Copper lined vest to help penguins with recovery(apnews.com) |
Copper lined vest to help penguins with recovery(apnews.com) |
Ointments with zinc oxide and with basic carbonates of copper were already frequently used in the Greek-Roman Antiquity.
For instance Pliny the Elder described their medicinal uses.
Pure metallic zinc was unknown in the Antiquity, but brass, i.e. the copper-zinc alloy, was in widespread use in the Roman Empire, for various items that were intended to be resistant to rust, e.g. for belt buckles. When brass was smelted, some of the zinc evaporated and it was oxidized by the air, then it condensated as white zinc oxide on the colder parts of the installation, from where it was collected and sold to medicine doctors, for the preparation of medicinal ointments.
The basic carbonates of copper are the green corrosion products that cover copper and bronze objects that are exposed to the atmosphere. In Antiquity, that corroded layer was removed and used in the preparation of ointments.
For some reason nowadays, that ointment does not exist any more. There still are a lot of ointments containing zinc oxide, but they have different recipes, with more dubious fatty ingredients (I suppose that cod liver oil is more expensive than the fatty substances used now, which is the likely reason for its substitution), and they are less effective than the old one, but they can still accelerate healing in various skin injuries.
<tinfoil_hat> big pharma? </tinfoil_hat>
People are just way better about not biting or licking their wounds.