44 
HISTORY OF PHARMACY. 
lures of Theophrastus. He lived at the court of Seleucus 
Nicanor, King of Syria; it is well known that he discovered 
and succeeded in curing the disease of Antiochus, son of 
this prince, who was smitten with a violent passion for 
Stratonice. 
Erasistratus was the author of a work on poisons. Al- 
though he was the first, according to Galen, to employ cas- 
toreum and several other active medicines,-, yet lie lahored 
to simplify the use of remedies, and censured those physi- 
cians who made a lamentable abuse of their complication. 
He particularly opposed antidotes* and compositions called 
Royal, which the doctors of his time styled hands of gods, 
(manus deorum ) He rarely used other than external re- 
medies, and had a decided predilection for chicory, pump- 
kin, barley tea, cups, and especially hydrozlum, a mixture 
of water and oil, which he employed for injections and fo- 
mentations in inflammatory diseases. 
Herophilus of Chalcedon, in the employment of medi- 
cines, professed a doctrine entirely opposite to that of Era- 
sistratus. He used a great deal of hellebore, and attributed 
powerful effects to vegetable substances. He wrote upon 
Botany, and gave by his example a great impulse to the 
study of Materia Medica. It was especially in reference to 
hirn that Erasistratus condemned the abuse of medicines, 
because Herophilus had been the first to say that when pro- 
perly employed they might be looked upon as the hands of 
gods. The majority of Herophilus' students were occupied 
with the Materia Medica; among them may be cited : 
Endemus, who compounded a theriac, the formula of 
which was preserved by Galen. The composition of this, 
described in verse, was engraved upon the gates of the Tem- 
* pie of Esculapius. Antiochus Philometor employed it 
daily. 
Mantias, is another pupil of Herophilus, who wrote a trea- 
* From avti, against, and 8oto$, given; given against. 
