Alexander of Tralles.
This writer, who acquired considerable celebrity as a medical authority, lived a little later than Aetius, towards the end of the sixth century. He was a native of Tralles, in Lydia, and is much esteemed by the principal medical historians, Sprengel, Leclerc, Freind, and others who have studied his writings. Especially notable is his independence of opinion; he does not hesitate occasionally to criticise even Galen. He impresses strongly on his readers the danger of becoming bound to a particular system of treatment. The causes of each disease are to be found, and the practitioner is not to be guided exclusively by symptoms. Among his favourite drugs were castorum, which he gave in fevers and many other maladies; he had known several persons snatched from the jaws of death by its use in lethargy (apoplexy); bole Armeniac, in epilepsy and melancholia; grapes and other ripe fruits instead of astringents in dysentery; rhubarb appeared as a medicine for the first time in his writings, but only as an astringent; and he was the first to use cantharides for blisters in gout instead of soothing applications. His treatment of gout by internal remedies and regimen recalls that of Aetius and is worth quoting. He prescribed an electuary composed of myrrh, coral, cloves, rue, peony, and aristolochia. This was to be taken regularly every day for a hundred days. Then it was to be discontinued for fifteen days. After that it was to be recommenced and continued during 460 days, but only taking a dose every other day; then after another interval thirty-five more doses were to be taken on alternate days, making 365 doses altogether in the course of nearly two years. Meanwhile the diet was
