The medicine mentioned in the preceding inscriptions, the LYCIUM or ΛΥΚΙΟΝ, was a drug which enjoyed much favour among the ancients; and it was supposed to be possessed of great medical value and virtues. It was used principally as an astringent remedy to restrain inflammatory and other discharges. Dioscorides, Galen, Oribasius, and Paulus Ægineta, dilate upon the medicinal properties of the Lycium. Dioscorides recommends it as an astringent for the cure of various complaints, as obscurities of the cornea, psoriasis, and pruritus of the eyelids, purulent ears and tonsils, ulcers of the gums, chapped lips, fissure of the anus; in cæliac and dysenteric affections, both in draughts and clysters; in hæmoptysis and coughs; in female fluxes, hydrophobia, and so forth. The Indian variety, he states, cures inflammation of the spleen and jaundice, prevents menstruation, purges water, and is a counter-agent to deadly poisons. (Dr. Adam’s Trans. of _Paulus Ægineta_, vol. iii. p. 234.) Two varieties of Lycium were in use—one obtained from Lycia and Cappadocia, etc., and the other from India. The latter was regarded as by far the most valuable. Thus, when treating of the two varieties of Lycium, Galen mentions the Indian as the most powerful for all purposes—τὸ Ἰνδικὸν ἰσχῦρότερόν ἐστιν εἰς ἅπαν. (_De Simp. Medicam._ lib. vii. 64.) Such late writers as Paulus Ægineta, Ætius, etc., allude also to the superior value of the Indian variety. For instance, in Roxarius’ edition of _Oribasius_ it is stated that the Indian Lykion “præstat ceteris et est efficacius.” (_Medicin. Collect._ lib. xi.) Avicenna, the celebrated Arabian physician, who gives a long account of the medical uses, etc., of Lykion, remarks, “Magis vincens, secundum existimationem, est quod Indicum est,” etc.; and he compares its properties with that from Mecca. (_Canon Medicinæ_, Lib. ii. cap. 398.) Of all the uses to which the Lycium was applied in medicine, by far the most important was the employment of this drug, and particularly of the Indian variety, as a collyrium or local application to the eye, in the treatment of different varieties and forms of ophthalmic inflammation. Thus Scribonius Largus, the reputed body physician to the Emperor Claudius, and one of the most original among the ancient medical writers, declares that “he attributes to no collyrium whatever such great efficacy as to the genuine _Indian Lycium_ used by itself. For if,” says he, “near the commencement of ophthalmia, any one anoints himself with this collyrium, he will immediately—that is, on the same day—be freed from present pain and future swelling. It is unnecessary (he adds) to dilate on its virtues, for a person experienced only in other collyria would scarcely credit the effects of this simple drug.” (_De Composit. Medicamentorum_, cap. 3.) Marcellus lauds its power in nearly the same words. (_De Medicam. Lib._ cap. 8.)