SECT. XXXVI.—FOR FETID SMELL AND SWEATING AT THE ARMPITS.
Of liquid alum, p. ij; of myrrh, p. j; dissolve in wine, and use.—Another: Plunge heated Molybdæna into fragrant wine, triturate with the wine, adding a little myrrh until it become of the thickness of the sordes in baths, then use. Another: Of litharge, dr. xvj; of myrrh, dr. ij; of amomum, dr. j; mix with wine.—Another: Of liquid alum, dr. viij; of amomum, of myrrh, and of spikenard, of each, dr. iv; triturate with wine, and use.
Commentary. See in particular Oribasius (Synops. viii, 36); Nonnus (155); Geopon. (xii, 26); Alsaharavius (Pract. xv); Rhases (ad Mansor. v, 51, and Contin. xxxvi.)
All the authorities concur in recommending for the cure of this complaint, a combination of astringents with aromatics. They therefore direct us to mix alum with storax, myrrh, and the like. Rhases recommends tutty with rose-water and camphor, and also various astringent and odoriferous liniments. The plan of treatment directed by Alsaharavius is deserving of attention. He recommends purging with the hiera picra. Alsaharavius further recommends a bath in which mint, marjoram, centaury, spikenard, and the like have been boiled. The part is afterwards to be rubbed with an ointment, consisting of litharge or tutty, mixed with alum, myrrh, &c. in fragrant wine.
The ancients believed that living freely upon figs rendered the perspiration fetid. Eustathius, the commentator on Homer, makes mention of two Sophists, called Anchimolus and Mochus, who lived solely upon figs for food, and water for drink; and he adds that their perspiration was so fetid, that when in the bath everybody shunned them. (Ad Iliad. xiii, 6.)