BOOK XXXIV. XXIII. 106-XXV. 108 



to the appearance of cinnabar ; then it is dried in the 

 sun and put to keep in a copper box. 



XXIV. The slaff " of copper is also washed in the ^^9, «ca'«' 



t 1. -j. • 1 m • J.1 -j. !/• and flower of 



same vvay, but it is less emcacious tnan copper itseli. copper. 

 The flower ^ of copper also is useful as a medicine. 

 It is made by fusing copper and then transferring 

 it to other furnaces, where a faster use of the 

 bellows makes the metal give off layers Hke scales of 

 millet, which are called the flower. However when 

 the sheets of copper are cooled off in water they shed 

 off other scales of copper of a similar red hue — this 

 scale is called by the Greek word meaning * husk ' — 

 and by this process the flower is adulterated, so that 

 the scale is sold as a substitute for it. On the other 

 hand, scale of copper is forcibly knocked ofF 

 bolts into which are welded cakes of the metal, 

 specially in the factories of Cyprus. The whole 

 difference is that the scale is detached from the cakes 

 by successive hammerings, whereas the flower falls 

 off of its own accord. There is another finer kind 

 of scale, the one knocked off from the down-like sur- 

 face of the metal, the name for which is ' stomoma.' 



XXV. But of all these facts the doctors, if they 

 will permit me to say so, are ignorant — they are 

 governed by names : so detached they are from 

 the process of making up drugs, which used to be 

 ■the special business of the medical profession. Now- 

 adays whenever they come on books of prescriptions, 

 wanting to make up some medicines out of them, 

 which means to make trial of the ingredients in the 

 prescriptions at the expense of their unhappy 

 patients, they rely on the fashionable druggists' 

 shops «^ which spoil everything with fraudulent 

 adulterations, and for a long time they have been 



207 



