There was, moreover, produced in Greece, a number of articles, whether of use or luxury, to the venders of which it appears difficult to appropriate a name. It must necessarily be inferred, however, that there existed a class of shopkeepers analogous to our oil and colour men, at whose establishments were found most or all of the following commodities: every kind of vegetable oil, for cookery, painting, or to be burned as lamp-oil, of sea salt, probably for medicinal purposes,^[1163] oil of horseradish,^[1164] used instead of the root itself, as a condiment. Among the lamp-oils it is worthy of observation that the Greeks included castor oil^[1165] which was commonly, from its nauseous effects, eschewed as a medicine. Bitumen^[1166] also was occasionally burnt in lamps. Their lampwicks were ordinarily of rushes,^[1167] which they sometimes anointed with the oil expressed from the seeds of the myagrum perenne;^[1168] and from certain nuts found on the oak they obtained a sort of woolly substance^[1169] which, being twisted into wicks, burnt freely without oil. The dried stem of the torch-weed^[1170] was likewise employed for this purpose. Their flambeaux consisted originally of slips of the pine or pitch tree,^[1171] or even as at Rhodes of the bark of the vine,^[1172] but afterwards certain combustible compositions were burned in painted and ornamented handles.^[1173]

The making of pitch, generally found in these shops, was carried on in the following manner,^[1174] particularly among the Macedonians: Having cleared a large level space in the forests, as when constructing a threshing-floor, they carefully paved it, and gave the whole a slope towards the centre. The billets of wood were then piled up endways as close to each other as possible, and so as that the height of the heap should always be in proportion to its magnitude. These piles were frequently of enormous dimensions, falling little short of a hundred yards in circumference and rising to the height of eighty or ninety feet. The whole mound was then covered with turf and earth; and the wood having been set on fire by means of an open passage below, which immediately afterwards was closed, numerous ladders were thrown up along its sides in order that, should the least smoke anywhere appear, fresh layers of turf and earth might be cast upon it: for if the flame found a vent the hopes of the manufacturer were destroyed. The pitch flowed off by an underground channel leading from the centre of the area to a spacious cistern sunk in the earth about twenty feet beyond the circumference of the mound, where it was suffered to cool. During two days and two nights the fire in these heaps continued generally to burn, requiring the incessant care and vigilance of the workmen, though it frequently happened that before sunset on the second day, the earthy crust flattened and fell in, the wood being reduced to ashes. This was generally preceded by the pitch ceasing to flow. The whole of this period was converted into a holiday by the labourers, who offered sacrifice to the gods, and preferred many prayers, that their pitch might be plentiful and good.

Nitre was procured from wood-ashes,^[1175] as it is at this day in Circassia, from the ashes of a plant cultivated for the purpose. It has been supposed that the ancients were acquainted with gunpowder;^[1176] and there appears to have been a dim tradition of artificial thunder and lightning among the Brachmanes in the remotest antiquity.^[1177]

The demand for the various earths and colours was considerable; such as the Melian, a fine white marl, used by artists frequently for communicating to green paint a pale hue;^[1178] the Cimolian, by fullers;^[1179] and the gypsum, employed occasionally by both. The Samian, being fat and unctuous,^[1180] was eschewed by painters, though it found its place among the materia medica. Another article in much request was the argol, a beautiful moss,^[1181] used both by painters and dyers; to which we may add the cinnabar^[1182] and the kermes, used for dying scarlet; the Indian black,^[1183] indigo, ultramarine, lamp and ivory black, painter’s soot, collected from glass furnaces,^[1184] verdigris, ceruse, and minium, used in painting vases and clay statues.^[1185] Other substances which sometimes entered into the materials of painters were, the sandarach^[1186] and the orpiment, found in gold, silver, and copper mines, ochre, ruddle, and chrysocolla. Ruddle was successfully imitated by burnt ochre, the manufacturing of which was the invention of Cydias,^[1187] who having observed that a quantity of ochre found in a house which was burnt down had assumed a red colour, profited by the hint, though the article thus produced was inferior to the natural. The Lemnian earth,^[1188] having been mixed with goats’ blood, kneaded into small round pastilles, and stamped with the figure of a goat, was vended, partly as a medicine, partly to be used in sacrifice. In the same shops, doubtless, sealing-wax and ink were sold.^[1189] The receipt for preparing the latter was as follows:^[1190] to an ounce of gum they added three ounces of pine-torch or resin soot, or even that which was obtained from the glass furnaces, and used, as above observed, by painters. In this latter case, a mina of soot was mingled with a pound and a half of gum, and an ounce and a half of bull’s glue and copperas-water. An infusion of wormwood^[1191] was sometimes used in the manufacture of ink, which preserved the manuscripts written with it from being gnawed by rats or other vermin. Another method was, to smear the parchment with saffron and cedar oil.^[1192]

Next to these, perhaps, should be ranged those shops which resembled our Italian warehouses, where the gourmands of antiquity procured their best vinegar, pickles, and sauces.^[1193] To enumerate all the articles found in such an establishment would be somewhat difficult; but we may observe that they sold, among other things, the best Colophonian mustard,^[1194] pepper,^[1195] together with all the substitutes occasionally used for it, such as the Syrian nard,^[1196] water-pepper,^[1197] and, among the ancient Italians, lovage of Lombardy,^[1198] garlic heads,^[1199] a mixture of salt and thyme,^[1200] pickled olives, and cornel-berries, to be eaten at table, pickled dittander,^[1201] mountain rue,^[1202] snakeweed or wake-robin, fennel or chervil, tendrils of the wild vine,^[1203] eringo root, sea-heath, cammock, lettuces and parsley.^[1204] To these may be added silphion, sesame, citron-peel, cumin, wild marjoram, capers, cresses, and fig-leaves.^[1205] Among the Syrians, the root and seeds of the sison-amomum were used as spices, and pickled with sliced gourds.^[1206] The Arabs, we are told, seasoned their dishes with the leaf of the ginger plant.^[1207] Ginger-root was likewise known and used as a condiment in Greece.

Although, properly speaking, there may, in early times, have been no such trades as those of the druggist and the apothecary, there very soon arose a class of men who nearly resembled them, though professing to practise medicine.^[1208] Into the shops of those persons we shall now beg leave to enter, and observe some few of the materials with which the children of Æsculapius preserved or destroyed the health of the Greeks. The art of medicine itself, as it existed among them, I shall not venture to examine, abandoning that part of the subject to the investigation of professional men.^[1209]

The interior of an ancient surgery, though it may have been less lavishly furnished than one of our own day, made, nevertheless, some pretensions to show. There were, for example, ranged in order on shelves, numerous medicine chests of ivory; brass and silver cupping instruments,^[1210] lancet-cases, and cases inlaid with gold.^[1211] Flowers and aromatic plants were laid up in boxes of the wood of the linden tree, while seeds were preserved in paper or leaves. Liquid medicines were kept in vessels of silver, glass, or horn, or even in earthenware jars, provided they were well glazed. For these they sometimes substituted vases of boxwood, though those of metal were generally preferred, at least for all such as were intended for the eyes, or contained vinegar, pitch, or cedar juice. Lard, marrow, and all similar substances, were put into vessels of pewter.^[1212] The instruments^[1213] in most common use besides the bistoury, were the forceps, the scissors, the hypographs, the ear-pick, the probe,^[1214] the needle, the scalpel, the tooth-file, the tooth-wrench, the eueidion, and the podostrabe, an instrument for reducing luxations. We ought, likewise, perhaps, to mention the bandages, ligatures, swathes, plaisters, lint, amulets, and bleeding-bowls.^[1215]

Their knowledgeknowledge of the materia medica was acquired for the most part by experience, though there existed, previously to the time of Hippocrates, works on the virtues of plants, among which we may mention that of Cratevas. By degrees these treatises were greatly multiplied, and included, at length, a species of encyclopedia, arranged in alphabetical order;^[1216] though not one single fragment of it has been spared by time. At first, and for many ages, the art relied chiefly upon simples, the qualities of which were consequently studied with great ardour, and, no doubt, with much success. Numerous individuals devoted themselves to the gathering, drying, and preserving, of medicinal roots and herbs, an occupation requiring considerable time and labour,—for which reasons the physicians, by whom it was originally performed, soon abandoned it to the rizotomists.

But the business of collecting simples, by whomsoever performed, required great knowledge and perseverance. The individuals who carried it on spread themselves, at the proper seasons of the year, through all Greece, more especially over Mount Pelion in Thessaly, Telethra in Eubœa, Parnassos in Phocis, and the uplands of Laconia and Arcadia,^[1217] making inquiries, as they went along, of the inhabitants of every district and canton respecting the medicaments in use among them, and collecting from the mouths of peasants and shepherds the fruits of their limited but close observation. They passed, as a matter of course, the greater part of their lives in the fields, studying the topography and distribution of plants, and investigating all the phenomena of vegetation. They believed, that herbs vary in virtues and powers according as they are found in mountains or in valleys, in places overrun with moisture, and where the air is rank and heavy, or on spots swelling and exposed, where they are fanned and invigorated by every breeze that blows. They laid much stress, too, on the season of the year, on the weather, and on the hour of the day; some simples requiring, it was supposed, to be gathered when the sun has exhaled from them all extraneous moisture, others before its rising, others amid the darkness of night when their leaves and flowers were suffused with dew. They were guided, likewise, in their operations by other rules, some founded on experience, others originating in fancy and superstition. In culling, for example, the thapsia^[1218] and several other herbs, they were careful, having first anointed themselves with oil, to stand with their backs to the wind, persuaded that they otherwise should inhale certain noxious effluvia which would cause their whole bodies to swell, or, in the case of the dog-rose,^[1219] that their sight would be impaired.

Those who gathered the mountain rue,^[1220] anointed their faces and hands with oil, to guard themselves against cutaneous inflammation. Again, of other herbs the juices are so pungent as to burn like fire: these were collected in the greatest haste. In digging the hellebore,^[1221] too, the odour of which was supposed rapidly to affect the brain, they proceeded with great celerity, and were careful to eat a clove or two of garlic beforehand, and to drink a little pure wine after. But all these precautions were trifling compared with those which the good rizotomists had persuaded themselves were indispensable in collecting the peony flower.^[1222] About this operation they interwove a sort of netting of romance: it was to be undertaken they affirmed by night, lest the woodpeckers, who regarded it with as much jealousy as the Indian ants do their gold, should fall upon the unfortunate herbalists, and with their sharp beaks pluck out their eyes. So, likewise, in gathering the centaury they were to stand on their guard lest they should be assaulted and maltreated by the hawks. Considering all these numerous evils which rizotomist flesh was heir to, Theophrastus thinks it by no means absurd, that when issuing forth on an enterprise so perilous, they should have fortified their nerves with many prayers. Some few, however, of their practices the philosopher condemns as a trifle beyond the mark, as for example when in digging the root of the Asclepian all-heal, they judged it necessary to propitiate mother earth by burying in its stead a cake composed of many various sweets. And again in unearthing the root of the iris fœtidissima, they interred a cake of spring wheat mixed with honey, not, however, before they had drawn round the spot a treble circle with a two-edged sword. When they had obtained possession of one of the roots, they held it up for some time in the air, and then proceeded to procure a second, and so on. Strangest of all, however, were the ceremonies observed in digging the mandrake.^[1223] First, the triple magic circle was inscribed on the earth with a sword, then the pious rizotomist turned his face toward the west, and began to use his knife, while a second operator went dancing round, uttering all kinds of amorous incantations. Still more perilous was the gathering of the black hellebore, which they performed with the face towards the east, and many prayers to Apollo and Asclepios.^[1224] The strictest watch was meanwhile to be kept, that no eagle appeared above the horizon; for if the eye of this king of birds happened to fall upon the herbalist while engaged in digging, he would infallibly die within the year.^[1225]

After all these toilsome and dangerous enterprises it was natural that the rizotomists should desire to enjoy some advantages,^[1226] which, accordingly, they procured themselves by selling dear their hard-won prizes to their equally superstitious countrymen. Making no pretension as I have said to describe the regular medical practice among the Greeks, I shall here, nevertheless, introduce some few particulars more or less connected with it, which may be regarded as characteristic of the age and people.^[1227] Great were the virtues which they ascribed to the herb alysson, (biscutella didyma,) which, being pounded and eaten with meat, cured hydrophobia. Nay, more, being suspended in a house, it promoted the health of its inhabitants;^[1228] it protected likewise both man and cattle from enchantment; and, bound in a piece of scarlet flannel round the necks of the latter, it preserved them from all diseases.

Coriander-seed,^[1229] eaten in too great quantity, produced, they thought, a derangement of the intellect. Ointment of saffron had an opposite effect, for the nostrils and heads of lunatics being rubbed therewith they were supposed to receive considerable relief.^[1230] Melampos the goatherd was reported to have cured the daughters of Prætos^[1231] of their madness by large doses of black hellebore, which thereafter received from him the name of Melampodion. Sea-onions^[1232] suspended over the doors preserved from enchantment, as did likewise a branch of rhamnus over doors or windows.^[1233] A decoction of rosemary^[1234] and of the leaves and stem of the anemone^[1235] was administered to nurses to promote the secretion of milk, and a like potion prepared from the leaves of the Cretan dittany^[1236] was given to women in labour. This herb, in order to preserve its virtues unimpaired, and that it might be the more easily transported to all parts of the country, was preserved in a joint of a ferula or reed. A plaster of incense,^[1237] Cimolian earth, and oil of roses, was applied to reduce the swelling of the breasts. A medicine prepared from mule’s fern,^[1238] was believed to produce sterility, as were likewise the waters of a certain fountain near Pyrrha, while to those about Thespiæ a contrary effect was attributed, as well as to the wine of Heraclea in Arcadia.^[1239] The inhabitants of this primitive region drank milk as an aperient^[1240] in the spring, because of the medicinal herbs on which the cattle were then supposed to feed. Medicines of laxative properties were prepared from the juice of the wild cucumber, which were said to retain their virtues for two hundred years,^[1241] though simples in general were thought to lose their medicinal qualities in less than four.^[1242] The oriental gum called kankamon was administered in water or honeyed vinegar to fat persons to diminish their obesity, and also as a remedy for the toothache.^[1243] For this latter purpose the gum of the Ethiopian olive^[1244] was put into the hollow tooth, though more efficacy perhaps was attributed to the root of dittander^[1245] which they suspended as a charm about the neck. A plaster of the root of the white thorn^[1246] or iris^[1247] roots prepared with flour of copper, honey, and great centaury, drew out thorns and arrowheads without pain. An unguent procured from fern^[1248] was sold to rustics for curing the necks of their cattle galled by the yoke. A decoction of marsh-mallow leaves^[1249] and wine or honeyed vinegar was administered to persons who had been stung by bees or wasps or other insects;^[1250] bites and burns were healed by an external application of the leaf smeared with oil, and the powdered roots cast into water caused it to freeze if placed out during the night in the open air; an unguent was prepared with oil from reeds, green or dry, which protected those who anointed themselves with it, from the stings of venomous reptiles. Cinnamon unguent,^[1251] or terebinth and myrtle-berries,^[1252] boiled in wine, were supposed to be a preservative against the bite of the tarantula or scorpion, as was the pistachio nut against that of serpents.^[1253] Some persons ate a roasted scorpion to cure its own bite;^[1254] a powder, moreover, was prepared from sea-crabs supposed to be fatal to this reptile.^[1255] Vipers^[1256] were made to contribute their part to the materia medica; for, being caught alive, they were enclosed with salt and dried figs in a vase which was then put into a furnace till its contents were reduced to charcoal, which they esteemed a valuable medicine. A considerable quantity of viper’s flesh was in the last century imported from Egypt into Venice, to be used in the composition of medicinal treacle.^[1257] From the flowers of the sneezewort,^[1258] a sort of snuff appears to have been manufactured, though probably used only in medicines. The ashes of old leather^[1259] cured burns, galls, and blistered feet.

The common remedy when persons had eaten poisonous mushrooms was a dose of nitre exhibited in vinegar and water;^[1260] with water it was esteemed a cure for the sting of the burncow, and with benzoin it operated as an antidote against the poison of bulls’ blood. The seeds of mountain-rue, in small quantities, were regarded as an antidote, but, administered too copiously, were themselves lethal.^[1261] White hellebore was employed with honey and other medicines to poison rats;^[1262] bastard saffron,^[1263] mice, pigs, and dogs; which last were physicked with hellebore.^[1264] The deadly qualities of this plant, when taken in any quantity, were universally known, and, therefore, the pharmacopolist, Thrasyas,^[1265] of Mantinea, who boasted of having invented a poison which would kill without pain, attained the credit of possessing something like miraculous powers, because he used frequently, in the presence of many witnesses to eat a whole root, or even two, of hellebore. One day, however, a shepherd, coming into his shop, utterly destroyed his reputation; for, in the sight of all present, he devoured a whole handful, observing that it was nothing at all, for that he and his brethren on the mountains were accustomed to do as much, and more, daily.^[1266] They had, in fact, discovered, that medicine is no medicine, and poison no poison, to those with whose bodies they have been assimilated by use. When limbs were to be amputated, and previous to the application of the cautery, a dose of powdered mandragora-root was usually administered.

On the nature, power, and uses, of ancient poisons, it is not my purpose to enlarge.^[1267] It may be proper, however, to observe, that they had discovered drugs which would kill secretly, and at almost any given time from the moment of administering them. They, by certain preparations of aconite,^[1268] so called from Aconè, a village in the country of the Mariandynians, the professional poisoners could take off an individual at any fixed period, from two months to two years. The possession, however, of this poison was in itself a capital offence.^[1269] It was usually administered in wine or hydromel, where its presence was not to be detected by the taste. At first, there was supposed to exist no remedy, so that all who took it inevitably perished; but, at length, physicians, and even the common people of the country, discovered more than one antidote prepared from the ground-pine,^[1270] from honey, and from the juice of the grape. Another poison, evidently in frequent use, was the bulb of the meadow-saffron (colchicum autumnale), which being known to everybody, and nearly always at hand, slaves^[1271] were said to have plucked and eaten when enraged against their masters; but, repenting presently, they used, with still greater celerity, to rush in search of an antidote. Some persons, anxious to fortify their children against the effects of all noxious drugs, were in the habit of administering to them as soon as born a small dose of the powder of bindweed,^[1272] which they believed to possess the power of protecting them for ever. When persons were invited out to dine where they ran the risk of meeting with ratsbane in their dishes, it was customary to chew a little calamint before the repast.^[1273] In the case of the canine species the Argives, instead of having recourse to poison, like their neighbours, used to celebrate an annual festival during the dog-days, in which they seem to have slaughtered^[1274]

the moist atmosphere of their city having been peculiarly liable to engender hydrophobia.

Among the more remarkable of the materia medica was the cedar gum, generally transparent, and of a most pungent odour. It was esteemed destructive of living bodies, but formed, doubtless, an important ingredient among the embalmer’s materials, since it completely preserved corpses from corruption, on which account it was sometimes called the Life of the Dead.^[1275] It entered, moreover, into preparation designed to sharpen the sight.

The gum obtained from the cherry-tree^[1276] was administered in wine and water to promote appetite. A dose of saffron and boiled wine restored the tone of the stomach after excess at table. Asses’ milk was habitually given to consumptive patients, connected with which practice there is an apothegm of Demosthenes, which may be worth repeating. When he was once exerting himself to prevail on some foreign state to ally itself with Athens, an orator in opposition observed, that the Athenians were like asses’ milk, whose presence always indicated sickness in the places they visited. “It is true,” replied Demosthenes, “but the sickness previously exists, and they come to cure it.” A mixture of salt and water, to which the Egyptians added the juice of the radish,^[1277] constituted a very common emetic. Opium was in general use even so early, apparently, as the age of Homer,^[1278] who seems to have celebrated it under the name of nepenthè. The Spartan soldiers appear to have made considerable use of the poppy-head;^[1279] but whether for the same purpose as the Rajpoots of modern India, I do not pretend to determine. Persons desirous of obtaining frightful and dismal dreams^[1280] could always gratify their wishes by eating leaks or lentils, or the seeds of the great bind-weed,^[1281] mixed with dorycnion. We may mention by the way, that the ancients understood well the doctrine of the circulation of the blood.^[1282]