SECT. LIV.—ON THE ROUGHNESS OF THE TONGUE.
We may moisten asperity of the tongue, by making the patients retain in the mouth a decoction of linseed. But it will be more efficacious if sebesten plums be boiled with the linseed. Having immersed the finger in this liquor, and rubbed the tongue with it, let them rinse the mouth with clear water, or let them clean it with a sponge, and then anoint it with rose oil. And the oil of roses mixed with honey also answers well. Likewise the juice of the purslain retained in the mouth, and the sumach used for condiments, when mixed with honied water, have a good effect. Damascenes, also, and the bones of the sebesten plum retained in the mouth, and rolled on the tongue, and the stem of the lettuce, answer well. Archigenes says, that the Indian salt, which, in colour and consistence is like the common salt, but which resembles honey in taste, when chewed to the size of a lentil, or, at most, of a bean, moistens greatly. They should lie upon the side (for lying upon the back dries greatly), and they ought to keep the mouth shut, because keeping it open allows the moisture to dry up. Sneezing properly produced, moistens the tongue more effectually than any other means.
Commentary. This Section is taken from Oribasius. (Synops. vi, 43.)
Aëtius recommends nearly the same treatment. He also states, that when the roughness of the tongue is difficult to remove, it may sometimes be accomplished by rubbing it with the fat of fowls or with fresh butter. (v, 118.)
Cælius Aurelianus directs the tongue to be cleaned with a sponge squeezed out of hot water. Avicenna recommends for this purpose an instrument called chaizaran, and also directs us to use sugar, or a sponge with a small quantity of salt and rose oil. He likewise makes mention of the salt brought from India, possessing the colour of salt and the taste of honey. (iv, 1, 2, 22.) The Pseudo-Dioscorides recommends mint triturated with honey, red sumach, and rose oil with honey, or by itself. (Euporist. ii, 18.)
Prosper Alpinus held that the Indian salt, mentioned by our author and Avicenna, was the same as our sugar. But this opinion was controverted by Carolus Arantius, (Baptista Fieræ Cœna.) Sprengel, accordingly, maintains that the Greeks and Romans were utterly unacquainted with our sugar. (Rei Herb. Hist., and Notæ in Dioscoridem, ii, 104.) The mel arundinum appears, in fact, to have been a natural concretion, and it was most probably the same as the Indian salt. See Dr. Milward’s Letter to Sir Hans Sloane. The cane from which the ancient sugar was procured is now called by botanists the bambusa arundinacea, or bamboo cane. See [Book First, 96].