Part 24

We evacuate humours fixed in the head, with the saliva, by mixing some pepper with mastich, if a small discharge only be required; or, if a greater evacuation be wanted, by giving directions to chew pellitory or stavesacre. The root of every species of anemone, when chewed, also excites the secretion of saliva, and the rind of the root of cappers. Serous superfluities may be thus evacuated; but, for thicker phlegm, we must gargle with mustard in vinegar and honey, or with sodden wine, having marjoram and hyssop boiled in it. I also mix this with the gargle formed of mustard in vinegar and honey. When we want to clear the brain of mucus, we must stimulate it by means of acrid substances, of which kind some are sternutatories. The juice of either pimpernel, of the anemones, and of beet purge by the nose. The juice also of the leaves of the wild cucumber may be applied to the nostrils, either alone or with the decoction or juice of the beet. But sneezing is not at all applicable for crude humours contained in the chest, lungs, and head. The following ointment may be rubbed into the mouth: Anoint the roof of the mouth and uvula with a soap containing the juice of the beet. The same application may be used as an errhine. I have also often used the following composition, which is easily prepared: Macerate gith in strong vinegar for a day, then next day rub it with the vinegar, and pour it into the nose. Sometimes the gith may be rubbed with old oil; and I apply it in this manner. Archigenes used it in the same manner for obstruction of the nostrils. Crito used the former cure, along with vinegar, for jaundice.

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COMMENTARY. This Section is taken from Oribasius. (Synops. i, 21.)

Hippocrates makes frequent mention of the caput-purgia, or medicines which purge the head. On the composition of these medicines, see in particular Aëtius (iii, 140-1); Nonnus (Epit. 17); and Serapion (de Antidotis, vii, 31.) They contain such articles as these: pepper, nitre, white hellebore, spurge, gith, pellitory, mastich, turpentine, mustard, chalcitis, alum, and the like. The errhines were used principally in obstructions of the nose, and when the sense of smell was impaired. The apophlegmatismi were supposed to prove useful in chronic affections of the head, impairment of the senses of smell and sight, and also when the tongue and throat were affected.

Prosper Alpinus gives a full account of the errhines, masticatories, and cough medicines of the ancients. (Med. Meth. iii, 11.) He makes the caput-purgia to be the same as the errhines, and the apophlegmatismi the same as the masticatories of the moderns.

SECT. XLVII.—ON EMMENAGOGUES.

All diuretics promote also the flow of the menses, such as the decoction of the root of the cabbage, the root of the peach, rue, marigold, dittany, and the seed of rocket. The same effect may be produced by certain substances when applied to the mouth of the womb, as suppositories, such as rue rubbed with honey, or the juice of leeks, or finely-powdered germander, or myrrh, triturated in wine, or the rennet of a hare.

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COMMENTARY. This Section is taken from Oribasius. (Synops. i, 22.) A fuller list of the medicinal articles which were supposed by the ancients to promote the menstrual discharge is given by Aëtius. (iii, 153-4.) It contains cassia, myrrh, thyme, centaury, wormwood, nettle, elaterium, black hellebore, turpentine-rosin, cumin, sage, and the like. All these were used in injections and suppositories. The following were given by the mouth, and were held to be likewise diuretic: hedge-mustard, rue, marjoram, southernwood, sagapene, galbanum, spikenard, the herb mercury, savin, iris, birthwort, &c. See Albengnefit (Libellus.)

Dioscorides is censured by Dr. Cullen as being too credulous in assigning emmenagogue properties to a variety of articles in the Materia Medica. Perhaps, however, there is some foundation for the doctrine of the ancients, that all hot diuretic medicines are in so far emmenagogue. Prosper Alpinus maintains this opinion, but remarks that the action of the emmenagogues is more uncertain than that of the diuretics, and must be assisted by warm baths, pessaries, and fomentations. We shall have occasion to treat more fully of these medicines in the Third Book.

SECT. XLVIII.—ON SUDORIFICS.

The following medicines are sudorifics: The dried powder of chamomile, sprinkled upon oil, and rubbed briskly upon the skin, seseli, pellitory, the seed of the rosemary, anise; and in like manner, when sprinkled upon oil; nitre toasted, and not very fine, with oil; the flower of salt mixed with oil; Cyrenaic juice diluted with water, which may be rubbed into the body, and taken in a draught, to the amount of a chick-pea. Calamint, in like manner, when drunk with honied water, and rubbed externally with oil.

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COMMENTARY. This Section is mostly copied from Oribasius. (Synops. i, 23.) Aëtius enumerates a good many more medicines of this class. Of these some are to be taken by the mouth, as cumin, bay berries, Cyrenaic juice, castor, and lovage; some are to be rubbed into the skin, as nitre with common oil, the oil of dill, of chamomile, of bays, and of radishes; and some are to be used in fumigations, as pennyroyal, the seed of balsam, and so forth. He recommends these medicines in jaundice, and for coldness and constriction of the skin. (iii, 157.)

Celsus treats of the methods for producing free perspiration with more than his usual minuteness. Sweating, he says, may be produced either by dry heat or by baths. The modes of applying dry heat, which he mentions, are by heated sand, the laconicum or sweating apartment of the ancient bath (see Sect. LI), the clibanus or moveable furnace, and the vapour-baths of Baiæ. To these he adds strong exercise. He also treats minutely of the application of baths and fomentations for the cure of diseases, (ii, 17.) Consult Stobæus (100.)

Haly Abbas directs us to restore the perspiration, when stopped, by exercise, friction, baths, and the affusion of hot water over the body. He further recommends friction with the oil of violets, and such things as are mentioned by our author. (Pract. i, 12.)

Rhases recommends internally, castor, opoponax, or opium mixed with honey, and given in tepid water. Externally, he recommends friction, with the oil of chamomile, of pellitory, or the like. (Contin. 31.) Mesue mentions fumigations with calamint, cinquefoil, carpobalsam, and bdellium. Albengnefit recommends the same, and also friction with calefacient oils, and the internal administration of cumin, calamint, and the like.

The ancients, as Prosper Alpinus remarks, seem to have trusted more in external than in internal means for producing free perspiration. They were aware that when the system is greatly over-heated, a draught of cold water, by reducing the temperature of the body, may prove sudorific. This fact is distinctly stated by Galen; and, in accordance with this principle, Rhases prescribes cold water in the hot stage of the smallpox, to facilitate the eruption of the pustules.

On the sudatoria or vapour-baths of the ancients, see Baccius (de Thermis, iv), and Sect. LI, below. Horace thus alludes to the vapour-baths at Baiæ:

“Sane myrteta relinqui, Dictaque cessantem nervis elidere morbum Sulphura contemni vicus gemit.”

(Epist. i, 15.)

Upon which Sanadon remarks: “By sulphura, the poet means the stoves, where sulphureous vapours exhaling from the earth cause a dry heat, which provokes sweat.”

Among the artificial means used by the ancients for procuring perspiration, we may here mention the sand-bath, as it was called, which consisted in rolling the body in sand heated by the sun. (Cælius Aurel. Tard. Pass, iii, 4; Avicenna, i, 2, 2, 20.)

Strong friction in the sun was also used as a means for producing perspiration. See, in particular, Avicenna (i, 2, 2, 20.)

SECT. XLIX.—ON AIRS.

The best kind of air is that which is perfectly pure, such as that which is not defiled with the exhalation from lakes or marshes, nor from any pit which emits pestilential vapours. That also which is impregnated with the exhalations from a canal conveying the impurities of a city is deleterious, and indeed every kind which is loaded with vapours is not good; as also that which is contained within any hollow place, shut up on all sides by high mountains, and not admitting of ventilation. Those, therefore, which are thus deleterious, prove hurtful to all ages and temperaments, whereas the best kinds agree with all. But their differences as to quality—I mean heat, coldness, dryness, and humidity—have not the same effect upon all. Those of a proper temperament are benefited by temperate air, whereas those labouring under an intemperament derive benefit from the opposite kind.

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COMMENTARY. The first part of this Section is taken from Oribasius. (Synops. i, 24.) The remaining part will be found in the ‘Med. Collect.’ (ix, 1), where the subject is treated of at great length. See, also, Aëtius (iii, 162.) All these authors, however, are much indebted to Galen. (De Sanitate tuendâ, i.) According to Galen, the moon produces changes in the atmosphere, whereby she occasions putrefaction of dead bodies, impairs the colour, and hurts the head of living persons. (De Diebus Criticis, iii.) On the supposed causes why the moon occasions putrefaction, see Plutarch (Synops. iii.)