Note 922 — Chapter II · THE ROMAN EMPIRE UNDER ANASTASIUS: THE INHERITANCE OF JUSTINIAN (continued 2)

See especially Dioscorides, ii. Tinctures and ointments made from toads, scorpions, bugs, woodlice, centipedes, cockroaches, testes of stag and horse, etc., were staple preparations. The realistic coloured illustrations in the great edition published by Lonicerus in 1563 with a colossal commentary, are worth looking at. The pills of seminal fluid (à la Brown-Séquard) decried in the Pistis Sophia appear to have been merely a mystic remedy.