COMMENTARY. The ancient Litharge was nowise different from the modern, being a secondary product in the cupellation of argentiferous lead. It was, therefore, a protoxide of lead. The varieties of it known to the ancients, and their modes of preparing it, are circumstantially described by Pliny (H. N. xxxiii, 35), Dioscorides (v, 72), and Oribasius (Med. Collect. xiii.) It was used by the Hippocratists in the practice of medicine. (De Morb. Mulier. ii.) It is the “Spuma Argenti” of Celsus, who notices it in various parts of his works as a cooling and cleansing medicine. (v, 290.) Dioscorides merely says of it, that washed litharge seems to suit ophthalmic remedies, unseemly cicatrices, wrinkled faces, and maculæ. (v, 102.) Our author condenses what Galen says under this head. The Arabian authorities treat of it fully, but supply little or no additional information respecting it. See Serapion (De Simpl. 410); Avicenna (ii, 2, 460); Averrhoes (Collig. v, 43); Rhases (Cont. l. ult. i, 428.) They recommend it generally as an astringent in fetor of the armpits, to restrain copious perspiration, to dispel extravasated blood, and remove unseemly cicatrices, and especially the marks of variolæ and morbilli. It does not appear that any of the physicians administered it internally; but Avicenna mentions that he had known women give it in fluxes and ulceration of the intestines. Ebn Baithar is very full on this head (ii, 513.) One of his Arabian authorities, Ibn Ben Amram, recommends it in diarrhœa, as a clyster to stop the discharge; and mixed up with vinegar and rose-oil, it is said to be useful in congenital hernia and other complaints about the scrotum. Λίθοι,