[598] For the weights and measures mentioned here, and in other parts of our author’s works, see the Comment. on the last section of Paulus Ægineta, Syd. Soc. edit.
[599] A mineral, consisting principally of sulphate of copper. See Paulus Ægineta, Vol. III., pp. 400–2.
[600] The μηκώνιον was applied to three totally distinct substances; 1st, To a sort of opium, that is to say, the expressed juice of the poppy (see Paulus Ægineta, Vol. III., p. 280); 2d, to the Euphorbia peplus, L., (see Appendix to Dunbar’s Greek Lexicon, under the name): and, 3d, to the excrement of new-born children. It is singular that the learned Foës, in his Œconomia Hippocratica, should apply it in this place to the last of these; for if Hippocrates had used such a substance medicinally, we may be well assured that it would not have been overlooked by Dioscorides and Galen. There is every reason, however, to suppose that it is the same as the πέπλος of Dioscorides and Galen, that is to say, the Euphorbia peplus, which was recommended as a drastic purgative by all the ancient authorities on the Materia Medica, and consequently would be a medicine very applicable either in coma or dropsy.
[601] All the commentators admit that the last section is obscure. It would appear to me that Galen understands the expression τὸ ἀπὸ τῶν κοπρἰων as applying ἑδρικοῖς, that is to say, to affections of the anus. I have followed Littré in giving the passage a very different interpretation, but I am by no means sure that Galen may not be right.
[602] De Diebus Decretoriis, i.
[603] See the Argument of the Prognostics.
[604] Μηδὲν εἰκῆ, μηδὲν ὑπερορῇν. (Epid. vi., 2, 12). Νούσων φύσιες ἰητροί· ἀνεθρίσκει ἡ φύσις αὐτὴ ἐωυτῇ τὰς ἐφόδους· ἀπαίδευτος ἡ φύσις ἐοῦσα καὶ οὐ μαθοῦσα τὰ δέοντα ποίει. (Ibid. vi., 5, 1.)
[605] Galen, De Venesect. adv. Erasist., c. iii.
[606] One cannot help being struck with the resemblance between this description and a passage in Aretæus’s chapter on Causus: Ψυχῆς κατάστασις, ἄισθησις σύμπασα καθαρὴ, διάνοια λεπτὴ, γνώμη μαντικὴ, κ. τ. λ. In the yellow fever of the West Indies, which would certainly appear to me to be a variety of the causus, the mind is said to be wonderfully entire to the last. Dr. Fergusson gives a very striking instance of this in describing the case of Sir James Leith, the British Governor of Guadaloupe.
[607] Traité des Fièvres ou Irritations Cérébro-spinales intermittentes, d’après des Observations recueillies en France, en Corse et en Afrique. Paris, 1836.