The gum obtained from the cherry-tree[1276] was administered in wine and water to promote appetite. A dose of saffron and boiled wine restored the tone of the stomach after excess at table. Asses’ milk was habitually given to consumptive patients, connected with which practice there is an apothegm of Demosthenes, which may be worth repeating. When he was once exerting himself to prevail on some foreign state to ally itself with Athens, an orator in opposition observed, that the Athenians were like asses’ milk, whose presence always indicated sickness in the places they visited. “It is true,” replied Demosthenes, “but the sickness previously exists, and they come to cure it.” A mixture of salt and water, to which the Egyptians added the juice of the radish,[1277] constituted a very common emetic. Opium was in general use even so early, apparently, as the age of Homer,[1278] who seems to have celebrated it under the name of nepenthè. The Spartan soldiers appear to have made considerable use of the poppy-head;[1279] but whether for the same purpose as the Rajpoots of modern India, I do not pretend to determine. Persons desirous of obtaining frightful and dismal dreams[1280] could always gratify their wishes by eating leaks or lentils, or the seeds of the great bind-weed,[1281] mixed with dorycnion. We may mention by the way, that the ancients understood well the doctrine of the circulation of the blood.[1282] ----- Footnote 1276: Dioscor. i. 157. Footnote 1277: Συρμαία, Poll. i. 247. Footnote 1278: Odyss. δ. 221. Plin. Nat. Hist. xxi. 21. Dutens, p. 183. From a passage in Herodotus there seems reason to suspect, that certain Asiatic nations were already in his time acquainted with the inebriating effects of opium smoke. For, describing the inhabitants of the larger islands found in the Araxes, he relates that they were accustomed to gather together round a fire, and casting the fruit of some unknown tree into the flames to inhale with delight the smoke and effluvia emitted by it, until they experienced all the delight and madness of intoxication, which impelled them to leap about, and dance and sing. i. 202. Among the Scythians, moreover, we find in the same author distinct traces of the use of beng, or hemp-seed. iv. 75. Footnote 1279: Thucyd. iv. 26. Celsus, ii. 32. Dioscor. iv. 65. Footnote 1280: Dioscor. ii. 129. 179. Footnote 1281: Σμίλαξ λεία. Dioscor. iv. 145. Footnote 1282: Poll. ii. 46. 214. 216. Plat. Tim. t. vii p. 19, seq. 89, seq. 98. ----- CHAPTER VII. INDUSTRY: WEAVERS, GLOVERS, SOCK-MAKERS, CORDWAINERS, TANNERS, HATTERS, DYERS OF PURPLE, ETC., FISHERMEN.