(blue) and ox-glue, with half pound of smoke black
made from burned resin. He adds, "is a good application
in cases of gangrene and is useful in scalds, if a
little thickened and employed as a salve." De Vinne
speaks of this as a "crude" receipt which will enable
one to form a correct opinion of the quality of
scientific knowledge then applied to medicine and the
mechanical arts; also that these mixtures which are
more like shoe blacking than writing fluid were used
with immaterial modifications by the scribes of the
dark ages.

The old Greeks and Romans had no substitute for
the papyrus, which was so brittle that it could not be
folded or creased. It could not be bound up in books,
nor could it be rolled up unsupported. It was secure
only when it had been wound around a wooden or
metal roller.

After the wholesale destruction of the libraries of
ink-written MSS., the black inks began to fall into disuse;
their value in respect to quality gradually deteriorated,
caused by the displacement of gummy
vehicles, and a consequent absence of any chance of
union between the parchment or papyrus and the dry
black particles, which could be "blown" or washed
off. To employ any other kind of ink except one of
natural origin like the juice of berries which soon
disappeared, was forbidden by prevailing religious
customs. Such conditions naturally merged into