338 NOTES

ï'*; Pliny XXV. 157, says that acorus is very similar to iris, but
that more than one plant is known by this name. Celsus III. 21,
recommends acorus as a diuretic for dropsy.

65 Widmann of Tübingen, in 1501, advocated the use of mercury
for syphilis; he was among the first to do so. — A heated controversy
continued to rage over the use of mercurial ointment for frictions.
The syphiliographer G. Torrella, Bishop and physician (1497),
called them 'murderous' and gave a list, including two Borgias and
a Cardinal, of men whom they had killed. "Leave them to the
charlatans". Vigo, however (1514), says he has seen &a hundred
cases in which by mercurial friction, without any other remedy,
the substance of the malady was resolved, the tumors disappeared,
the ulcers were cleansed and began to heal, and so on. See Fournier's
translation of Vigo, p. 60. But, like Fracastorius, Vigo points out
certain risks and disadvantages in its use.  He observes that those
who condemn the use of mercurial remedies in general for syphilis
are the first to prescribe mercury for scabies, impetigo etc. " Fra—
castorius says m«Wt . . . fremuli remansere; this was the case with
Ulrich von Hutten.

:*9* In this prescription, Meunier, by regularly mistaking the sym—
bol for 14 and translating as 5, confounds the whole formula; more—
over, by mistaking apiW of the original for opii, and translating;
topium', he introduces & very different ingredient. " Fossel omits the
prescription.  Vigo's unguent for the same purpose is rather different $
his herbal ingredients are not quite the same, and mercury is only
one tenth of the whole, whereas Fracastorius prescribes one eighth;
see also the prescription on p. 291. Fournier notes that in his
day (1870) the latter was the proportion of mercury in the 'grey
unguent', while the 'Neapolitan' contained axunge and mercury in
equal amounts. One of Vigo's ingredients is live frogs', which
were then considered to have remarkable solvent, aperitive, and
detersive properties for sores of all kinds.  His plaster was, in fact,
long called 'the frog—plaster'; another ingredient is viper's fat'. It
is to the credit of Fracastorius that he omits both of these.  See
p. 267, where he says that viper's flesh was prescribed by those who
thought that syphilis was identical with elephantiasis. Vigo was
perhaps one of these; at any rate he says that Celsus, De cura morbi
elephantiae, seems to describe & malady rather similar to the morbus
Gallicus. He refers to Celsus III. 25, De Hlephanfia, who says8s
that Celephantia, called by the GGreeks elephantiasis, is almost
unknown in Italy; it is chronic, and affects the whole body so that
the bones are said to be corrupted; frequent spots and tumors on
the surface of the body, first red, then black; inequalities of the
skin, emaciation" etc. On this passage Fournier says that, granted
certain similarities of such symptoms to those of syphilis, the
dissimilarities are far more striking, and marvels that Vigo should
have detected any analogy. Fracastorius in his poem  Syphilis,
at the end of the Book II, speaks of mercuria!l ointment made with
azungia porcae, and names some of the other ingredients. That
sketchy description in verse is a good instance of his inability to