Chapter XVII: Section VIII

STAMP NO. VII.—CONTAINED IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM.

In his paper in the _Archæologia_ (vol. ix.), Mr. Gough published a sketch and account of a medicine-stamp, inscribed on three of its sides, and remarkable in one or two respects. The sketch which he has given of it is copied into Plate II., No. VII. The stamp itself is preserved in the British Museum. It is thicker, and more rounded at the edges, than the generality of these flat medicine-stones.

After quoting the three inscriptions on its sides, Mr. Gough gives the following very brief and unsatisfactory account of the reading of this stamp. “From the inscriptions,” he observes, “we learn that the owner’s name was FL., or FLAVIUS SECUNDUS, and that his composition was made of Opobalsamum and Myrrh, and the white of eggs.”[535]

Mr. Gough pointed out that the third side of the stamp was engraved in letters of a rude and negligent form, and different in character from the inscriptions on the two other sides. But he failed in seeing that the remaining sides are both imperfect; and that the latter half of one of the inscriptions, and the first half of the other, are deficient, in consequence of the stone, which was at first much larger, having been broken or reduced in size, and subsequently again rubbed down and smoothed on two of its sides before one of these sides was cut with the rude lettering above alluded to. When these circumstances are attended to, the inscriptions on the three sides appear to stand as follows:—

1. LJULIVENISD . . . . .
OPOBALSAMTU . . . . .

2. . . . . . . ASMVRNESBIS
. . . . . . MPETUEXOVO

3. FSEKUNDI
ATALBAS.

The name of the proprietor is evidently L. JUL. IVENIS [L(_ucius?_) _Jul(ius) Ivenis_]; and I may remark in passing, that the cognomen of IVENIS is one which has been found recurring among the Roman pottery-stamps found in England.

It is impossible to fill in, with anything like precision and certainty, the defective words in the two first inscriptions. But judging from the analogy of other similar and more perfect stamps, these two inscriptions probably read somewhat as follows when the seal was entire.

1. L. JUL. IVENIS D_iapsoricum_ OPOBALSAM_a_TU_m_ _ad Claritatem_.—_L. Jul. Ivenis’ Opobalsamic Diapsoricum for clearing of the sight._

The adjective, OPOBALSAMATUM, has hitherto been generally found united upon medicine-stamps with one of two collyria—viz. with _Stacticum_ (as in seal No. IV.); or with _Diapsoricum_, as in seals found at Jena and Lyons. The D preserved in the first line is, in all probability, the initial letter of the latter collyrium.

The _Psoricum_ was a mixture of cadmia and chalcitis, according to Dioscorides, Pliny, and Celsus;[536] or of litharge and chalcitis, according to Galen, Aetius, and Paulus Ægineta.[537] This metallic compound derived its name of _Psoricum_ from its supposed utility in the treatment of parts affected with the eruption of scabies or _psora_. The eyelids, according to the ancient oculists, were the occasional seat of eruptive or pruriginous inflammation (_psorophthalmia_, _scabrities_, _prurigo_, etc.) In enumerating the diseases of the lining membrane of the palpebræ, Galen mentions, among others, _sycosis_, _chalazosis_, and _psoriasis_.[538] Various collyria employed for the removal of these affections were termed _Psorica_, and most of them, though not all, contained the metallic compound alluded to. “Quae scabros in palpebris affectus persanant, atque ob id _Psorica_ appellantur.”[539] When speaking of the specific affections of the eyes and their appropriate local applications, Actuarius, in the same way, remarks, “Quae scabiosis palpebrarum affectionibus medentur, id circo _Psorica_ appellantur.”[540] He gives (p. 307) formulæ for various forms of the _Collyrium Psoricum_; as the _Psoricum aridum_, the _Psoricum Aelii_, etc. Aetius recommends the collyrium _Psoricum_ against “scabros ac corrosos angulos, et intensos pruritus, milphoses et prurigines.”[541] Scribonius Largus describes the composition of a collyrium _Psoricum_ made from the metallic compound of the same name (facit hoc collyrium bene quod _psoricum_ dicitur), and fitted to remove blindness, granulations, and xero-ophthalmia.[542] Marcellus Empiricus credulously invests the collyrium _Psoricum_ with signal powers for various eye-diseases, but particularly for old-standing blindness (antiquam coecitatem). For if (says he) we may credit the experience of the author of the remedy, it has, at the end of twenty days, restored sight to a person who had been blind for twelve years (nam ut auctori hujus remedii de experimento credamus, duodecim annorum coeco intra dies viginti visum restituisse se dicit).[543]

On the Jena medicine-stamp the _Diapsoricum Opobalsamatum_ is entered as efficacious for the clearing of the sight (ad claritatem);[544] and in the proposed restoration of the reading of the present English stamp, I have added to it the same therapeutic indication, as one not unlikely to have originally filled up the part that is now deficient in this line of the stamp.

2. _L. Jul. Ivenis Di_ASMYRNES BIS _Lippitudinis i_MPETU EX OVO.—_The myrrh collyrium of L. J. Ivenis, to be used twice a day, mixed with an egg, at the commencement of Ophthalmy._

Already we have considered the composition, etc., of the Collyrium _Diasmyrnes_ (see pp. 267, 268.) It is entered, as efficacious in attacks of Lippitudo, on the medicine-stamps of Jena, Nais, etc. In the Jena stamp it is, as in the present instance, ordered to be used mixed with an egg.[545]

The word BIS denotes, in all probability, the frequency with which it was to be used daily. Occasionally the ancient authors state in the same way in their works the frequency with which a special collyrium was to be used. Thus, for example, Paulus Ægineta, after describing the composition of the brown collyrium (collyrium fuscum), adds that it is to be applied thrice a day (illinitur _ter_ in die ... ex ovo aut lacte, etc.)[546] Indeed when speaking of the variety of collyrium mentioned in the legend on this stamp,—namely, of the “collyria quæ quod ex myrrha constant διασμυρνα vocantur,” Actuarius expressly states that the affected eye is to be annointed with the _Diasmyrnes_ “twice a day (_bis_ in die).”[547]

3. The third side of this medicine-stamp is engraved, as already observed, by a different and far more inexperienced hand than the other two sides. The letters are very roughly and rudely formed. The inscription indicates the name of another oculist,—of one who probably became the possessor of the stamp after IVENIS. The new proprietor’s name is F., or probably FL., SECUNDUS, and the inscription reads, F. SEKUNDI AT ALBAS, _the collyrium_ or _preparation_ of _F. Secundus against Albugines_.

In reading it, I suppose the AT to be a mis-spelling for AD,—a mistake of which there are not wanting other examples in the illiterate and careless engravings sometimes found upon these medicine-stamps.[548] And I have interpreted the ALBAS as signifying _albas cicatrices_ (white cicatrices), or, in other words, _albugines_ of the cornea,—a suggestion for which I am indebted to M. Sichel. Already I have quoted the expression of Aetius to the effect that all cicatrices of the cornea are “_Albæ_;” and the nouns by which such eye-cicatrices are designated, both by the Greek and Roman physicians, namely, λευκωμα and _albugo_, are words derived from, and intended to signify, the white colour (λευκος, _albus_) of these lesions.