COMMENTARY. We have treated pretty fully of this article in another place (Vol. II, 233.) It is the sulphate of lime, of which selenite or the foliated sulphate of lime is a sub-species. In the shops, when pulverized, it is known by the names of mineral white and stucco. Dioscorides merely says of its medicinal powers, that it is styptic and emplastic, and restrains bleeding and sweats. Galen is somewhat fuller in his account of it, recommending it, with the fine flour of wheat, which is found sticking about the walls of mills, and the down of a hare, for stopping bleeding. Aëtius and our author copy closely from Galen. Serapion borrows both from Dioscorides and Galen (c. 379.) Avicenna recommends it with Armenian bole, lentils, myrtle-water, and some vinegar, as an application to the forehead in bleeding from the nose. (ii, 2, 284.) Rhases copies verbatim from Galen, Dioscorides, and our author. (Cont. l. ult. i, 235.) Averrhoes recommends it in the manner described above from Galen as a styptic. (Collig. v, 43.) Celsus prescribes it for stopping colliquative sweating in cardiac disease (iii, 19.) Δάδες, Tedæ, _Dead Pines_, have certain acrid, concoctive, and detergent powers. Hence boiled in vinegar they cure toothache when the mouth is rinsed with the vinegar; but if a little honey is added, they bring away phlegm. When made into a linctus they promote the discharges from the breast. * * * * * COMMENTARY. This term properly signifies a small torch used in performing lustrations, but here it is used for a small slip taken from a pine-tree. The tree from which the _tedæ_ were taken was the _Pinus Cembro_; this Matthiolus, Harduin, and our old herbalists have clearly made out. See in particular Parkinson (p. 1537.) Gerard calls it by the English name of torch-pine, and, evidently copying from Dioscorides, adds, “the torch-pine, cut into small pieces and boiled in vinegar, is a remedy against the toothache, if the teeth be washed with the decoction.” (p. 1361.) The other authorities treat of it in general terms, under the head of Pinus. Δαμασκηνά, Damascena, _Damascenes_, will be treated of with Plums. Δαμασσώνιον, Damasonium, _Water-plantain_, has certain detergent powers, and proves lithontriptic, and occasions a metastasis of the contents of the intestinal canal to the urine. * * * * *