Book V

 [p. 173]tive for the same affection is the composition of Myron containing red soda and frankincense, 4 grams each, purified cantharides 8 grams, sulphur unheated, the same amount, and turpentine resin 80 grams, darnel meal a litre and a half, cumin 145 cc., and half a litre of raw pitch.

Vitiligo also, though not dangerous in itself, is still ugly and is due to a bad habit of body. There are three species. It is called alphos when it is white in colour, generally rather rough, and not continuous, so that it looks as if drops of some sort had been sprinkled about. Sometimes also it spreads still more widely with certain gaps. That called melas differs from it in being of a black colour and like a shadow; otherwise it is similar. Leuce is somewhat like alphos, but is whiter and extends deeper; there are hairs on it, white, and like down. All these spread, but more quickly in some people than in others. The alphos and melas come and go at various seasons; the leuce, once established, is not easily got rid of. The two former are not difficult to treat, the latter is scarcely ever cured, for even if the discoloration is mitigated, the colour of health does not right altogether. But whether any one of these is curable or not is easily learnt by this test. The skin should be cut into or pricked with a needle: if blood escapes, which it usually does in the first two species, there is place for a remedy; if a whitish humour, cure is impossible, and then we should even refrain from treating it. But to the species which admits of treatment we should apply lentil meal, mixed with sulphur and frankincense, pounded