BOOK XXII. Lvi. 117-LV11. 119 



LVI. The uses that wax can be piit to in com- 

 bination with other substances would more than fill 

 a pharmacopoeia, and the same is true of other 

 materials that combine usefully with others. These, 

 as I have said, are due to man's ingenuity. Wax 

 salves, poultices, plasters, eye-salves, aiitidotes, were 

 not made by the divine Mothcr who crcated the 

 Universe : they are the inventions of the laboratory, 

 or more correctly of human greed. Nature indeed 

 brings forth her w orks absolutely perfect ; a few 

 ingredients are chosen " with a purpose, not by guess- 

 work, so that dry substances may be modified bv 

 some fluid to faciUtate their passage, or moist things 

 by a more substantial body to give the required 

 consistency. But for a man to weigh out, scruple 

 by scruple, the active ingredients that he gathers 

 together and blends, is not human guess-work but 

 human impudence. I myself shall not touch upon 

 drugs imported from India and Arabia or from the 

 outer world. Ingredients that grow so far away are 

 imsatisfactory for remedies *, ** they are not produced 

 for us, nay, not even for the natives, who in that 

 case would not sell them. Let them be bought if 

 you hke to make perfumes, unguents and luxuries, 

 or even in the name of rehgion, for we worship the 

 gods with frankincense and costus. But health 

 I shall prove to be independent of such drugs, if 

 only to make luxury all the more ashamed of itself. 



LVII. But having discussed medicines from 

 flowers, garland and garden, as well as herbs which 

 are chewed,'' how can I possibly omit medicines from 

 cereals ? Indeed it would be fitting to mention these 



suggests that mandantur may be indicative from mandare and 

 may mean : " plants which are entrusted to the herb-garden." 



379 



