Although, properly speaking, there may, in early times, have been no such trades as those of the druggist and the apothecary, there very soon arose a class of men who nearly resembled them, though professing to practise medicine.[[1208]] Into the shops of those persons we shall now beg leave to enter, and observe some few of the materials with which the children of Æsculapius preserved or destroyed the health of the Greeks. The art of medicine itself, as it existed among them, I shall not venture to examine, abandoning that part of the subject to the investigation of professional men.[[1209]]
The interior of an ancient surgery, though it may have been less lavishly furnished than one of our own day, made, nevertheless, some pretensions to show. There were, for example, ranged in order on shelves, numerous medicine chests of ivory; brass and silver cupping instruments,[[1210]] lancet-cases, and cases inlaid with gold.[[1211]] Flowers and aromatic plants were laid up in boxes of the wood of the linden tree, while seeds were preserved in paper or leaves. Liquid medicines were kept in vessels of silver, glass, or horn, or even in earthenware jars, provided they were well glazed. For these they sometimes substituted vases of boxwood, though those of metal were generally preferred, at least for all such as were intended for the eyes, or contained vinegar, pitch, or cedar juice. Lard, marrow, and all similar substances, were put into vessels of pewter.[[1212]] The instruments[[1213]] in most common use besides the bistoury, were the forceps, the scissors, the hypographs, the ear-pick, the probe,[[1214]] the needle, the scalpel, the tooth-file, the tooth-wrench, the eueidion, and the podostrabe, an instrument for reducing luxations. We ought, likewise, perhaps, to mention the bandages, ligatures, swathes, plaisters, lint, amulets, and bleeding-bowls.[[1215]]
Their knowledge[knowledge] of the materia medica was acquired for the most part by experience, though there existed, previously to the time of Hippocrates, works on the virtues of plants, among which we may mention that of Cratevas. By degrees these treatises were greatly multiplied, and included, at length, a species of encyclopedia, arranged in alphabetical order;[[1216]] though not one single fragment of it has been spared by time. At first, and for many ages, the art relied chiefly upon simples, the qualities of which were consequently studied with great ardour, and, no doubt, with much success. Numerous individuals devoted themselves to the gathering, drying, and preserving, of medicinal roots and herbs, an occupation requiring considerable time and labour,—for which reasons the physicians, by whom it was originally performed, soon abandoned it to the rizotomists.
But the business of collecting simples, by whomsoever performed, required great knowledge and perseverance. The individuals who carried it on spread themselves, at the proper seasons of the year, through all Greece, more especially over Mount Pelion in Thessaly, Telethra in Eubœa, Parnassos in Phocis, and the uplands of Laconia and Arcadia,[[1217]] making inquiries, as they went along, of the inhabitants of every district and canton respecting the medicaments in use among them, and collecting from the mouths of peasants and shepherds the fruits of their limited but close observation. They passed, as a matter of course, the greater part of their lives in the fields, studying the topography and distribution of plants, and investigating all the phenomena of vegetation. They believed, that herbs vary in virtues and powers according as they are found in mountains or in valleys, in places overrun with moisture, and where the air is rank and heavy, or on spots swelling and exposed, where they are fanned and invigorated by every breeze that blows. They laid much stress, too, on the season of the year, on the weather, and on the hour of the day; some simples requiring, it was supposed, to be gathered when the sun has exhaled from them all extraneous moisture, others before its rising, others amid the darkness of night when their leaves and flowers were suffused with dew. They were guided, likewise, in their operations by other rules, some founded on experience, others originating in fancy and superstition. In culling, for example, the thapsia[[1218]] and several other herbs, they were careful, having first anointed themselves with oil, to stand with their backs to the wind, persuaded that they otherwise should inhale certain noxious effluvia which would cause their whole bodies to swell, or, in the case of the dog-rose,[[1219]] that their sight would be impaired.
Those who gathered the mountain rue,[[1220]] anointed their faces and hands with oil, to guard themselves against cutaneous inflammation. Again, of other herbs the juices are so pungent as to burn like fire: these were collected in the greatest haste. In digging the hellebore,[[1221]] too, the odour of which was supposed rapidly to affect the brain, they proceeded with great celerity, and were careful to eat a clove or two of garlic beforehand, and to drink a little pure wine after. But all these precautions were trifling compared with those which the good rizotomists had persuaded themselves were indispensable in collecting the peony flower.[[1222]] About this operation they interwove a sort of netting of romance: it was to be undertaken they affirmed by night, lest the woodpeckers, who regarded it with as much jealousy as the Indian ants do their gold, should fall upon the unfortunate herbalists, and with their sharp beaks pluck out their eyes. So, likewise, in gathering the centaury they were to stand on their guard lest they should be assaulted and maltreated by the hawks. Considering all these numerous evils which rizotomist flesh was heir to, Theophrastus thinks it by no means absurd, that when issuing forth on an enterprise so perilous, they should have fortified their nerves with many prayers. Some few, however, of their practices the philosopher condemns as a trifle beyond the mark, as for example when in digging the root of the Asclepian all-heal, they judged it necessary to propitiate mother earth by burying in its stead a cake composed of many various sweets. And again in unearthing the root of the iris fœtidissima, they interred a cake of spring wheat mixed with honey, not, however, before they had drawn round the spot a treble circle with a two-edged sword. When they had obtained possession of one of the roots, they held it up for some time in the air, and then proceeded to procure a second, and so on. Strangest of all, however, were the ceremonies observed in digging the mandrake.[[1223]] First, the triple magic circle was inscribed on the earth with a sword, then the pious rizotomist turned his face toward the west, and began to use his knife, while a second operator went dancing round, uttering all kinds of amorous incantations. Still more perilous was the gathering of the black hellebore, which they performed with the face towards the east, and many prayers to Apollo and Asclepios.[[1224]] The strictest watch was meanwhile to be kept, that no eagle appeared above the horizon; for if the eye of this king of birds happened to fall upon the herbalist while engaged in digging, he would infallibly die within the year.[[1225]]
After all these toilsome and dangerous enterprises it was natural that the rizotomists should desire to enjoy some advantages,[[1226]] which, accordingly, they procured themselves by selling dear their hard-won prizes to their equally superstitious countrymen. Making no pretension as I have said to describe the regular medical practice among the Greeks, I shall here, nevertheless, introduce some few particulars more or less connected with it, which may be regarded as characteristic of the age and people.[[1227]] Great were the virtues which they ascribed to the herb alysson, (biscutella didyma,) which, being pounded and eaten with meat, cured hydrophobia. Nay, more, being suspended in a house, it promoted the health of its inhabitants;[[1228]] it protected likewise both man and cattle from enchantment; and, bound in a piece of scarlet flannel round the necks of the latter, it preserved them from all diseases.
Coriander-seed,[[1229]] eaten in too great quantity, produced, they thought, a derangement of the intellect. Ointment of saffron had an opposite effect, for the nostrils and heads of lunatics being rubbed therewith they were supposed to receive considerable relief.[[1230]] Melampos the goatherd was reported to have cured the daughters of Prætos[[1231]] of their madness by large doses of black hellebore, which thereafter received from him the name of Melampodion. Sea-onions[[1232]] suspended over the doors preserved from enchantment, as did likewise a branch of rhamnus over doors or windows.[[1233]] A decoction of rosemary[[1234]] and of the leaves and stem of the anemone[[1235]] was administered to nurses to promote the secretion of milk, and a like potion prepared from the leaves of the Cretan dittany[[1236]] was given to women in labour. This herb, in order to preserve its virtues unimpaired, and that it might be the more easily transported to all parts of the country, was preserved in a joint of a ferula or reed. A plaster of incense,[[1237]] Cimolian earth, and oil of roses, was applied to reduce the swelling of the breasts. A medicine prepared from mule’s fern,[[1238]] was believed to produce sterility, as were likewise the waters of a certain fountain near Pyrrha, while to those about Thespiæ a contrary effect was attributed, as well as to the wine of Heraclea in Arcadia.[[1239]] The inhabitants of this primitive region drank milk as an aperient[[1240]] in the spring, because of the medicinal herbs on which the cattle were then supposed to feed. Medicines of laxative properties were prepared from the juice of the wild cucumber, which were said to retain their virtues for two hundred years,[[1241]] though simples in general were thought to lose their medicinal qualities in less than four.[[1242]] The oriental gum called kankamon was administered in water or honeyed vinegar to fat persons to diminish their obesity, and also as a remedy for the toothache.[[1243]] For this latter purpose the gum of the Ethiopian olive[[1244]] was put into the hollow tooth, though more efficacy perhaps was attributed to the root of dittander[[1245]] which they suspended as a charm about the neck. A plaster of the root of the white thorn[[1246]] or iris[[1247]] roots prepared with flour of copper, honey, and great centaury, drew out thorns and arrowheads without pain. An unguent procured from fern[[1248]] was sold to rustics for curing the necks of their cattle galled by the yoke. A decoction of marsh-mallow leaves[[1249]] and wine or honeyed vinegar was administered to persons who had been stung by bees or wasps or other insects;[[1250]] bites and burns were healed by an external application of the leaf smeared with oil, and the powdered roots cast into water caused it to freeze if placed out during the night in the open air; an unguent was prepared with oil from reeds, green or dry, which protected those who anointed themselves with it, from the stings of venomous reptiles. Cinnamon unguent,[[1251]] or terebinth and myrtle-berries,[[1252]] boiled in wine, were supposed to be a preservative against the bite of the tarantula or scorpion, as was the pistachio nut against that of serpents.[[1253]] Some persons ate a roasted scorpion to cure its own bite;[[1254]] a powder, moreover, was prepared from sea-crabs supposed to be fatal to this reptile.[[1255]] Vipers[[1256]] were made to contribute their part to the materia medica; for, being caught alive, they were enclosed with salt and dried figs in a vase which was then put into a furnace till its contents were reduced to charcoal, which they esteemed a valuable medicine. A considerable quantity of viper’s flesh was in the last century imported from Egypt into Venice, to be used in the composition of medicinal treacle.[[1257]] From the flowers of the sneezewort,[[1258]] a sort of snuff appears to have been manufactured, though probably used only in medicines. The ashes of old leather[[1259]] cured burns, galls, and blistered feet.
The common remedy when persons had eaten poisonous mushrooms was a dose of nitre exhibited in vinegar and water;[[1260]] with water it was esteemed a cure for the sting of the burncow, and with benzoin it operated as an antidote against the poison of bulls’ blood. The seeds of mountain-rue, in small quantities, were regarded as an antidote, but, administered too copiously, were themselves lethal.[[1261]] White hellebore was employed with honey and other medicines to poison rats;[[1262]] bastard saffron,[[1263]] mice, pigs, and dogs; which last were physicked with hellebore.[[1264]] The deadly qualities of this plant, when taken in any quantity, were universally known, and, therefore, the pharmacopolist, Thrasyas,[[1265]] of Mantinea, who boasted of having invented a poison which would kill without pain, attained the credit of possessing something like miraculous powers, because he used frequently, in the presence of many witnesses to eat a whole root, or even two, of hellebore. One day, however, a shepherd, coming into his shop, utterly destroyed his reputation; for, in the sight of all present, he devoured a whole handful, observing that it was nothing at all, for that he and his brethren on the mountains were accustomed to do as much, and more, daily.[[1266]] They had, in fact, discovered, that medicine is no medicine, and poison no poison, to those with whose bodies they have been assimilated by use. When limbs were to be amputated, and previous to the application of the cautery, a dose of powdered mandragora-root was usually administered.
On the nature, power, and uses, of ancient poisons, it is not my purpose to enlarge.[[1267]] It may be proper, however, to observe, that they had discovered drugs which would kill secretly, and at almost any given time from the moment of administering them. They, by certain preparations of aconite,[[1268]] so called from Aconè, a village in the country of the Mariandynians, the professional poisoners could take off an individual at any fixed period, from two months to two years. The possession, however, of this poison was in itself a capital offence.[[1269]] It was usually administered in wine or hydromel, where its presence was not to be detected by the taste. At first, there was supposed to exist no remedy, so that all who took it inevitably perished; but, at length, physicians, and even the common people of the country, discovered more than one antidote prepared from the ground-pine,[[1270]] from honey, and from the juice of the grape. Another poison, evidently in frequent use, was the bulb of the meadow-saffron (colchicum autumnale), which being known to everybody, and nearly always at hand, slaves[[1271]] were said to have plucked and eaten when enraged against their masters; but, repenting presently, they used, with still greater celerity, to rush in search of an antidote. Some persons, anxious to fortify their children against the effects of all noxious drugs, were in the habit of administering to them as soon as born a small dose of the powder of bindweed,[[1272]] which they believed to possess the power of protecting them for ever. When persons were invited out to dine where they ran the risk of meeting with ratsbane in their dishes, it was customary to chew a little calamint before the repast.[[1273]] In the case of the canine species the Argives, instead of having recourse to poison, like their neighbours, used to celebrate an annual festival during the dog-days, in which they seem to have slaughtered[[1274]]
Both mongrel, puppy, whelp, and hound,