On Medical Matters

[Avoiding unnecessary wordiness, let us return to the subject at hand.] 1

Since such a matter is divided in two: namely, into the prevention so that they may not go undetected 2 at the start, or so that if they were given secretly 3, they might be rendered ineffective; and into the remedial aid for those who have ingested them 4, I shall first speak about the method of prevention. This is difficult, as the ancients supposed, because those who administer them secretly act in such a way as to deceive even the most experienced 5. They remove the bitterness of lethal drugs with added sweets; they mask the foul odors with mixtures of aromatics or with the help of materials that seem useful for application, especially in sickness, such as wormwood, or mountain oregano, or hyssop, or savory, thyme, and oregano, or southernwood, or orris root, or castoreum,

1. This entire introduction is so suspicious that it is deservedly considered spurious. For, besides the fact that Dioscorides above already says the fifth book is the last, what is stated here is an inept repetition of things already taught in previous books, such as the statement that there was a discussion of milk and fat; the deprecation of verbosity is also inept.
2. Thus the Aldine and Marcellus editions; "to receive" in the Paris codex used by Goupyl; "to grasp" in the common version.
3. Cod. X has "forgetfulness" [an error for "secretly"].
4. I read this instead of the common "fallen."
5. Cod. X has "most wicked."

disseremus. Vitata igitur sermonis prolixitate, opus institutum aggrediamur.]

Huiusmodi autem tractatus cum bipartito distribuatur: et in praecautionem, ne lateant nos a principio venena, aut si forte clam data fuerint, ne noceant; et in doctrinam de auxiliis iis, qui voraverint, afferendis: protinus praecipiam de praecavendi modo, quem quidem esse difficilem prisci rati sunt, propterea quod, qui venenis clam insidiantur, tam dolose ea praeparant, ut peritissimum quemque decipere possint. Siquidem exitialia venena permistis dulcibus amaritudine sua spoliant, et graveolentiam mixtura aromatum eximunt, aut remediis, quae utiliter adhiberi, praesertim in adversa valetudine, creduntur, exemplis absinthii, tragorigani, hyssopi, satureiae, thymi quoque et origani, abrotani, iridis aut ca-