[240] Pliny says that spots of the skin may be removed by ox-gall.
[243] Geopon. vii. 6.--Plin. xiv. cap. 21.--Columella, xii. 50. 14.
[245] The word λίτρον in Pollux ought not to have been translated _sapo_.
[246] Cicer. Ep. Fam. viii. 14.--Pollucis Onom. viii. 9, 39; x. 135.--Ovid. De Medicam. Faciei, ver. 73 et 85.--Phavorini Dictionar. p. 527. Gynesius calls clothes washed with _nitrum_, νιτρούμενα, _nitro perfricata_.
[251] J. D. Michaelis Commentationes, 4to, p. 151. I must mention also C. Schoettgenii Antiquitates Fulloniæ, Traj. 1727, 8vo. My readers will do me a pleasure if they compare the above work with this article. No one will accuse me of vanity when I pretend to understand the theory of washing better than the learned Schöttgen; but if I have explained the passages which he quotes in a more satisfactory manner, and turned them to more advantage, I must ascribe this superiority to my knowledge of that art. I shall here take occasion to remark, that there is no subject, however trifling, which may not be rendered useful, or at least agreeable, by being treated in a scientific manner; and to turn such into ridicule, instead of displaying wit, would betray a want of judgment.
[252] Plin. xxviii. 6; xxviii. 8.--Martial. vi. ep. 93.--Athenæus, xi. p. 484. Macrobius, ii. 12, speaking of drunken people, “Dum eunt, nulla est in angiporto amphora, quam non impleant, quippe qui vesicam plenam vini habeant.” This passage is quoted also in Joh. Sarisberg. Polior. viii. 7, p. 479.
[254] Porner’s Anleitung zur Farbekunst, p. 31.
[256] This plant was sent by Imperati to Casp. Bauhin, under the name of _lanaria veterum_; and the latter made it first known in his Pinax Plant. iv. p. 206. The former described it himself, and gave a bad engraving of it, in Hist. Nat. p. 871. Löffling found this plant on the Spanish mountains, as well as in the neighbourhood of Aranjuez; and he relates, that in the province of La Mancha the people boil clothes that are to be washed with the root of this plant _instead of soap_. Linnæus did not hesitate to declare the _struthium_ of the ancients and the _struthium_ of his system to be the same plant; and he gave his countrymen reason to hope that their _Gypsophila fastigiata_, which has a great resemblance to it, might be employed in the like manner.--Amœnitat. Academ. v. p. 329.