326 ^" NOTES

so Various kinds of parsley and celery were prescribed under the
name apium, and we cannot be sure what sort is meant.

s: Tragacanih (Greek, 'goat—thorn'), says Theophrastus IX. 1. 3,
grows not only in Crete (Pliny XIII. 115 says the Cretan is best),
but also in Greece and Asia Minor. 'The gum that exuded from
the stems, trunks and branches was much used; recommended by
Dioscurides III. 20; still used in pills, pastilles and emulsions.

s:For the epidemies of this fever (exanthematic typhus) see
Book II. Ch. 6.

5s For the greater susceptibility of the richer classes in Italy, see
above, p. 111.

54 For the analogy (selective properties) of this fever, see above,
Sook II; Ch. 7.

5s Avicenna wrote a treatise on Acetose Syrup, made with vinegar,
acetum.

s6*Oligophoros (Latin, pauciferus), 'that will stand little!, a term
for wine too weak, i. e. with too low alcoholic content, to need
much water; defined in De Vini Temperatura as aquosum, album,
tenue, aquae simile.

siIn Dioscurides I. 68, w4»»a MG&»vov, and Pliny XII. 62, manna
means bruised grains of frankincense, which may be the sense here.
It is now the name for the gum that flows from the incised bark
of Frazinus ornus, in South Europe and Asia Minor.

58 Agaricus albus (Polyporus officinalis) described by Dioscurides
III. 1, a fungus that grows on the larch, cedar etc., in the Southern
Alps, North Russia etc.; much exported from Archangel; contains
resin and various acids; used as powder, pills, and tincture, & dras—
tic purgative. 'The agaric of Pliny XVI. 33, ^grows on certain
kinds of oak, in France'.

s* Lacca, a word that occurs in &a Herbarium of the 4th cent.
A. D., is an unidentified plant; here perhaps the Indian gum /acca,
listed as & drug (with Gum Serapine) by A. Pigafetta, 1526.

6o Lwiula, in the Gart der Gesundheit, Mainz, 1485, is alleluia,
surenclee, acid clover, i. e. Ozalis acetosella.

6: In Pliny XXVII. 112, ozys is ozalis; in XXI. 112, a sort of rush.

6: For Fracastorius, precious stones had no magical virtues, such
as were ascribed to them by Mercurialis, Cardan, Matthiolus
and others, who said they should be worn by the melancholic. See
A. Mundella, Epistolae Medicinales ad Galeni explicationem, Basle,
1538 and 1548. 'The first letter is addressed to Fracastorius,
August 1538, and is almost certainly that mentioned here. I too
am a Veronese . . . I ask you to tell me about the emerald; should
it be used in putrid fevers? It used to be a sacra ancora (last
resort) among doctors eight years ago.^ He then gives at some
length his own opinion, and speaks of its use by the Arabs and
Greeks; he discusses also the use of sapphire, jacinth and pearls.
Do answer and say whether you agree.^  In Letter 3, November