Page:Arrian's Voyage Round the Euxine Sea Translated.djvu/36

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
32
DISSERTATION.

was the method in uſe in the time of Dioſcorides, both with [1]Opium, and with [2]Scammony, and is mentioned by Dr. Ruſſel to be the method practiſed at preſent in the Eaſt for collecting the latter [3] drug, indicates this very ſtrongly. As to its being procured from the root, Dioſcorides ſays, that in his time the whole plant of the Poppy was preſſed, and its inſpiffated juice made uſe of which had the name of [4] Meconium, and was much weaker than Opium; and this account is confirmed by[5] Pliny. The juice of the root therefore, though not in uſe at preſent, might have been ſo formerly, and is probably poſſeſſed of ſimilar virtues with that of the reſt of the plant. Mithridates, whoſe kingdom was contiguous to Colchis, and included the place in queſtion, was celebratedfor his ſkill in [6] Botany and Medicine. He invented the celebrated Antidote, or Alexipharmic, which has his name, and which has been retained in medical practice even to the preſent day. The principal ingredient is well known to be Opium; and

  1. Porto opii faciundi hæc ratio eſt. Cum ros in eo exaruerit. cultro decuſſatim in ſtellas ne penitus adigatur, ex obliquo in rectum ſummam cutem incidere oportet, lacrimam exeuntem digito in ooncham abſtergere. Dioſcor. Matthioli Edit. p. 526. Conſtantine, in his Lexicon, Vox Ὄπος, reads a paſſage in Pliny, reſpecting the collection of Opium, "in conchis, " inſtead of "ut lactucis."
  2. Legitur ad hunc modum succus. Capite exmpto radix in teſtudinis ſpeciem cultro excavatur, quo fit ut in cavum confluat ſuccus, qui conchis demum excipitur. Matth. Dioſc. p. 610.
  3. The method of collecting the Scammony is this: having cleared away the earth from about the upper part of the root, they cut of the top in an oblique direction, about two inches below when the stalks spring from it. Under the most depending part of the Dope they fix a ſbell, or ſome other convenient receptacle, into which the milky juice gradually flows. Med. Obſerv. vol. i. p. 18.
  4. Aliqui capita ipſa et folia tundunt et prelo exprimunt, terenteſque digerunt mortario in paſtillos, id Meconium vooatur, multum Opio ignavius. Matth. Dioſc. p. 526.
  5. Cum capita ipſa et folia deeoqmmtuf, ſuccus Meconium vocatur lnnltum Opio ignavior. Plin. lib xx. cap. 18.

    Suidas and Czlius Rhodoginus both mention a city of the name of Μηκώνη, derived probably from the abundant: of that grew in the neighbourhood.

  6. Plin. lib. uv. c. a. 6. 19.