One of my main fields of interest, ever since I was a little boy, has been history. I love it, finding out about how people lived in the past, all the quirks and interesting facts and so on. It in part explains a lot of what I write.
So I was interested in seeing this article, about how on a two thousand year old Roman shipwreck, they found a small, sealed tin box that contained six medicinal tablets. These were subject to chenical analysise to see just what they contained. The full results are, sadly, behind the paywall of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences website, but what is mentioned are things like pine resin, animal fats and possibly olive oil.
Given the composition of the tablets, it is theorised they were used to treat eye infections.
Mist and Shadows 