GALEN ON THE MIXTURES AND POWERS OF SIMPLE MEDICINES

Chartier Edition XIII. [187.]

Basel Edition II. (89.)

...it has the power to kill a living fetus when applied and to expel a dead one. It acts similarly upon the semen itself during intercourse when smeared upon the genitals. For this reason, it is a contraceptive medicine second to none when used in this way, and it performs many other such specific actions.

There is certainly proof of its intense heating power when it is dropped into the cavities of the teeth. It eases the pain, but it also shatters the teeth themselves original: "θραύει δ’ αὐτούς" (thrauei d' autous). Galen suggests that the chemical potency of the resin is so strong it can cause the tooth structure to crumble.. It also thins out scars in the eyes and heals dimness of vision caused by the thickness of humors humors: the four vital fluids (blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile) that Galenic medicine believed governed health.

The most fatty and purely oily part of the resin is collected using wool suspended over it while it boils. This refined version is thinner in consistency than the whole cedar resin original: "κεδρέα" (kedrea); Latin: "cedrea". It is less biting, though it is no less heating. It has the same relationship to the remaining, thicker part of the cedar resin as olive oil has to its dregs dregs: "amurca" (Latin) or "amorgē" (Greek), the watery, bitter liquid that settles out of unfiltered olive oil.

Therefore, the thicker part is biting and possesses a significant ability to open the pores because of its density. For this reason, it irritates ulcers and causes inflammation in them. However, the oily cedar resin is so gentle in its power that, as common people have learned from experience, the...