Supplantalia. Remedies applied to the soles of the feet, believed to attract the vicious humours. Live pigeons cut in two, and other animals were sometimes thus applied.
Suppositories are at least as old as Hippocrates, who called them Prosdita or Balanoi. Suppository is from the Latin sub-ponere, and is stated by modern etymologists to mean to place under; but older writers say the meaning was to substitute. That is, the suppository was employed instead of an enema.
Syrup. An Arabic introduction. The Arabic word is Sharab or Shurab, and our words sherbet and shrub as well as syrup are derived from it.
Tisanes, formerly Ptisans, are mentioned as favourite forms of administering the simpler kinds of remedies by Celsus. The word was derived from “ptissein,” to crush, and was applied first to barley water, made from crushed barley. In French pharmacy Tisanes, mostly infusions of herbs, are still very familiar. Celsus uses the term “sorbitio” for gruel. Apozems were stronger than Tisanes.
Troches, from the Greek trochiscos, a cone. Medicines in a hard form. Subsequently called in Latin, pastilli, and in English, lozenges. They were first made in the shape of cones. Trochisci plumbi were compounds of white lead, camphor, gum, etc., like oat grains, invented by Rhazes for application to the eyes. Named also trochisci Rhasis, and Arab soap.
Apothecaries’ Weights and Measures Signs.
It is not possible to ascertain with certainty the origin of the familiar signs ℈, ʒ, ℥, used in formulas and prescriptions to represent the scruple, drachm, and ounce respectively. A few guesses may be quoted, but actual historic evidence is not available.
Dr. C. Rice, New York, an accomplished scholar and pharmaceutical authority, supposed that the scruple sign was a slightly modified form of the Greek gamma, γ, the first letter of “gramma,” the nearest Greek equivalent weight, and the original of the modern gramme. The same author associated the ounce sign with the Greek x, ξ, which was certainly used in ancient times, often with a tiny ° against it, thus, ξ°, to represent the “oxybaphon,” or vinegar vessel, which became a fluid measure equal to about 15 fluid drachms. There is some evidence that the same sign was used for the later Greek (or Sicilian) ungia, Latin uncia, the original of our ounce. The oxybaphon, it may be added, was translated into Latin “acetabulum,” which was also a vinegar vessel and a measure.
It has been guessed that the scruple sign may have been a slurred Greek ς, written thus,
