These potions, while often ineffective or poisonous, occasionally had some degree of medicinal success depending on what they sought to fix and the type and amount of ingredients used.

[5] Some popular ingredients used in potions across history include Spanish fly,[6] nightshade plants, cannabis, and opium.

[11] In Europe in the 15th century it was also common to see long-distance peddlers, who sold supposedly magical healing potions and elixirs.

[9] During the Great Plague of London in the 17th century, quacks sold many fake potions promising either cures or immunity.

[5]  By the 18th century in England, it was common for middle class households to stock potions that claimed to solve a variety of ailments.

[citation needed] Wise women (who were often supposed witches) were knowledgeable in health care[19] and could administer potions, lotions or salves in addition to performing prayers or chants.

[citation needed] The limited jobs available to women during the 17th to 18th century in Europe often involved a knowledge of potions as an additional way to gain a financial income.

[21][failed verification] In the Middle Ages and the early modern period, using potions to induce sterility and abortion was widely practiced in Europe.

[24] Many herbal potions containing emmenagogues did not contain abortifacients (substances that induce abortion) and were instead used to cure amenorrhoea (a lack of period).

[25] She later established herself in Rome, where she continued the business, specialising in selling to women in abusive marriages who wanted to become widows.

La Voisin would read people's horoscopes and perform abortions, but she also sold potions and poisons to her clients.

Around the year 1665, her fortune telling was questioned by Saint Vincent de Paul's Order, but she was quick to dismiss the allegations of witchcraft.

On March 12, 1679, Catherine was arrested Notre- Dame Bonne- Nouvelle due to a string of incidents involving her and her potions.

[26] This job involved "examining urine by its physical appearance; touching the body; and prescribing potions, digestives, and laxatives.

[5] In 17th-century Cartagena, Afro-Mexican curer (curanderos/as) and other Indigenous healers could gain an income and status from selling spells and love potions to women trying to secure men and financial stability.

[28] In the early 9th century, Arab physician Yuhanna ̄ Ibn Masawaih used the dye kermes to create a potion called Confectio Alchermes.

Recipes for the potion appeared in the work of the popular English apothecary Nicholas Culpeper and the official pharmacopoeia handbooks of London and Amsterdam.

Queen Elizabeth's French ambassador was even treated with the remedy; however, the recipe was altered to include a "unicorn's horn" (possibly a ground-up narwhal tusk) in addition to the traditional ingredients.

[29] The ingredients for the potion mainly included ambergris, cinnamon, aloes, gold leaf, musk, pulverized lapis lazuli, and white pearls.

[36] Yusufzai witches, for example, would bathe a recently deceased leatherworker and sell the water to those seeking a male partner; this practice is said to exist in a modified form in modern times.

The Little Mermaid decides to take the potion which successfully turns her into a human so that she can try to win the love of the Prince and an immortal soul.

In the 11th century, plants belonging to the nightshade family Solanaceae were often used as an ingredients in the potions - aphrodisiac or otherwise - and flying ointments of witches.

The specific nightshades used in such concoctions were usually tropane alkaloid-containing species belonging to the Old World tribes Hyoscyameae and Mandragoreae.

[4] The root of Mandragora officinarum, the celebrated mandrake, fabled in legend to shriek when uprooted, was often used to prepare sleeping potions, although it could prove poisonous in excess, due to its tropane alkaloid content.

Administered in small doses mandrake root has been used in folk medicine as an analgesic, an aphrodisiac and a remedy for infertility.

Larger doses act as an entheogen of the deliriant class, having the potential to cause profound confusion and dysphoria characterised by realistic hallucinations of an unpleasant character.

Classical and Renaissance authors have left certain accounts of the use of the plant by witches in the preparation of potions intended variously to excite love, cause insanity or even kill.

Jaundice potions were a mix of Cochineal, cream of tartar and Venetian soap and patients were directed to take it three times a day.

[7] Potions containing cannabis and/or opium were particularly popular in Arabia, Persia, and Muslim India after the arrival of the drugs around the 9th century.

[16] Nepenthes pharmakon is a famous type of magical potion recorded in Homer's Odyssey, intended to cure sorrow.