Note 600 — ON REGIMEN IN ACUTE DISEASES. (continued 2)

The μηκώνιον was applied to three totally distinct substances; 1st, To a sort of opium, that is to say, the expressed juice of the poppy (see Paulus Ægineta, Vol. III., p. 280); 2d, to the Euphorbia peplus, L., (see Appendix to Dunbar’s Greek Lexicon, under the name): and, 3d, to the excrement of new-born children. It is singular that the learned Foës, in his Œconomia Hippocratica, should apply it in this place to the last of these; for if Hippocrates had used such a substance medicinally, we may be well assured that it would not have been overlooked by Dioscorides and Galen. There is every reason, however, to suppose that it is the same as the πέπλος of Dioscorides and Galen, that is to say, the Euphorbia peplus, which was recommended as a drastic purgative by all the ancient authorities on the Materia Medica, and consequently would be a medicine very applicable either in coma or dropsy.