276 FLORA HOMCOPATHICA. 
Galen, Pliny, nor even by the Arabian physicians. He says 
that it was known as a remedy for the eyes about two hun- 
dred years ago; he wrote this in 1580. Arnaldus Villano- 
vanus, who died in 1313, was the author of “ Vini Euphrasiati 
tantopere celebrati.” How long before him Euphrasia was in 
repute for eye diseases is impossible to say; but in Gordon’s 
“ Liticium Medicine,” published in 1305, among the medicines 
for the eyes, Euphragia is one, and is used both outwardly in a 
compound, distilled water, and inwardly as a syrup (Alston, 
Mat. Med., vol. vii. p. 189). Euphragia is not mentioned in the 
“Schola Salernitana,” compiled about 1100. The earliest 
notice of Euphrasia, as a medicine, is in the works of Tragus 
(Sprengel, op. cit.) It was employed as a remedy in diseases 
of the eyes, by Fuschius, Dodoneus, Haller, and others, and 
has been a vulgar remedy in these diseases from time immemorial 
throughout the whole of Europe. Fuschius recommended it in 
suffusions and cataracts. The Highlanders of Scotland make an 
infusion of it in milk, and anoint the patient’s eyes with a feather 
dipped in it. Hoffmann employed it in jaundice. Hildanus, 
Villanova, and Velebt, in weakness of the eyes. In 1836, 
Kramehfeld (i Ozann’s Jour.) employed it with success in 
rheumatic and catarrhal inflammation of the eyes and eyelids; 
in cough, hoarseness, earache, and headache, which have super- 
vened on catarrhal affections, and glandulous, catarrhal, and 
scrofulous blepharophthalmia. 
It has been immortalized by Milton, who probably, owing to 
his infirmity, tried this plant to give him back that which he 
had lost. He makes the archangel Michael employ it to remove 
the film from the eyes of our first parents, occasioned by eating 
the forbidden fruit : 
“ But to nobler sights. 
Michael from Adam’s eyes the film removed, 
Which that false fruit that promised clearer sight 
Had bred; then purged with Euphrasy and rue 
The visual nerve, for he had much to see.” 
Paradise Lost, book ii. 
