The best variety of alum seems, in ancient times, to have come from the island of Melos; and, according to Pliny, this drug was consequently termed _Melinum_. It was believed to be useful in discussing granulations of the eyes (oculorum scabritias extenuat).[471] Hence Saxe (p. 29) and Tochon (p. 18) have conjectured that the alum or _Melinum_ of Pliny was the _Melinum_ which has been found inscribed on several oculist-stamps. But again, the same objection holds,—namely, that in none of the collyria _Melina_ of Galen was alum a component ingredient. In his observations, however, upon the different forms of emplastra (and many of which were named _Melina_), Galen gives a sufficient explanation of the origin of this term as it was applied to plasters; and the same holds, no doubt, also in reference to its application to collyria. According to his own explanation, it was a term significant merely of the colour of the resulting medicament, like the green, brown, etc., plasters and collyria, named _chloron_, _cirrhon_, etc. etc. Gesner, Cooper, and other philologists, lay down _Melinum_ as an adjective, meaning yellow. And perhaps the term was originally derived from the yellow colour of the quince or μῆλον, in the same way as the _citrine_ (_Unguentum Citrinum_), which is still common in modern pharmaceutical language, was a term originally derived from the yellow colour of the _citron_ (κιτριον) or lemon, and was applied to designate ointments, etc., of that special tint. In further proof of this origin and signification of the term _Melinum_, I may add, that, in mixing together the ingredients contained in the _collyrium melinum delicatum_ of Galen (vol. xii. p. 769), I find that a yellow or orange-coloured fluid is the result. The yellowish tint of the _emplastra melina_ was, as Galen tells us, generally, but not always, derived from their containing verdigris, altered by a moderate boiling with the other component ingredients.[472] The collyria _Melina_ of Galen contain ceruse and calamine in their composition. The _Melinum_ is professed, in Murranus’ stamp, to be efficacious for the clearing of the eyesight (ad claritatem). The _Melina_ collyria of Galen are all alleged by him to have effects conducive to this object—viz. the removing of cicatrices and calli, and every weakness of vision (omnem hebetudinem visus). 2. Q. JULII MURRANI STAGIUM (STACTUM) OPOBALSAMAT_um_ AD CAP (CAL_igines_).—_Q. Julius Murranus’s Opobalsamic Stactum, or Opobalsamic Eye-drops, for dimness or blindness._ Mr. Chishull read _Stagium_ instead of _Stactum_, the CT of the latter word having been mistaken by him for GI. Mr. Forster showed to the London Antiquarian Society,[473] in 1767, a plaster-cast of what was doubtlessly this same Colchester stamp, and gave the reading correctly in the second inscription as Stactum.