56 
HISTORY OF PHARMACY. 
description of serpents and venomous insects, table of pre- 
cautions to obviate their bite, and the catalogue of remedies 
necessary for their cure. The author mentions fourteen 
species of serpents, seven species of spiders, (phalanges,) 
the lizard, (slelliu,) cantharides, (not the L. vesical, but the 
me lot cichorei,) the wasp, Egyptian godfly, besides scor- 
pions, the bee, two kinds of millipedes, (scolopendra,) 
shrew-mouse, salamander, and a number of fishes. 
In the poem upon Theriacs a number of new and curious 
observations may be found, relative to the effects of ser- 
pents' venom. The description of the amphisbdena is 
identical with that of Linnaeus. 
Nicander made the discovery that the poison of vipers was 
placed in a membrane surrounding the teeth. The division 
established by him between the species of scorpions, is very 
similar to that of modern naturalists. He made a distinc- 
tion between day and night butterflies, and was the first to 
give to the latter the name of phalenes. Among the me- 
thods indicated by him for curing the bite of venomous 
animals, baths, external applications, and internal remedies 
may be noticed. The first are topical compounds of aro- 
matic plants, bruised with wine and sometimes vinegar. 
As to the second, these are electuaries, more or less com- 
pounded, a strange mixture of the most incongruous sub- 
stances. According to him, the best preservatives against 
the attacks of venomous animals, and particularly insects, is 
an ointment prepared from two serpents, male and female, 
deer marrow, oil, wax, and rose ointment. 
The poem upon Theriacs contains about eleven hundred 
verses. The style of the descriptions is betimes dry and 
barren : it may be conceived indeed that details like these 
lend little to the developement of the imagination ; but 
when he paints the sympathies of the patient, he warms, be- 
comes roused, and is wholly poetic. Some ingenious epi- 
sodes infuse variety into the work, and agreeably divert the 
sight from some painful pictures. 
