342 NOTES

Tepl örouacæias T4Qr» Tro0 &»0pæorov uoplær, On ihe Nomenclature of
ihe Parts of ihe Body, is the oldest extant anatomical treatise.
He practised dissection, wrote on diet, botany, buboes, especially
the plague bubo, epinyctis, elephantiasis, etc., and also prescrip—
tions for medicaments and cosmetics. / Aetius of Amida recommends
hiera Ruff as a purgative. A Latin translation of Ruffius was pub—
lished by Crasso, Venice, 1552.

ï9o Polypodium i. e. the root—fibres of this fern which grows at
the base of old trees. Pliny XXVI. 122 says it is good for disloca—
tions (Juzafis); juice used for bile and pituita.  **Polypody is a grea$t
purger of black bile", Burton.

19: Aleyon is now the name of a polyp, a tree parasite. But he
probably means aZcyonium which Celsus V. 6 gives in a list of caus—
ties; described by Pliny XXXII. 86, who explains that this (gelati—
nous) substance is so called because it is supposed to be made of the
nests of halcyon—birds. Dioscurides V. 118 gives five kinds, found
on beaches, and by some called sea—foam; recommended for skin
affections, dropsy, spleen etc. and as diuretic. He describes its
preparation; used for cosmetics. 'The German Seitz (1509), who
wrote a treatise on Morbus Gallicus, says that Spongia marina
(Meerschwamm) was used by the Empirics. Its virtue must have
consisted in the iodine it contained.

ï9:'"The two kinds of hellebore (Latin »eratrum) were black and
white. Pliny XX V. 47 discusses them at length, and says the white
is better, the black dangerous and to be used with caution.  The
best black hellebore, he says, grew at Anticyra on the peninsula of
Phocis (he wrongly calls this an island), Greece, but it is now extinct
there. 'To be advised to "go to Anticyra', meant that one's sanity
wassuspected.  Pliny says that hellebore is sometimes called melam—
podium (from the healer Melampos in Greek tradition); Fracastorius
in his poem Syph£lis uses this form, perhaps for the sake of the metre,
and prescribes it, pounded, for his mercurial ointment for syphilis;
there, no doubt, he means hellebore. 'Theroots were used. Burton,
'Compound Purgers', gives a useful summary of the controversies
over this plant, which was in great esteem for ages, after Hippocrates
wrote a book to recommend it, "till at length M6sue and some other
Arabians began to reject and reprehend it . . . and it is still op—
pugned to this day by some junior physicians.^

95 Polygonatum, so called from the knots or joints on the stalk
and root, is said by Pliny XXVII. 113 to be one of the many names
for polygonum. Dioscurides IV. 6, describes 'mountain polygona—
tum ealled by Pliny orion, and says the root is good for wounds,
the leaves styptic. According to his description the plant is, or
resembles, Solomon's Seal.

:1*4 By solatrum, & word not found in Celsus, Pliny or other Latin
writers, so far as I know, he may mean a variety of heliotropium
(solago); Dioscurides IV. 190; or anthyllis, for which Dioscurides
III. 136, gives a Latin synonym solastrum.

'9s Land crocodile may be the scincus, a kind of lizard called