“I have used (he writes me) the Indian Lykion in a considerable number of cases of eye-disease. The affections in which I found it most useful were those of the conjunctiva, such as the simple, catarrhal, and pustular forms of inflammation. In them its action was well marked and beneficial, the disease generally subsiding in a day or two; sooner perhaps than it would have done under the ordinary treatment. I have had no opportunity of trying it in purulent ophthalmia; but I believe that in it also it would prove of service. Cases of slight rheumatic and catarrho-rheumatic inflammations have been benefited, but not cured, by it alone. In some affections of the eyelids, as ophthalmia tarsi and chronic ophthalmia, it did good; but such cases often get well with very little treatment. I applied it to the eyelids in the form of a paste, with opium and burnt alum, as recommended by Dr. Wise. This was repeated two or three times a day. The patients generally complained of a burning and smarting of the lids after its application, similar to what is produced by a mustard blister.” The four ancient Greek vases, mentioned in the preceding notice as inscribed with the name of the drug _Lykion_ or _Lycium_, are each of very small dimensions, the Plate representing all of them of their original sizes and forms. They are small, in consequence, in all probability, of the foreign drug which they contained being difficult to procure in large quantities, and being hence an article of high price in the markets of Greece and Italy. The value set upon the contained drug would seem to be indicated by another circumstance—namely, by the shape of the interior of the vases. In the specimens described by Millin and Tochon, the cavity of the jars is narrow and conical from above downwards, the mouth being wide, and the interior becoming more and more tapering and contracted as it descends downwards. The section of the interior of the vase of Tochon, given in Plate, Fig. 6, represents this peculiar and deceitful form of the cavity. In consequence of this peculiarity in their form, these jars contained, in fact, much less of the Lykion than their mere external appearance indicated. This remark, at least, holds true of the two vases from Tarentum bearing the name of _Jason_. The vase of _Museus_ from Athens, belonging to the British Museum, appears more honest at least in its construction. The high price of the pure Lykion probably led also to the fact mentioned specially by Dioscorides (lib. i. cap. 133), Pliny (lib. xxiv. cap. 14), and Serapion (lib. ii. cap. 398), of the frequent adulteration of the drug. And, perhaps, as in similar inscriptions on some modern medicine-nostrums and packets, the names of the preparer or vendor, _Jason_, _Heracleus_, and _Museus_, stamped on the vases, were added in attestation of the purity and unadulterated character of the drug which these vases contained. [Illustration: Fig. I., Fig. II. ROMAN INSCRIPTIONS TO MEDICAL OFFICERS.]