11 



the eyelids, — ** ex aqua autem ad cicatrices recentes extenuendas, 

 et palpebrarum asperitudinem tollendam teri debet, et subjecto spe- 

 cillo aut inversa palpebra, oculis inseri."*' * 



Scribonius Largus had previously described, in nearly the same 

 words, the collyrium, — " quod quidam svojdsg vocant," and its uses 

 in recent cicatrices and granulations, &c. Both these authors give 

 the same recipe for the composition of the Evodes, — ^viz., pompholyx, 

 burnt copper, saffron, myrrh, opium, and other ingredients, rubbed 

 down in Chian wine. Its agreeable odour was probably owing to a 

 considerable quantity of spikenard being used in its composition.! 

 Galen gives two other collyria, of a different composition, and for 

 other affections, as known at his time • under the same name of 

 Evodes, — the one termed the " Evodes of Zosimus," the other the 

 " diasmyrnon Evodes of Syneros." | 



2. L. VALLATINI APALOCROCODES AD DIATHESIS. The mild CrO- 



codes of L. Vallatinus, for affections of the eyes. 



The term diathesis in this inscription is used in a different sense 

 from that in which we now employ the same word in modern medi- 

 cine. At the present day, we apply the term diathesis to designate 

 the tendency or predisposition to some special disease, or class of 

 diseases. In the times of the Roman physicians, it was often used 

 as synonymous with disease itself ; and in the Latin translations of 

 the Greek texts of Galen, Aetius, &c., it is hence rendered usually 

 by the general word " affectus," " affectio, ' &c. The first sen- 

 tence in Paulus -^gineta''s chapter on Ophthalmic Diseases, affords 

 an instance in point : " Quum dolores vehementiores in oculis fiunt, 

 considera ex quarum affectione {hiakdn) oculum dolere contingit."" § 

 Thus, also, the Evodes of Zosimus (to which I have before alluded) 

 is entered by Galen as a remedy simply against " dolores et recentes 

 affectus," according to the Latin translation of Kuehn, — *' crgogcrgg/w 

 huviag xai '!r^off(paTovg ^/a^stfg/g," according to the original Greek text. 

 Galen uses in fact diathesis as a general term for eye diseases. " Scripsi 



* Medicse Artis Principes, p. 273. 



t Medicae Artis Principes: Scribonii Largi de Composition? Medicamento- 

 rum Liber. Comp. xxvi., p. 198. 



X Galeni Opera Omnia. (Kuehn's Edit.) V^ol. xii., p. 753 and 774. 

 § Cornarius' Latin Translation in Principes Med. Artis, p. 432. 



