Away with him further off from me.ARISTOPHONTES Do you say, you whipp’d knave, that I am mad, and do you declare that I have followed my own father with spears? And that I have that malady, that it’s necessary for me to be spit uponTo be spit upon: Aristophontes has understood the words, qui sputatur, in the sense of which is spit upon, and asks Tyndarus if he affirms that he is afflicted with a disease which requires such treatment. Hegio, to pacify him, and to show off his medical knowledge, tells him that it has proved beneficial in some diseases to be so treated; but he does not go so far as to say what those diseases were. One malady, called herpes, or spreading ulcer, was said to be highly contagious, but capable of being cured by applications of saliva. Some Commentators here quote the method which our Saviour adopted in curing the blind man at Bethsaida: And he took the blind man by the hand, and led him out of the town: and when he had spat on his eyes and put his hands upon him, he asked him if he saw aught. St. Mark, ch. viii., ver. 23. And again, the account given in the ninth chapter of St. John, ver. 6: When he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay. It may be possible that our Saviour thought fit to adopt these forms, in imitation of some of the methods of treating diseases in those times; though, of course, his transcendant power did not require their agency Rost, in his Commentaries on Plautus, has a very learned disquisition on the meaning of the present passage.? HEGIO Don’t be dismayed; that malady afflicts many a person to whom it has proved wholesome to be spit upon, and has been of service to them.ARISTOPHONTES Why, what do you say? Do you, too, credit him?HEGIO Credit him in what?