25 Pills are also numerous, and are made for various purposes. Those which relieve pain through sleep are called anodynes; unless there is overwhelming necessity, it is improper to use them; for they are composed of medicaments which are very active and alien to the stomach. There is one, however, which actually promotes digestion; it is composed of poppy-tears and galbanum, 4 grams each, myrrh, castory, and pepper, 8 grams each. Of this it is enough to swallow an amount the size of a vetch.[p. 61] Another, worse for the stomach, but more soporific, consists of mandragora 1 gram, celery-seed and hyoscyamus seed, 16 grams each, which are rubbed up after soaking in wine. One of the same size mentioned above is quite enough to take. But whether there is headache or ulceration or ophthalmia or toothache or difficulty in breathing or intestinal gripings or inflammation of the womb or pain in the hips of liver or spleen or ribs, or, whether owing to genital trouble, a woman collapses speechless, a pillar of the following kind counteracts pain by producing sleep: saxifrage, sweet flag, wild rue seed, 4 grams each, castory and cinnamon 8 grams, poppy-tears, panax root, dried mandrake apples, flowers of the round rush, 9 grams each, and 56 peppercorns. These are first pounded separately, then rubbed up all together, whilst gradually adding raisin wine until the mixture is either swallowed or dissolved in water and taken as a draught. Or take a good handful of wild poppy-heads when just ripe for collecting the juice and put into a vessel and boil with water sufficient to cover it. When this handful has been well boiled there, after being squeezed out it is thrown away; and with its juice is mixed an equal quantity of raisin wine, and heated until to consistency of sordes. When the mixture has cooled, pills are formed, the size of our beans; they are used in many ways. For they procure sleep [p. 63] whether taken as they are or in water; they relieve earache when a little rue-juice and raisin wine are added; when dissolved in wine they relieve gripings, and when mixed with cerate of rose-oil with the addition of a little saffron they relieve inflammation of the womb; also when smeared upon the forehead mixed with water they check the flow of phlegm into the eyes. Again if inflammation of the womb prevents sleep take saffron 1·33 grams, anise and myrrh, 4 grams each, poppy-tears 12 grams, hemlock seed 32 grams. These are mixed together, and taken up in old wine, and a pill the size of a lupin is dissolved in 125 cc. of water. It is dangerous, however, to give it when there is fever. For the relief of pain in the liver soda 1 gram, saffron, myrrh, Gallic nard, 4 grams each, are taken up in honey, and a pill the size of an Egyptian bean administered. A pill to stop pain in the side is made of pepper, aristolochia, nard, and myrrh in equal parts. A pill for pain in the chest is made from nard 4 grams, frankincense and casia, 12 grams each, myrrh and cinnamon, 24 grams each, saffron 32 grams, turpentine-resin 1 gram, honey three-quarters of a litre. The pill of Athenion for cough contains myrrh and pepper, 0·66 gram each, castory and poppy-tears, 4 grams each; these are rubbed down separately, then together, and two pills, the size of our bean, are given in the morning and two at bed-time. If cough prevents sleep the pill of Heracleides of Tarentum relieves both; it contains saffron 0·66 gram, myrrh, long pepper, costmary, galbanum, 1 gram each, cinnamon, castor and poppy-tears, 4 grams each.[p. 65] But if ulcers of the throat causing cough are to be cleaned, panax, myrrh and turpentine-resin, 28 grams each, galbanum 0·66 gram, hyssop 1 gram are rubbed together, and 250 cc. of honey added to them and as much swallowed as can be taken up on the finger. The pill of Cassius for colic contains saffron, anise, castory, 12 grams each, parsley 16 grams, pepper both long and round, 20 grams each, poppy-tears, round rush, myrrh, nard, 24 grams each; these are taken up in honey. It may be either swallowed as it is or dissolved in hot water. A draught for the expulsion of a dead foetus or placenta consists of ammoniac salt 4 grams, or of Cretan dittany 4 grams in water. In difficult labour hedge mustard in tepid wine should be administered on an empty stomach. The voice is strengthened by frankincense 4 grams in two cups of wine. For difficult micturition long pepper, castory, myrrh, galbanum, poppy-tears, saffron, costmary, 28 grams each; storax and turpentine-resin, 56 grams each, honey with absinth 42 cc. Of this an amount the size of an Egyptian bean should be taken in the morning and after dinner. A medicine for the windpipe is prepared as follows: casia, iris, cinnamon, nard, myrrh, frankincense, 4 grams each; saffron 1 gram; and 30 peppercorns boiled in a litre and a half of raisin[p. 67] wine until of the consistency of honey. Or, saffron, myrrh, frankincense, 4 grams each, similarly boiled in raisin wine to the same consistency. Or 750 cc. of raisin wine are boiled until a drop, if taken out, solidifies; thereupon pounded casia 4 grams is added.
De Medicina. Celsus. W. G. Spencer. Cambridge, Massachusetts. Harvard University Press. 1971 (Republication of the 1935 edition).
National Library of Medicine History of Medicine Division provided support for entering this text.
This text was converted to electronic form by Data Entry and has been proofread to a high level of accuracy.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.