Commentary. Whatever doubts others may have entertained respecting the Buprestis of the ancients, we are well satisfied that it was the Meloe vesicatoria. We have treated fully of it as a poison in the [Fifth Book § 31]. Occasional mention of it is made in the Hipprocratic treatises. (De Mulieb. i, et alibi.)
Βόυτυρον,
Butyrum, Butter, is possessed of digestive and moderately discutient properties when applied to soft bodies; it is therefore of use for buboes and parotis; it attenuates the gums, more especially of children during the time of dentition, and in a linctus it concocts humours lodged in the chest.
Commentary. Though it certainly be true, as stated by Beckmann (History of Inventions), that the Greeks and Romans made very little use of butter as an article of food compared with the moderns, it is equally clear that they were well acquainted with various kinds of it, and their medicinal virtues. If, as he and Michaelis suppose, the Hebrew word, which, in the Septuagint Scripture, is rendered boutyron, signifies cream, or sour thick milk, the first mention of butter which occurs in ancient literature is in the following passage of Hippocrates: “These people (the Scythians) pour the milk of their mares into wooden vessels, cause it to be violently stirred or shaken by their blind slaves, and separate the part which arises to the surface, as they consider it more valuable and more delicious than that which is collected below it.” (De Aere, Aquis, etc.) The Hippace is also described in another of the Hippocratic treatises (De Morbis, iv.) Beckmann quotes a passage of the poet Anaxandrides, preserved by Athenæus (iv, 131, ed. Casaubon), to prove that butter is of Thracian origin. We having thus described the origin of butter, shall now give a description of its medicinal uses from the works of the medical authorities. In the Hippocratic treatises butter is several times mentioned as an external medicine. (De Natura Mulierum, v; De Morbis Mulierum, ii, 5.) But Dioscorides is the first author who gives a distinct account of its medicinal properties. Butter, he says, is possessed of emollient and oily powers, whence it loosens the bowels when drunk in large quantity, and is useful in the treatment of poisoning by deadly substances in the absence of oil; when mixed with honey, and rubbed in, it is useful for painful dentition, pruritus of the gums in children, and aphthæ; when rubbed in externally it preserves the body plump and free from watery pustules (psydracia); it is beneficial for inflammations and hardness of the womb, when not fetid or old; for dysentery and ulceration of the colon, in a clyster; it is mixed advantageously with suppurative applications, and more especially in wounds of the nerves, membranes of the brain, the bladder, and neck; it fills up, cleanses, incarnates, and proves useful as an application in cases of persons bitten by the asp. Fresh butter in cookery is used instead of oil, and in cakes instead of suet. His chapter on butter concludes with directions for preparing the sort of butter, which he represents as being desiccative and astringent in ophthalmic applications, and capable of stopping defluxions and cicatrizing ulcers. (ii, 81.) Pliny’s account of milk being mostly taken from Dioscorides, we shall not dwell upon it. He is original, however, in stating that most butter is got from cow’s milk. (H. N. xxviii, 35.) Celsus merely enumerates butter among the articles which incarnate and fill up sores. (v, 14.) Galen states that butter is contained in greatest quantity in the milk of cows, and hence it derives its name. That it has concoctive powers with a small portion of discutient, and is of intermediate powers with regard to softness and hardness of the body, by which he means that it has no powers to discuss preternatural tumours of very hard bodies, but that it concocts and discusses soft inflammations, such as parotis, bubo, boils in the mouth, and many others of a like nature. He recommends it also in dentition and inflammatory affections of the mouth in children. He also mentions it as a useful expectorant in pleurisy and pneumonia, both when drunk and in the form of a linctus. (De Simpl. ix.) Aëtius copies the description which he gives of butter from Galen. (ii, 104.) Oribasius borrows from Dioscorides. (xv, 2.) Rhases quotes Dioscorides, Galen, Oribasius, and Paulus, and gives nothing of his own. (l. ult. 133.) Avicenna also recommends butter in exactly the same cases as Dioscorides and Galen. (ii, 2, 110.) Serapion literally translates Dioscorides and Galen. (De Simpl. 457.)
Βούφθαλμον,
Buphthalmum, Oxeye, has a flower like that of the camomile, but much larger and more acrid. It is therefore discutient, so as to cure indurations when mixed with cerate.
Commentary. The old herbalists were much puzzled what to make of the Buphthalmum, some contending for its being Helleborus niger, some a species of Consiligo, some a Chrysanthemum, and so forth. See Gerard (Herbal) and Sprengel (Ad Dioscor.) It would seem likely that it is the Anthemis Valentina. Our author borrows all that was worth copying in the chapter of Dioscorides (iii, 146.) Galen expresses himself respecting it in nearly the same terms as Dioscorides. For the Arabians, see Avicenna (ii, 2, 97.) It is not mentioned in the Hippocratic collection.
Βράθυς,
Sabina, Savin, being like the Cypress, it is heating and desiccative in the third degree; and consisting of subtile particles, it is possessed of subtilizing and discutient powers if drunk. It is applied to mortifications like the Cypress.