COMMENTARY. Under this head we cannot do better than in the first place copy the account of the ancient cadmia given by the learned and accurate Geoffroy. “The name _Cadmia_ has been applied to several things. Dioscorides understood by καδμέια the recrements which arise from brass while melting in the furnace. Galen applied it to two substances, one which comes from brass (chalcos?), which is the same with the cadmia of Dioscorides; the other a native substance found in the island of Cyprus, which he terms λιθῶδης or stony. Pliny, besides the factitious cadmia of Dioscorides and Galen, mentions another by the name of _Lapis ærosus_, which he says was an ore out of which copper was made, and this perhaps is the same with the _Cadmia lapidosa_ of Galen.” (ii, 2, 6.) The botryital or clustered cadmia was Tutty, or the _Cadmia fornacis_ seu _factitia_. It is the _Zinci Oxydum impurum_. The _Capnitis_ and _Placitis_ were merely varieties of the same, the former being in the shape of a fine powder, collected at the mouths of the furnaces, and the latter consisting of coarser and heavier grains. The minerals from which all these preparations of cadmia were prepared, are the two varieties of calamine, now called by mineralogists “the siliceous oxide of zinc” and “the carbonate of zinc.” See Cleavland’s ‘Mineralogy’ (656, 657.) Dioscorides gives a very distinct description of the cadmia, which he recommends principally in the composition of ophthalmic remedies (v, 84.) Galen’s account of it is to the same effect, and is couched in his peculiar logical language. (De Simpl. ix.) The Arabians give a confused description of cadmia and the other mineral substances used by the Greeks in medical practice. See Avicenna (ii, 2, 163, 164); Serapion (418); Rhases (Cont. l. ult. i, 150.) For an elaborate disquisition on the _cadmia_ of the ancients, we beg to refer to Beckmann’s ‘History of Inventions.’ Κακκαλία, Caccalia; its powers and use are like the Cacanus. * * * * * COMMENTARY. See under _Cacanus_. Καλαμαγρώστις, Calamagrostis, is desiccative; wherefore, its juice and the decoction of the roots of it are mixed up as ingredients with ophthalmic remedies; but its seed is diuretic and stomachic. * * * * * COMMENTARY. This is decidedly the _Calamagrostis Epigeios_ Roth. or Small Reed. Dioscorides says it proves destructive to cattle when eaten by them, especially the variety which grows in Babylon by the wayside. Parkinson (Theatre of Plants, 1181) figures and describes a species of reed-grass, bearing a considerable resemblance to our _Epigeios_, but of more luxuriant growth; which, he says, Lobel calls _Calamagrostis forte Babylonica_. Neither Galen nor Aëtius treat of it. The Arabians briefly notice it under the head of _Theil_ or Gramen, but merely copy from the Greeks. See Serapion (De Simpl. 119), and Avicenna (ii, 2, 704.) Καλαμίνθη,