APIDiB — BEES. 200 



There is a story, that a man once came to Mohammed, 

 and told him that his brother was afflicted with a violent 

 pain in his belly; upon which the prophet bade him give 

 him some honey. The fellow took his advice; but soon 

 after coming again, told him that the medicine had done his 

 brother no manner of service : Mohammed answered, " Go 

 and give him more honey, for God speaks truth, and thy 

 brother's belly lies." And the dose being repeated, the 

 man, by God's mercy, was immediately cured. ^ 



In the sixteenth chapter of the Koran, Mohammed has 

 likewise mentioned honey as a medicine for men.^ 



Athenaeus tells us that Democritus, the philosopher of 

 Abdera, after he had determined to rid himself of life on 

 account of his extreme old age, and when he had begun to 

 diminish his food day by day, when the day of the Thesmo- 

 phonian festival came round, and the women of his house- 

 hold besought him not to die during the festival, in order 

 that they might not be debarred from their share of the 

 festivities, was persuaded and ordered a vessel full of honey 

 to be set near him : and in this way he lived many days with 

 no other support than honey; and then some days after, 

 when the honey had been taken away, he died. But Demo- 

 critus, Athenaeus adds, had always been fond of honey ; and 

 he once answered a man, who had asked him how he could 

 live in the enjoyment of the best health, that he might do 

 so if he constantly moistened his inward parts with honey 

 and his outward man with oil. Bread and honey was the 

 chief food of the Pythagoreans, according to the statement 

 of Aristoxenus, who says that those who ate this for break- 

 fast were free from disease all their lives.^ 



"The gall of a vulture," says Moufet, quoting Galen, in 

 Euporist, "mingled with the juice of horehouud (twice as 

 much in weight as the gall is) and two parts of honey cures 

 the suflfasion of the eyes. Otherwise he mingles one part 

 of the gall of the sea-tortoise, and four times as much honey, 

 and anoints the eyes with it. Serenus prescribes such a re- 

 ceipt to cause one to be quick-sighted : 



1 The Koran, p. 219, note, Sale's. 



2 Ibid., p. 219. 



3 Athen. Deipn., B. 2, c. 26. 



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