This custom of making offerings to the gods, called donaria by the Romans, originated at a very early period. They often took the form of land, buildings, cattle, tools of trade, jewellery, and cast-off clothes. Thus the temple of Artemis Brauronia was filled with women’s clothing. In the temples of the healing gods, instruments of surgery, pharmaceutical appliances, painted tablets representing miraculous healings, and great numbers of models of various parts of the human frame, composed of metal, stone, and terra-cotta, were deposited.
Many of these ancient temples of healing were magnificent buildings with richly-decorated interiors, while others were simply shrines or grottos at the source of some hot spring or mineral water, where hundreds of those afflicted with various ailments flocked to bathe or drink the water. The priests in charge regulated the use of the waters and prescribed for the patients. After completing the course it was customary for the patient to throw an offering into the water, in the form of a silver cup, a coin, or some terra-cotta model of a limb, and then drag himself off, muttering a prayer. Others would hang their gifts on the walls, or deposit them at the feet of the statues of the gods placed around.
Magnificent offerings, such as goblets of valuable metal with votive inscriptions, have been occasionally found, and other ornaments of gold and silver. It is said, however, that donaria of precious metals were after a time melted down and disposed of by the priests.
Grateful patients or surgeons sometimes offered surgical instruments as a thanksgiving for a successful surgical operation; thus it is stated Erostratus offered to Apollo in the Temple of Delphus a forceps of lead, to show how little he approved of the fingers as a medium for extracting teeth. Drs. Sambon, Allaire, and others, who have discovered a large number of donaria of the Etruscan and Roman period, found among the pottery, invalid feeding-cups and feeding-bottles for infants. Many of the latter were modelled in the form of the female breast, and others in the shapes of animals. These articles were often placed in the tombs of young children who had died in babyhood, instead of the dishes of various foods which were deposited in the tombs of adults.
Among other donaria discovered, are models of the limbs and viscera of the human body in clay, showing upon them the marks of the various diseases from which the votaries had suffered. Thus the ancient temples must have presented a curious appearance, festooned on walls and ceilings with these numerous models, all of which told a tale of human suffering.
CHAPTER V.
THE EARLY AGE OF GREEK AND ROMAN PHARMACY.
Rome at an early period gave birth to several philosophers and practitioners in the art of healing. Cornelius Celsus, who is thought to have been a Roman, was a much esteemed writer of the time, and his works on medicine show the advanced state of surgery and medicine during the Roman Empire.
His work on medicine gives a considerable insight into the pharmacy of the Romans in his day. With reference to their weights, he says: “I would have it understood that in an ounce is contained the weight of seven denarii; next, that I divide each denarius into six parts, that is, sextantes, so that I have the same quantity in the sextans of a denarius that the Greeks have in their obolus”.
Of the methods of administration employed in early Roman pharmacy, the malagma was commonly used. It was a kind of soft mass composed of herbs and grass beaten up to the consistency of a thick paste, and applied to the skin. Numerous formulæ for malagmas are given, in which pellitory, myrrh, resin, cardamoms, ammoniacum, galbanum, etc., are included. Their malagmas corresponded with our ointments. They also used plasters, of which the basilicon, of galbanum, pitch, resin, and oil, in an improved form, has survived two thousand years. Troches, for healing wounds, were composed of dry medicines held in suspension by some liquid such as wine or oil. Pessaries (vaginal) were originated by the Greeks, who called them pessi. The ingredients were placed in a piece of wool, and thus used. Powders and snuffs were also common methods of administration.