[Notices of ancient Roman medicine-stamps, etc., found in Great Britain].

  • Simpson, James Young, 1811-1870.
Date:
[1851]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: [Notices of ancient Roman medicine-stamps, etc., found in Great Britain]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    1. Ludi VALLATINI EVODES AD CICATRICES ET ASP<?RITUDINe$. — rllie Evodes of Lucius Vallatinus for cicatrices and granulations. Several of the collyria derived, as I have already observed, their designation from some special physical character. The present in- stance is an example in point, the appellation Evodes being derived from the pleasant odour (ev, well, and coSijs, smell) of the com- position. Marcellas, in his work u De Medicamentis,” specially praises the collyrium known under the name of Evodes; and that too in the class of eye diseases mentioned on the Tranent seal. For, in his collection of remedies for removing ulcers, cicatrices, &c., of the eyes and eyelids, he recommends (to use his own words) u praceipue hoc quod quid am Diasmymon, nonnulli Evodes, quia boni odoris est, nominant.” And he directs the Evodes to be dissolved and diluted in water, and introduced into the eyes with a probe, or after inverting the eyelid, when it was used with the view of extenuating recent cicatrices of the eyes, and removing granulations of the eye- lids,—“ ex aqua autem ad cicatrices recentes extenuendas, et palpeb- rarum asperitudinem tolledam teri de-bet, et subject© specillo aut inversa palpebra, oeulis inseri.”1 Scribonius Largus had previously described, in nearly the same words, the collyrium,—u quod quidam evcodes vocant,” and its uses in recent cicatrices and granulations, &c. Both these authors give the same recipe for the composition of the Evodes,—viz., pompholyx, burnt copper, saffron, myrrh, opium, and other ingredients, rubbed down in Chian wine. Its agreeable odour was probably owing to a consi- derable quantity of spikenard being used in its composition.2 Galen gives two other collyria, of a different composition, and for other affections, as known at his time under the same name of Evodes,— the one termed the “ Evodes of Zosimus,” the other the u diasmyr- non Evodes of Syneros.”3 2. L. VALLATINI APALOCROCODES AD DIATHESIS. — 77ie mild Crocodes of L. Vallatinus, for affections of the eyes. The term diathesis in this inscription is used in a different sense from that in which we now employ the same word in modern medi- cine. At the present day, we apply the term diathesis to designate the tendency or predisposition to some special disease, or class of diseases. In the times of the Roman physicians, it was often used as synonymous with disease itself; and in the Latin translations of the Greek texts of Galen, Aetius, &c., it is hence rendered usually by the general word “ affectus,” u affectio,” &c. The first sentence in Paulus TEginetus’s chapter on Ophthalmic Diseases, affords an in- stance in point: u Quum dolores vehementiores in oeulis fiunt, con- 1 Medicse Artis Principes, p. 273. 2 Medicse Artis Principes : Scribonii Largi de Compositione Medicamento- rum Liber. Comp, xxvi., p. 198. 3 Galeni Opera Omnia. (Kuehn’s Edit.) Vol. xii., pp. 753 and 774.