[505] This form of Greek designation, consisting of the name of the principal ingredients in a formula, preceded by the initial DIA, was long retained in pharmaceutical nomenclature. The London Pharmacopœia of 1677, for instance, has upwards of twenty medicines or formulæ commencing with DIA, as the _Pulvis Diasennæ_, the _Electuarium Diacinnamomum_, the syrup named _Diacodium_, etc. Almost the only remnant of this type of nomenclature that is retained in modern medical language, is to be found in the well-known term _Diachylon_ plaster. The inventor of the _Diachylon_ plaster—Menecrates—lived about the time of Tiberius, and, according to the inscription still preserved at Rome upon his marble tombstone (See Gruter’s _Inscriptiones_, p. 581), he was the author of not less than 155 medical works, few or no fragments of which remain. His plaster has greatly outlived the productions of his pen. The medical poet, Damocrates, who wrote several pharmaceutical works, put Menecrates’ directions for preparing the _Diachylon_ into Greek Iambic verse.—See Galen _de Compos. Medicam. sec. Genera_, vol. xiii. p. 996. [506] _Opera_, lib. i. cap. 77, p. 43. See, also, on its properties, Galen’s _Works_, by Kühn, vol. xii. p. 127; Adams’ _Paulus Ægineta_, vol. iii. p. 349. [507] _Tetrabiblos_, Sermo iii. cap. cix. p. 429. [508] _De Methodo Medendi_, lib. vi. cap. v. p. 310. [509] Dr. Adams’ _Paulus Ægineta_, vol. i. p. 417. [510] Kühn’s Edition, vol. xii. p. 774. [511] _Ibid._ p. 746. [512] _Ibid._ p. 257. [513] _Ibid._ vol. vi. p. 876. [514] Mackenzie. _Treatise on Diseases of the Eye_ (1830), pp. 140 and 141. [515] Frankincense, saffron, and myrrh, form, as we have seen, prominent ingredients in the ancient collyria. Actuarius lays down the differences among the therapeutical effects of these three eye-medicines, with the following rare subtlety:—“_Crocus_ et _Myrrha_ hoc inter se dissident, quod ille moderate adstringat, hæc vero citra adstrictionem non instrenue discutiat, humiditatesque exsiccet: suntque generosiora facultatibus quam _Thus_, quapropter etiam discutiunt magis, verum quod detergendi vi careant: in ulcerum curatione thuri ceu inferiora cedunt.”—_De Methodo Medendi_, lib. vi. cap. v. p. 305. [516] Kühn’s Edit. vol. xii. p. 60. [517] Dr. Adams’ Edit. vol. iii. p. 217. [518] _Medicinalium Collect._ lib. xi. p. 425. [519] _De Arte Medica_, lib. ii. p. 173. [520] Milligan’s Edit. of _Celsus_, p. 290, lib. vi. 13. [521] See the Aldine Greek edition of his works, p. 118. [522] _De Medicamentis Liber_, cap. viii. p. 280. [523] _De Methodo Medendi_, lib. vi. p. 93. _Tochon_, p. 32. [524] _Recueil de Monuments Antiques_, tom. i. p. 281. [525] _Cinq Cachets Inedits des Oculistes_, p. 13. [526] _Bottin: Melanges d’Archæologie_, p. 114. [527] _Observations sur les Cachets_, p. 41.