Socotrine aloes, 100; cinnamon, spikenard, xylo-*balsamum, mastic, asarum, and saffron, of each 6; honey to make an electuary. In the P.L. this was ordered to be kept in the form of species, and was principally used to make a tincture which was called tinctura sacra. In the 1721 edition the mastic and the spikenard were omitted, cardamom seeds being substituted for the latter, and some cochineal was added with a view to colouring the tincture. In 1746 hiera picra became simply a mixture of aloes and canella, and as such it was retained in the following edition (1788), but under the title of Pulv. Aloeticus, which in the Index is given as "olim Hiera Picra." This was the latest reference to Hiera Picra as such in the London Pharmacopœia. The P.L. of 1788 gave also a Pulv. Aloeticus c. Guaiaco, which consisted of 1-1/2 oz. of Socotrine aloes, 1 oz. of powdered guaiacum, and 1/2 oz. of aromatic powder (afterwards called Pulv. Cinnamomi Co., and compounded of cinnamon, cardamoms, ginger, and long pepper). The canella mixture did not appear again, but that with guaiacum was repeated in all the subsequent London Pharmacopœias including the last in 1851, but was dropped from the British Pharmacopœias.
Pil. Rufi, our Myrrh and Aloes pill, was originally a Hiera invented by Rufus of Ephesus, who lived in the reign of the Emperor Trajan. The Hiera was made into pills by the Arabs, and were for a long time known as Pilulæ Pestilentiales, which was the name Avicenna gave them. In the early Edinburgh Pharmacopœias they were called Pilulæ Communes.
Scribonius Largus, physician to the Emperor Tiberius, relates (A.D. 52) that one of these noted hieras, the Hiera Pachii, was much sought after, and that large sums had been offered for the formula. When Pachius
