436 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1937 



was improved upon by Damocrates, physiciaD to Nero, and later by 

 Androniachus, also a body physician of Nero. This became the most 

 famous medicine of history. It was also known as Confectio Dam- 

 ocrates and as Thcriac (as he added flesh of vipers — the name coming 

 from Tyrus, a snake) and 1,G00 years later the formula was included 

 by Valerius Cordus iu liis dispensatory. At that time the traditional 

 formulas contained about 60 ingredients. 



Dioscorides was another Greek physician whose writings were 

 long a dominant factor in European medicine and who was probably' 

 a contemporary of Claudius Galenus, commonly known as Galen. 

 Galen was one of the most famous physicians of all history. He be- 

 came a celebrated medical authority. He lived at the time of Marcus 

 Aurelius and traveled mdely, practicing his profession as he went. 

 While bom a Greek, he became a citizen of Rome. He was a volumi- 

 nous writer on medical subjects as well as an experimenter in the 

 preparation of medicines, many of which he made from vegetable 

 drugs, and this class of products is still associated with his name, as 



galenicals. 



ROMAN ERA 



The first Roman to prepare a formulary was Scribonius Largus, 

 physician to the Emperor Tiberius, about 45 B. C. This volume was 

 called Compositiones and was more nearly of the type of the later 

 pharmacopoeias of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries. 

 Besides the books which were being written, standard formulas were 

 developed by individuals and passed on to future generations. 



Reference has already been made to the Confectio Damocrates or 

 theriac. Another formula, the theriac of Nicander, was written in 

 verso on a stone in the temple of Aesculapius on the island of Cos, 

 the birthplace of Hippocrates. Another theriac was that of Philon 

 of Tarsus. This was written in verse that it might be more easily 

 remembered. Its most rare ingredient was the "flesh of vipers" 

 and this remained a part of the published formula 1,500 years later. 

 Another ingredient which might be misunderstood was wiitten as 

 "the red hair of a lad whose blood was shed on the fields of Mer- 

 cury," but tliis was only the picturesque way to write "saffron." 

 Other ingredients were opium, pyre thrum, euphorbium, pepper, 

 henbane, spikenard made into a confection with honey. It was 

 originally intended as an antidote to poison, but was widely used as 

 a remedy for colic. 



Then came the decline of Rome and its fall in the fifth century 

 under the attack of the barbarians from the north who suppressed 

 and destroyed these earlier civilizations. In the following centuries 

 under the influence of Mohammed there began the period of Arabian 

 supremacy. Egypt was overrun and in 642 Alexandria was captured. 



