Note 467 — ANCIENT ROMAN MEDICINE-STAMPS.

Spon also (see his Miscellanea Eruditæ Antiquitatis, p. 236) supposed the Nymegen and Genoa medicine-stamps (the only specimens known to exist at the time at which he wrote) to have belonged to some of those practitioners (Myropolæ or Unguentarii) who professed to cure diseases principally by the external application of oils, ointment, and friction,—a form of charlatanry not altogether unknown in this, the nineteenth century. According to Pliny, Prodicus, a disciple of Hippocrates, founded the mode of cure termed “Iatraleptice.” By this means (adds Pliny) he opened a road to riches to the slaves and rubbers themselves employed by the physicians (reunctoribus quoque medicorum ac mediastinis vectigal invenit). See his Historia Naturalis, lib. xxiv. cap. i. in Leyden edition of 1695, vol. iii. p. 187.