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These things, moreover, also induce sleep. For if they lay awake all night, nor sleep during the day, and the eyes stand quite fixed like horns, and the patients toss about and start up, we must contrive to procure sleep and rest for them; first, by fomentations to the head, with unmixed rose-oil, or oil of marjoram with the juice of ivy, or the decoction of wild thyme or of melilot. But poppy boiled in oil is particularly soporific when applied to the fontenelle of the head, or with a sponge to the forehead. But the poppies, if recently plucked and green, may be applied whole under the pillows; for they thicken and humectate the spirit (pneuma), which is dry and attenuated, and diffuse over the senses fumes which prove the commencement of sleep. But if greater applications are needed, we may rub in the meconium (expressed juice of poppy) itself on the forehead with water, and also anoint the nostrils with the same, and pour it into the ears. Gentle rubbing of the feet with oil, patting of the head, and particularly stroking of the temples and ears is an effectual means; for by the stroking of their ears and temples wild beasts are overcome, so as to cease from their anger and fury.This passage savours much of magnetical manipulation. The following verses of Solon have been quoted as referring to the same subject :— Ἄλλοι Παιῶνος πολυφαρμάκου ἔργον ἔχοντες Ἰητροί· καὶ τοῖς οὐδὲν ἔπεστι τέλος· Πολλάκι δ᾿ ἐχ ὀλίγης ὀδύνης μέγα γίγνεται ἄλγος, Κοὔκ ἄν τις λύσαιτ’ ἤπια φάρμακα δούς· Τὸν δὲ κακαῖς νούσοισι κυκώμενον ἀργαλέαις τε Ἀψάμενος χειροῖν αἶψα τίθησ’ ὑγιῆ. But whatever is familiar to any one is to him a provocative of sleep. Thus, to the sailor, repose in a boat, and being carried about on the sea, the sound of the beach, the murmur of the waves, the boom of the winds, and the scent of the sea and of the ship. But to the musician the accustomed notes of his flute in stillness; or playing on the harp or lyre, or the exercise of musical children with song. To a teacher, intercourse with the tattle of children. Different persons are soothed to sleep by different means.
