Serapion mentions that fumigations with mercury are very prejudicial by superinducing nervous affections and paralysis. (De Simpl. 385.) Alsaharavius is, we believe, the only ancient author who has mentioned that rubbing the body with mercury occasions swelling of the mouth, tongue, and throat, with erosion of those parts. He directs us to wash or gargle with the decoction of dill, camomile, or mint. (Pract. xxx, 3.) Pliny mentions milk as a remedy against gypsum, ceruse, sulphur, and mercury. (H. N. xxviii.)
Not having access to the unpublished MSS. of the ancient ‘Scriptores Chemici,’ we cannot pretend to determine whether or not they had acquired any considerable skill in analysing and detecting poisonous substances. See an interesting account of these mss. in Fabricii ‘Bibliotheca Græca,’ xiii, p. 747. Consult also Vossius ‘De Naturâ Artium,’ v. 9; Sir William Drummond’s Papers in the ‘Classical Journal’ on the Literature of the Ancient Egyptians; and Doutens ‘Dec. de Modern.’ p. 176. The only original work on the chemistry of the ancients which we have read with any attention is the ‘Chemia’ of Geber, which contains much curious information regarding the metals, although nothing that suits our present purpose.
SECT. LXIV.—ON WHITE HELLEBORE, THAPSIA, ELATERIUM, BLACK AGARIC, WILD RUE, GITH, AND THE DOWN OF THE CACTOS.
We must be guarded in the administration of certain medicinal substances, which often occasion as great danger as poisons themselves. Such are the following, namely, white hellebore, thapsia, elaterium, and the black agaric, for these bring on either suffocation or hypercatharsis, in which cases we may cure the suffocation in the way described for mushrooms, and such like substances, and stop the hypercatharsis by such things are as calculated to suppress immoderate discharges. Likewise certain substances which might seem not injurious to any considerable degree, will sometimes occasion dangerous symptoms, and should not be neglected. Such are the wild rue, gith, and the fresh poppy, which are the flowers of the thorn called cactos. In such cases the administration of a vomit alone relieves those who have taken them.
Commentary. This section is taken from Dioscorides. Of the pappus Actuarius says, like our author, that it is the flower of the thorn called cactos, and that vomiting relieves those who have taken it. (Meth. Med. v, 12.) See Avicenna (iv, 6, 1); and Rhases (ad Mansor. viii, 49.) Alsaharavius directs us in the case of hellebore to clear the stomach by emetics, and to apply cooling plasters of citrons, apples, and roses. For the wild rue he recommends emetics of oil, emollient clysters, and the ashes of vine tops taken with water and vinegar.
In the [Seventh Book] we shall have occasion to state the opinions which have been entertained respecting the helleborus albus of the ancients. Schulze is very undecided. (Toxic. vet. iv.) The thapsia he makes to be the same as the T. fœtida of Linnæus. Theophrastus has described it (H. P. ix, 23). Pliny says it occasions swelling of the body, with erysipelas. (N. H. xiii, 43.)
We shall treat of the elaterium also in the [Seventh Book]. Hippocrates uses the word as a general term for all drastic purgatives, but by Dioscorides, and the subsequent writers on the materia medica, it is applied to the fæcula of the momordica elaterium.
The agaricus muscarius is a well-known poisonous mushroom. Schulze properly remarks that its effects are narcotic; and Dr. Christison places it in the class of narcotico-acrid poisons. See sec. liv.
Schulze is much inclined to believe that the πήγανον ἄγριον here treated of is the peganum harmala of Linnæus, a plant intermediate between the ruta and melanthium. He is also disposed to think that the melanthium of the ancients was the nigella sativa, L. We are inclined to adopt this opinion from the text of Avicenna. (iv, 6, 1, 16.) Sprengel agrees with Anguillara and Dalechampius in opinion that the cactos was the cynara cardunculus, L., or cardoon artichoke, a variety of the C. scolymus. (Comment. in Dioscor.) Schweighaeuser inclines to the opinion of Villebrun, the French translator of Athenæus, who makes it to be the C. sylvestris latifolia, which he says grows commonly in Sicily at the present day. (In Deipnos. ii, 83.)
Under this head we may notice the treatment of poisoning by gum euphorbium, and the spurges, of which no mention is made by the Greek authorities on toxicology. For the Arabians, see Avicenna (iv, 6, 1, 4, 5); Rhases (Contin. xx, 2; ad Mansor. viii, 48); Alsaharavius (Pract. xxx, 1, 19.) The symptoms as given by them all are, violent pain and heat in the primæ viæ, with bloody discharges, and death, unless timely relief be given. Their remedies are immediate vomiting with hot water and oil, then administering demulcents, barley-water, and in the end, the theriac. Galen and Haly Abbas, in their treatises on the Theriac, recommend it in this case of poisoning.