It was also used for road making and, in a limited and generally unsatisfactory way, for lighting. And bitumen served as a medicine. The description by the Roman naturalist Pliny in the first century a.d. of its pharmaceutical value was similar to that current in the United States during the 1850s. It checked bleeding, Pliny said, healed wounds, treated cataracts, provided a liniment for gout, cured aching teeth, soothed a chronic cough, relieved shortness of breath, stopped diarrhea, drew together severed muscles, and relieved both rheumatism and fever. It was also “useful for straightening
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