Celsus says this tube may be a calamus or a tube of pottery:
Apud quosdam tamen positum est, vel fictilem fistulam vel enodem scriptorium calamum in narem esse coniiciendum, donec sursum ad os perveniat: tum per id tenue ferramentum candens dandum esse ad ipsum os (VII. xi).
Wood dipped in boiling Oil.
Hippocrates, in diseases of the liver, says that cauterization may be performed with boxwood spindles dipped in boiling oil (πυξίνοισιν ἀτράκτοισι βάπτων ἐς ἔλαιον ζέον) (ii. 482). Aetius (XII. iii) says that the root of the birthwort (aristolochia) may be used in the same way.
Ignited Fungi, &c.
In the passage in Hippocrates on cauterizing for disease of the liver, Hippocrates, as an alternative to the hot iron, says that eschars may be produced by fungi. This must mean that they were set on fire like the old moxa.
This is probably what is meant by Paul when, in treating of cauterizing over the stomach, he says (VI. xlix):
‘But some do not burn with iron but with the substances called iscae. The iscae (ἴσκαι) are spongy bodies forming on oaks and walnut trees, and are mostly used among the barbarians.’
Aetius (II. iii. 91) says iscae are the medullary wood of the walnut tree.
In Hippocrates (ii. 482) the word μύκης, a fungus, is used—ἢ μύκησιν ὀκτὼ ἐσχάρας καῦσαι (or with fungi burn eight scars).