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MEDICAL TEACHING IN ROME. IO9
gave students the valuable advice to devote great attention
to the study of the materia medica: "Young students
must see the specimens not once or twice but often. For
it is only by applying oneself with intelligence to these
things" he writes* "and by examining them frequently
that one gets a thorough knowledge of them."
Each drug was provided with a ticket on which its name
and that of its discoverer, the disease it was prescribed for,
the method of using it, and often the name of the patient
were inscribed. Ointments for the eyes which formed
saleable articles of trade, were packed in vessels on
which the seal of the doctor who had prepared
them was impressed. Seals of this kind have been
found in France, England, Germany, and Transylvania,
especially in places where Roman legions had been
encamped. More than 160 different stamps of ophthalmic
surgeons have been described.t The prescriptions were
long and complicated: theriaca for instance consisted of
more than 70 different vegetable and animal products.J
Many of them were disgusting and nauseous, and
GALEN was surprised at the prescriptions of the doctor
XENOKRATES who had even recommended human flesh
" for, of course, it is forbidden in the Roman empire to
devour men."§ On another occasion where mention is
made of a doctor who ordered the country-folk goats-dung,
GALEN made the witty remark that a thing of this kind is
not suitable for refined townsmen ; dung being only useful
to farmers.|| The unthinking public cherished the mistaken'opinion
that the most expensive remedies were also
the most potent for goodl and a rich purse-proud man was
* GALEN xiii, 570.
f C. L. GROTEFEND: Die Stempel der romischen Augenarzte, Hannover
18b'j.—J. KLEIN: Stempel romischer Augenarzte, Bonn 1874 (Nachtrag zu
Grotefend's Buch).—MARSJUARDT op. cit. S. 758.— HERON JDE VILLEFOSSE et
H. THEDENAT : Cachets d'oculistes romains, Tours et Paris, 1882.
X GALEN xiv, 83 et seq.
§ GALEN xii, 248.
|| GALEN xii, 299.
^f PLINIUS: Hist. Nat. xxix, 8.
iuteti*— \