athletes, which, “compounded with oil, is of an emollient, calorific, and expletive nature.” If any lady desire to cultivate an interesting and pallid appearance, she ought to imitate Drusus, who drank goats’ blood to make it appear that his enemy Cassius had poisoned him. For melancholy (an affection which seems to have given great concern to the old doctors), Dioscorides recommends black hellebore held in the mouth,--certainly a recipe on homœopathic principles, since a mouthful of hellebore would scarcely naturally serve, like the Psalmist’s wine and oil, either to make glad the heart of man or to give him a cheerful countenance. A better remedy for the same melancholy is “broth of old cock,” our Scotch friend cockaleekie. For some unexplained reason, two only among the ills to which flesh is heir, and they among the most serious,--frenzy and inflammation of the stomach,--seem to have escaped from the dread _régime_ of Sacrificial Medicine, and indeed are treated with surprising lenity. Dioscorides thinks that frenzy can be cured by asparagus and white wine, and considers that the patient suffering from gastritis should have a plaster of roses applied to the seat of his disease! Besides the “exhibition” of nauseous and revolting draughts, boluses, and pills, the system of Sacrificial Medicine has at all times commanded many other ingenious resources for the creation of unnecessary pain, trouble, and annoyance to sick persons and their friends. If, for example, a stiff-necked patient were unmanageable in the matter of some particularly disagreeable dose, he might still be induced to go on vexing nature by some out-of-the-way diet, and potions repeated at stated intervals, till faith or life succumbed in the struggle. One old physician, Ætius, in this way prescribed for the gout a separate dietary for every month of a whole year. Another, the great Alexander of Tralles, ordained three hundred and sixty-five potions, so arranged as to furnish out a course for two years; whereupon Dr. Friend, the learned author of the _History of Physick_, remarks that “his receipts were as good as any of those which our new pretenders to physick make use of,” but adds the discouraging dictum, “After all, gout is a distemper with which it were best not to tamper.”