Chap. 30.] SAPA. 481 



fasting, having the effect of indurating the passages of the 

 throat and stomach. It is a corrective, also, of bad breath, 

 strengthens the teeth and gums, and improves the complexion. 

 Used as a gargle, squill vinegar remedies hardness of hear- 

 ing, and opens the passages of the ears, while at the same 

 time it tends to improve the sight. It is verj- good, too, for 

 epilepsy, melancholy, vertigo, hysterical suffocatious, blows, 

 falls with violence, and extravasations of blood in consequence, 

 as also for debility of the sinews, and diseases of the kidneys. 

 In cases of internal ulceration, however, the use of it must be 

 avoided. 



CHAP. 29. OXYMELI '. SEVEN KEMEDIES. 



The following, as we learn from Dieuches, was the manner 

 in which oxymeli^® was prepared by the ancients. In a caul- 

 dron they used to put ten minae of honey, five heminse of old 

 vinegar, a pound and a quarter of sea-salt, and five sextarii 

 of rain-water ; the mixture was then boiled together till it 

 had simmered some ten times, after which it was poured off, 

 and pui" by for keeping. Asclepiades, however, condemned 

 this pre^^aration, and put an end to the use of it, though be- 

 fore his time it used to be given in fevers even. Still, how- 

 ever, it is generally admitted that it was useful for the cure 

 of stings inflicted by the serpent known as the '' seps,*'2^and 

 that it acted as an antidote to opium^" and mistletoe. It was 

 usefully employed also, warm, as a gargle for quinsy and 

 maladies of the ears, and for affections of the mouth and 

 throat ; for all these purposes, however, at the present day, 

 oxalme is employed, the best kind of which is made with 

 5alt and fresh vinegar. 



CHAP. 30. — SAPA: SEVEN EEMEDTES. 



Sapa^ has a close affinity with wine, being nothing else 



28 See B. xiv. c. 21. The modern oxymel, as Fee remarks, consists of 

 loney dissolved in white vinegar, and bears no resemblance to the mon- 

 itrous composition here described, and wliich no stomach, he says, isould 

 )ossibly support. 



29 See Lucan'sPharsalia, B. ix. 1!. 723, 776. 



^^ Fee thinks that there may be some foundation for this statement, as 

 'inegar acts efficaciously as a remedy to the effects of narcotic poisons. 

 Vlistletoe, as already stated^ is not a poison. 



31 Grape-juice boiled down to one-third. See B. xiv. c. 11. 



VOt. IV. II 



