[The] “Ink with which we write is composed of the soot of torches, collected.
“To each ounce of gum, add three of soot.
“It is also made of the soot of resin and of that lately called ‘painters’ black.’ Of this soot, however,—take one MINA,—of gum, half a pound,—of ox-glue and of copperas, each, half an ounce.
“It is a good application in cases of gangrene, and is useful in scalds, if a little thickened and employed as a salve, and permitted to remain until a new cuticle is formed, when it will spontaneously fall off from the healed sore.
“And now, my very dear Areas, in due proportion to the work which we had undertaken, and the quantity of the materials and contributions which we could gather, what we have thus far said must suffice.
“End of the fifth and last book on The Materia Medica.
“[The book] of Pedanius Dioscorides on the Materia Medica.”
We have followed the text of Karl Gotleib Kuhn. Medicorum Graecorum, opera quae extant. Leipzig, 1829.
Among the fantastic trifles with which Dean Swift was accustomed to amuse his leisure, is a little string of verses on this subject which are appended, not as being of any poetic merit, but as a “curiosity of literature”—not out of place here:—