He was a popular writer, as is proved by the fact that in the sixth century his works were text-books on medicine in the Benedictine monasteries. He has well described gout and hydrophobia, and, according to Baas, was the inventor of condensed milk (!). Even auscultation is hinted at in his works, and he recommends the air of pine forests in chest diseases. His suggestions for the treatment of nervous and insane patients were far in advance of his age, as he disapproves of restraint.[472] GREEK AND ROMAN PHARMACY. It is very difficult to decide with certainty what the ancients actually intended by the names they gave their medicines. Exact as Hippocrates and Galen usually are in their terminology, we are often at a loss to know precisely what was the nature of the remedies they employed. Alum, for example, as we understand it, is a very different thing from the alum of the ancients. What the Greeks and Romans called _alumen_ and στυπτηρία, says Beckmann, was vitriol, or rather a kind of vitriolic earth. They were very deficient in the knowledge of saline substances. Hemlock, which is called also _Conium_, Κώνειον, or _Cicuta_, was probably not the poison employed at Athenian executions. Pliny says that the word _Cicuta_ did not indicate any particular species of plant, but was used for vegetable poisons in general. Dr. Mead[473] considers that the Athenian poison was a combination of deadly drugs; it killed without pain, and probably opium was combined with the hemlock.[474] Hellebore was of two kinds, white and black, or _Veratrum album_ and _Helleborus niger_ respectively. Galen says we are always to understand veratrum when the word Ἑλλέβορος is used alone. White hellebore was used by the Greeks, says Stillé,[475] in the treatment of chronic diseases, especially melancholy, insanity, dropsy, skin diseases, gout, tetanus, hydrophobia, tic doloureux, etc. It was mixed with other drugs to moderate the violence of its action. It fell into disuse, and is now hardly ever employed internally. It is an exceedingly dangerous drug, and was doubtless used on the “kill or cure” principle. Black hellebore was given as a purgative. Healthy people took the white variety to clear and sharpen their faculties. It fell into disuse about the fifth century after Christ. A very celebrated medicine in popular use even in modern times was _Theriaca_. Galen says that the term was properly applied to such medicines as would cure the bite of wild beasts (θηρίων), as those which were antidotes to other poisons (τοῖς δηλητηρίυις) were properly called ἀλεξιφάρμακα.[476]