GALEN ON ANTIDOTES

BOOK 1

Edition Chartier Vol. 13 [867.] Basel Edition Vol. 2 (424.)

Bitumen asphaltos: a natural mineral pitch used in ancient medicine for its drying and warming properties cannot be craftily adulterated, just as the fruit of the balsam tree opobalsamum: the precious sap or juice of the balsam tree or its wood xylobalsamum: the twigs or wood of the balsam tree, considered less potent than the sap cannot. I even sailed to Lemnos An island in the northern Aegean Sea famous for its medicinal clay.—as the gods know—for no other cause than for the Lemnian earth, whether one wishes to call it "earth" or "the seal" sphragis: literally a seal or signet; the clay was formed into lozenges and stamped with a seal, usually depicting a goat, to prove its authenticity. I have written about this substance sufficiently in the ninth book of my work On the Power of Simple Medicines.

Whether you wish to call it Lemnian earth or the "seal," they produce counterfeits of it so skillfully that no one can distinguish the true substance from the fake. It is the same with the so-called Indian Lycium lykion: a medicinal extract used for eye and skin ailments, traditionally derived from a shrub in the genus Rhamnus or Berberis and many other substances which are extremely difficult to distinguish from their adulterated versions.

One should gather these materials from people traveling to those specific regions, such as the imperial procurators epitropoi: Roman officials who managed the Emperor's financial affairs in the provinces or senators who have governed the territory. Alternatively, one can obtain them from friends residing in those places, just as you have seen me doing. Some items are brought to me from Greater Syria, others from Palestine, others from Egypt, and some from Cappadocia. I receive others from Pontus A region on the southern coast of the Black Sea., just as I do from Macedonia and the western regions where the Celts and Iberians original: "Κελτοὶ καὶ Ἴβη[ρες]" (Keltoi kai Iberes); the Latin translates these as "Galli et Hispani," the inhabitants of modern-day France and Spain. live...