Chapter XIV: Section V: Stamp No. Iv.—found at Colchester

The first Roman medicine-stamp discovered in Great Britain was described about a hundred and thirty years ago by Mr. Chishull in the learned “Dissertatio De Nummo ϹΚωΠΙ,” which he addressed to Haym, and which this last-mentioned author has published in the preface to his second volume of the _Tesoro Brittanico_.

The stamp had been found some years previously at Colchester, a well-known and extensive Roman colonial station. Mr. Chishull believed it to have belonged to some old Roman Iatraliptes, or curer by ointments.[467] The following is a copy of the inscription on this Colchester stamp, as given by Chishull:—

1. QIULMURRANIMELI
NUMADCLARITATEM.

2. QIULMURRANISTAGIU
MOPOBALSAMATADCAP.

And Mr. Chishull interpreted these inscriptions thus:—“Quinti Julii Murranii Melinum, sive ex malis cotoneis oleum, ad claritatem oculorum faciens. Iterumque, Quinti Julii Murranii stagium opobalsamatum, sive myrrhæ oleum opobalsamo permixtum, ad cap. _i.e._, ad caput medicandum utile.”

In this interpretation, Mr. Chishull seems to have fallen into more than one important error, as we shall endeavour to show by considering the two inscriptions in detail.

1. Q. JULII MURRANI MELINUM AD CLARITATEM.—_The Melinum of Q. (Quintus?) Julius Murranus, for clearness of vision._

Two or three varieties of the collyrium _Melinum_ are given by Galen.[468] Thus, in his list of collyria he gives formulæ for the _Melinum_ of Lucius; for the _Melinum atarachum_ (_i.e._ against the taraxis); and for a _Melinum delicatum_, fitted for those who could not bear the irritation of any powerful medicament.

Different opinions have been expressed in relation to the origin and signification of the term _Melinum_. Walch,[469] like Chishull, derives the term from “malum” (μῆλον), an apple, supposing it to be the principal ingredient in the collyrium. And certainly Pliny and Paulus Ægineta speak of an oil termed _melinum_,[470] being made from the quince (Malum Cydoneum); and the flower of the plant is described by Pliny as useful in inflammation of the eyes. But no “malum” enters into the composition of any of the three _Melina_ collyria, which I have referred to in Galen.

The best variety of alum seems, in ancient times, to have come from the island of Melos; and, according to Pliny, this drug was consequently termed _Melinum_. It was believed to be useful in discussing granulations of the eyes (oculorum scabritias extenuat).[471] Hence Saxe (p. 29) and Tochon (p. 18) have conjectured that the alum or _Melinum_ of Pliny was the _Melinum_ which has been found inscribed on several oculist-stamps. But again, the same objection holds,—namely, that in none of the collyria _Melina_ of Galen was alum a component ingredient.

In his observations, however, upon the different forms of emplastra (and many of which were named _Melina_), Galen gives a sufficient explanation of the origin of this term as it was applied to plasters; and the same holds, no doubt, also in reference to its application to collyria. According to his own explanation, it was a term significant merely of the colour of the resulting medicament, like the green, brown, etc., plasters and collyria, named _chloron_, _cirrhon_, etc. etc. Gesner, Cooper, and other philologists, lay down _Melinum_ as an adjective, meaning yellow. And perhaps the term was originally derived from the yellow colour of the quince or μῆλον, in the same way as the _citrine_ (_Unguentum Citrinum_), which is still common in modern pharmaceutical language, was a term originally derived from the yellow colour of the _citron_ (κιτριον) or lemon, and was applied to designate ointments, etc., of that special tint. In further proof of this origin and signification of the term _Melinum_, I may add, that, in mixing together the ingredients contained in the _collyrium melinum delicatum_ of Galen (vol. xii. p. 769), I find that a yellow or orange-coloured fluid is the result. The yellowish tint of the _emplastra melina_ was, as Galen tells us, generally, but not always, derived from their containing verdigris, altered by a moderate boiling with the other component ingredients.[472] The collyria _Melina_ of Galen contain ceruse and calamine in their composition.

The _Melinum_ is professed, in Murranus’ stamp, to be efficacious for the clearing of the eyesight (ad claritatem). The _Melina_ collyria of Galen are all alleged by him to have effects conducive to this object—viz. the removing of cicatrices and calli, and every weakness of vision (omnem hebetudinem visus).

2. Q. JULII MURRANI STAGIUM (STACTUM) OPOBALSAMAT_um_ AD CAP (CAL_igines_).—_Q. Julius Murranus’s Opobalsamic Stactum, or Opobalsamic Eye-drops, for dimness or blindness._

Mr. Chishull read _Stagium_ instead of _Stactum_, the CT of the latter word having been mistaken by him for GI. Mr. Forster showed to the London Antiquarian Society,[473] in 1767, a plaster-cast of what was doubtlessly this same Colchester stamp, and gave the reading correctly in the second inscription as Stactum.

The Latin designation _Stactum_, analogous to the Greek terms _Stacton_, _Enstacton_, and derived from the verb σταζω (I drop), denoted any liquid collyrium, applied by drops into the eye—“collyria enstacta, hoc est, instillatitia, appellata.”[474]

A collyrium, with the appellation _Stactum_ or _Staticon_, is described by Marcellus,[475] Myrepsus,[476] Paulus Ægineta,[477] etc.; and Aetius[478] gives a chapter of collyria under this designation. In this chapter Aetius describes five collyria _Stactica_; and, of these, four contain the Opobalsam[479] as an ingredient, showing the origin and propriety of the term _Opobalsamatum_ in the inscription on the seal.

Chishull read the last three letters of the inscription CAP, and thought that the oil was serviceable for head diseases. But if the inscription is not really CAL, the P has in all probability been substituted by an error of the engraver for L (CAL), an abbreviation for Caligines. In confirmation of this opinion, I may remark that the same inscription occurs at greater length on an oculist-stamp found at Daspich in France; and in it the _Stactum Opobalsamatum_ is professed to remove _Caligines_.[480] There is, indeed, little doubt but that Murranus of Colchester vended, of old, his Opobalsamic Eye-drops for the same alleged purpose. This quality of “visum acuens” is attributed to two out of the four forms of Opobalsamic Eye-drops mentioned by Aetius. And the _Stactum_ is (according at least to the testimony of Myrepsus) “ad acumen visus mirabile admodum.”—P. 660.