Collyrium

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

  1. A soothing liquid preparation applied to the eye to cleanse or treat it ; a medicated salve or ointment spread around the eyelids for healing
  2. A medicinal wash used to bathe and cleanse the eyes ; a thick healing paste applied to the eyelid margins
  3. A liquid remedy poured or dabbed onto the eyes for relief ; a greasy medicated preparation used to treat eye ailments

Etymology: A Greek eye doctor's remedy and the sesame bread ring sold from street carts in Athens share a single ancestor. The word is generally traced to Greek "kollyra", a small roll of coarse bread. Its diminutive "kollyrion" was used for a poultice or eye salve, probably because of how such remedies were made: minerals, plant extracts and gums were worked into a paste, rolled into small sticks like miniature loaves, and dried. When a patient needed one, a piece was broken off and dissolved in water, milk or egg white, then applied to the eye. The Romans took over both the remedy and the name as "collyrium". Roman eye doctors stamped their sticks with small engraved stone seals, and these "oculists' stamps" turn up across Gaul and Britain. They carry the doctor's name, the name of the salve and the complaint it treated, so that a single small stone records a practitioner and his range of remedies. The word also entered scripture. In the Book of Revelation, the church at Laodicea is told to buy "kollourion" to anoint its eyes so that it may see. The city lay in Phrygia, a region with a reputation for eye medicine, and the rebuke may have stung for that reason. The Latin Vulgate kept "collyrium", and the King James Version rendered it "eyesalve". English borrowed the Latin in the late Middle Ages as a physician's term. It has been applied to eye salves and eyewashes alike, and today it usually means a liquid eyewash. The bread never disappeared. Through Byzantine Greek, the same word became modern Greek "koulouri", the sesame-crusted bread ring sold from street carts in Athens and Thessaloniki. One ancient word thus produced two descendants, one sold for breakfast and the other dropped into tired eyes.

Synonyms: eye lotion, eyewash, eye drops, eye salve