On Medicines (De Medicamentis)

On medicinal measures and weights translated from the Greek according to Hippocrates.

The ounce has 8 drachmas in number, 24 scripula. The mina has 1 pound, 2 ounces. The cheme a small measure has 3 drachmas. The obolus has 6 denarii. The cotyla [hemina] makes 4 acetabula vinegar cups or oxybapha sauce cups. The olyscion makes the seventh part of a hemina, which makes 1 ounce and 2 drachmas. The cotylus has 4 ounces, which makes 2 cyathi cups and 6 coclearia spoons. Likewise, a three-ounce cotylus has a third part of a hemina. A tetrobolon four-obol piece is the fourth part of a hemina. A choenix a grain measure is two sextarii. A stater a standard weight is what measures 4 drachmas; it is however equivalent to half an ounce. A denarius is a silver drachma, which makes 3 symbol. A victoriatus denarius is half a drachma. A minor obolus is the sixth part of a drachma. A cyathus is the eighth part of a sextarius, but by weight it is the tenth part of a drachma. A coclearium is half a drachma. A tetrassarius is half an ounce.

Item on the weights and measures of medicines from book XX of Pliny’s Natural Histories.

The Attic drachma is the weight of a silver denarius. The same drachma has 6 oboli in weight. An obolus has 10 chalci. A cyathus weighs 10 drachmas. The acetabulum, as it is called, has the fourth part of a hemina. A hemina has 60 drachmas in number. The mna, which our people call a mina, weighs 100 Attic drachmas.

We have also added the measures of the Greeks themselves regarding medicinal weights, which are contained on the following page, so that in matters of this kind, if it seems fit, authority may be sought from the very source, as they say.

On Measures and Weights.

A mina has 160 olkae drachma-weights; a pound has 12 ounces; an ounce has 8 olkae; an olka has 3 grammata letters/units; a gramma has 2 oboli; an obolus has 4 keratia carats; a keration has... The text cuts off here in the original.