Note 515 — ANCIENT ROMAN MEDICINE-STAMPS.

Frankincense, saffron, and myrrh, form, as we have seen, prominent ingredients in the ancient collyria. Actuarius lays down the differences among the therapeutical effects of these three eye-medicines, with the following rare subtlety:—“Crocus et Myrrha hoc inter se dissident, quod ille moderate adstringat, hæc vero citra adstrictionem non instrenue discutiat, humiditatesque exsiccet: suntque generosiora facultatibus quam Thus, quapropter etiam discutiunt magis, verum quod detergendi vi careant: in ulcerum curatione thuri ceu inferiora cedunt.”—De Methodo Medendi, lib. vi. cap. v. p. 305.