ABSTRACT
The western region had its capital at Rome, while Byzantium was chosen as the chief city in the east. When the last Roman emperor was deposed in AD 476, the Byzantine Empire came into being and it flourished until the fall of Constantinople in 1453. James Ricci studied medicine at Alexandria and practiced at Byzantium where he became the royal physician to Emperor Justinian the First’. During the Byzantine era Paul of Aegina advised powdered round alum wirh herbs as an application for hemorrhoids and described its use: as a vaginal contraceptive; for soothing genital lesions; for uterine hemorrhage; and for fissures or condylomata in the genital area. The medicinal cantharis of the ancients, found in corn or wheat, was the Mylabris Cichorii or Mylabris Fusselini. The ancient Greeks prepared the beetles for medicinal use by killing them with heated vinegar fumes.
