And cur of low degree,
the moist atmosphere of their city having been peculiarly liable to engender hydrophobia.
Among the more remarkable of the materia medica was the cedar gum, generally transparent, and of a most pungent odour. It was esteemed destructive of living bodies, but formed, doubtless, an important ingredient among the embalmer’s materials, since it completely preserved corpses from corruption, on which account it was sometimes called the Life of the Dead.[[1275]] It entered, moreover, into preparation designed to sharpen the sight.
The gum obtained from the cherry-tree[[1276]] was administered in wine and water to promote appetite. A dose of saffron and boiled wine restored the tone of the stomach after excess at table. Asses’ milk was habitually given to consumptive patients, connected with which practice there is an apothegm of Demosthenes, which may be worth repeating. When he was once exerting himself to prevail on some foreign state to ally itself with Athens, an orator in opposition observed, that the Athenians were like asses’ milk, whose presence always indicated sickness in the places they visited. “It is true,” replied Demosthenes, “but the sickness previously exists, and they come to cure it.” A mixture of salt and water, to which the Egyptians added the juice of the radish,[[1277]] constituted a very common emetic. Opium was in general use even so early, apparently, as the age of Homer,[[1278]] who seems to have celebrated it under the name of nepenthè. The Spartan soldiers appear to have made considerable use of the poppy-head;[[1279]] but whether for the same purpose as the Rajpoots of modern India, I do not pretend to determine. Persons desirous of obtaining frightful and dismal dreams[[1280]] could always gratify their wishes by eating leaks or lentils, or the seeds of the great bind-weed,[[1281]] mixed with dorycnion. We may mention by the way, that the ancients understood well the doctrine of the circulation of the blood.[[1282]]
[1163]. Aristoph. Problem. xxiii. 15.
[1164]. Ῥαφανέλαιον. Dioscor. i. 45.
[1165]. Κίκινον ἔλαιον.—Κικι, οἱ δὲ σήσαμον ἄγριον, οἱ δὲ, σέσελι Κύπριον. Dioscor. iv. 164.
[1166]. Dioscor. i. 99. Cf. Herod. 179.
[1167]. Schol. Aristoph. Nub. 60. Athen. x. 25.