314 NOTES

would recognise it under the name s/cosis parasifaria; see Celsus VI.
3 De Sycoss, 1) maxime in barba, 2) praecipue in capillo.

5: Avicenna (Ibn Sina, to give him only a part of his long name,
distorted beyond recognition by translators) was a Persian born
980 ^. p. near Bokhara. He was a philosopher, theologian, politi—
cian, physician and poet, and died of overwork in 1037. His Qua—
num (the Canon Medicinae), was long considered infallible.  He
wrote Arabic and Persian and was often translated into Latin.
His Al—Shefa, On Healing (Sanatfio), of which nearly the whole MS.
is in the Bodleian, was, with the Canon, a textbook at Louvain,
Oxford, etc., down to 1650. About this time: *Al that was
expected from an applicant for a bachelorship in physic was regular
attendance during three years at the lectures of the Arabic Professor
(at Oxford) and of the Professors of anatomy and medicine . . . the
medicine lectures were limited to an exposition of the teaching of
Hippocrates and Galen."^  Quoted by Osler, An Alabama Student,
p. 70. 'These courses in 'compulsory Arabic' fitted the student to
read Avicenna, Razes and the rest.

s:Qlibanum, Oil of Lebanon, an aromatic resin.

5si This passage in Dioscurides I. 68, under N/Ga»ros, would be
more precisely translated: '^As an ointment with vinegar and
pitch, it removes myrmecia and lichen in the initial stages.' / Dios—
curides (usually spelt, incorrectly, Dioscorides), of Anazarba in
Cilicia, lived c. 68 A. p., was physician to the Roman army in Asia,
and wrote acquired Greek, the quality of which Galen criticises,
though he praises his work. His De Materia Medica (xept Uxys
laTpixT)s) in 5 Books was, down to the 17th cent., the main author—
ity of its kind and was especially valued for its descriptions of the
medicinal plants of the Orient where it is still consulted. He was
translated into Latin about 854 at Baghdad. Every medical
writer of the time of Fracastorius drew on this work. A useful
account of this famous herbal is by Singer, The Herbal in An£iquit,
in Journ. of Helenic Studies, 1927. See too Schmidt, Die noch
gebräuchlchen Arzneimihiel be Dioskurides, Tübingen, 1919. An
excellent modern edition is, Pedanit Dioscuridis, De Materia Medica,
by M. Wellmann, Berlin, 1907—14.

54:For a confusion in Avicenna of myrmecia (Greek &gvpj*)&«(or,
ant) and herpes, see note 89.

5s For the meaning of /acerti, see note 42.

56 Porrigo in Celsus VI. 2 is scurf or dandruff on the head, some—
times accompanied by ulcers, sometimes not; he gives prescrip—
tions for its cure.

s Alphus or Alphi (Greek 4Xgo6s, white spot) is an affection of
the scalp described by Celsus V. 28.19 as one of three varieties of
vitiligo, 'veal—skin'. He recommends a prescription of Myron,
an ointment containing sulphur, alum, nitre, etc. It was also dis—
cussed by Paul of Aegina, and was called albaras by Vigo.