Pliny the Younger & Pliny the Elder · a new plain-English translation from the Latin
1| Truly, in my own case at least, admiration for antiquity grows through the very handling of the subject; and the greater the abundance of plants that remains to be described, the more I find myself moved to venerate the care of the men of old in discovering them and their generosity in handing them down. Nor is there any doubt that in this respect even the bounty of Nature herself might seem to have been surpassed, if the discovery had been the work of man.
2| As it is, it is plain that it was the work of the gods, or at least divine even when a man made it, and that the same parent of all things both brought these plants forth and revealed them — there is no greater marvel in life, if we are willing to own the truth. That the Scythian plant should be brought from the Maeotic marshes, and euphorbea from Mount Atlas and from beyond the Pillars of Hercules, from the very place where Nature fails, and in another quarter britannica from islands of Ocean set beyond the lands,
3| and likewise aethiopis from the pole scorched by the stars, and others besides from other places, to and fro, for the health of mankind over the whole world — the boundless majesty of the Roman peace showing to one another not only men from lands and nations remote from each other, but also mountains and ridges that rise above the clouds, and what they bring forth, and their plants too! May this gift of the gods, I pray, last for ever! So truly do they seem to have given the Romans to the affairs of men as a second light.
4| But who could revere enough the care and diligence of the ancients? It is established that of all poisons the swiftest is aconitum, and that if it merely touches the genitals of female animals it brings death that same day. This was the poison with which, as the prosecutor Marcus Caelius charged, Calpurnius Bestia killed his wives as they slept; hence that savage peroration of his against the finger. Legend has it that it sprang from the foam of Cerberus the dog when Hercules dragged him up from the underworld, and that this is why it grows near Heraclea Pontica, where that entrance to the underworld is shown.
5| Yet even this they turned to the uses of human health, discovering by experiment that, given in warm wine, it counters the stings of scorpions. Its nature is such that it kills a man unless it finds something in the man to destroy. With that alone it grapples, as with a more pressing foe it has come upon [this is its only battle, when it finds a poison in the vitals], and, marvellous to relate, though each is deadly in itself, the two poisons die together in the man, so that the man survives.
6| Indeed the ancients even handed down remedies for wild creatures, by showing how even venomous ones are themselves healed. Scorpions grow numb at the touch of aconitum, turn pale and stupefied, and confess themselves beaten. White hellebore comes to their aid, releasing them by its touch, and aconitum yields to two evils, its own and that of all. If anyone believes that any of these things could possibly have been devised by man,
7| he does not appreciate the gifts of the gods with gratitude. Men smear meat with aconitum and kill panthers by their eating it; if this were not done, they would overrun those regions. For this reason some have called it pardalianches. But it has been shown that the panthers are at once freed from death by eating human excrement. Who would doubt that this was discovered by chance, and that whenever it happens it is born anew even now, as something new, since among wild beasts reason and experience cannot be handed on from one to another?
8| This chance, then — this is that god who discovers most things in life; this is the name by which is understood the same power that is both parent and teacher of all things — and either conjecture is equally good, whether we judge that wild beasts discover these things every day or that they have always known them. And again it is shameful that all animals know what is good for their own health, except man.
9| But our forefathers declared that aconitum is mixed with great benefit even into medicines for the eyes, openly professing that there is no evil at all without some good. It will be right for us, then, who have described no poisons, to show what aconitum is like, if only so that it may be detected. It has leaves like those of cyclaminus or of the cucumber, not more than 4, growing from the root, slightly hairy; a moderate root, like a sea cammarus, which is why some have called it cammaron, and others thelyphonon, for the reason we have given. The tail of the root curves a little in the manner of a scorpion's, which is why some have also called it scorpion. Nor have there been lacking those who preferred to call it myoctonon, since it kills mice at a distance, from far off, by its smell.
10| It grows on bare crags, which they call aconae, and for that reason some have named it aconitum, nothing near it, not even dust, giving it nourishment. This some have offered as the reason for the name; others say it is because its force in bringing death is the same as that of whetstones in grinding down the edge of iron, and its speed is felt the moment it is applied.
11| Aethiopis has leaves like those of phlomos, large, numerous and hairy, growing from the root; a four-angled stem, rough, like arction, hollowed with many axils; seed like ervum, white and double; and numerous roots, long, full, soft and glutinous to the taste. When dry they turn black and harden, so that they could be taken for horns.
12| Besides Ethiopia, these plants grow also on Mount Ida in the Troad and in Messenia. They are gathered in autumn and dried in the sun for several days so that they do not go mouldy. Taken in white wine they cure the womb, and boiled down they are given to drink for sciatica, pleurisy and rough throats. But the kind that comes from Ethiopia helps outstandingly and at once.
13| — Ageraton is a plant of the ferula kind, two palms high, like origanum, with a flower of golden bosses. The smoke of it when burnt promotes urine and purges the womb, all the more so when women sit over it. The reason for its name is [not this, but] that it does not wither for a very long time.
14| — Aloe has the likeness of the squill, larger, with fatter leaves, striped obliquely. Its stalk is tender, reddish in the middle, not unlike that of anthericus, with a single root, as though a stake driven into the ground; the plant itself is heavy in smell, bitter in taste. The most praised is brought from India, but it also grows in Asia; they do not use it, however, except fresh leaves for wounds, for its juice glues them together wonderfully. For this reason they plant it in the hollows of jars, like the greater aizoum.
15| Some cut the stalk before the seed ripens for the sake of the juice, and some the leaves too. A tear is also found by itself, clinging; therefore they think that where it has been sown the ground should be paved, so that the tear is not soaked up. There were those who reported that in Judaea, above Jerusalem, its nature is mineral, but none is worse, nor is any other blacker or more moist.
16| The best, then, will be fat and shining, of a red color, friable and compact like liver, readily melting; to be rejected is the black and hard, the gritty, and that which is recognized by taste as adulterated with gum and acacia. Its nature is to thicken, to condense, and to warm gently; its uses are many, but the chief is to loosen the bowels, since, almost alone of the medicines that do this, it even strengthens the stomach, so far does it not harm by any contrary power.
17| It is drunk in a dose of a drachma; for looseness of the stomach, however, in 2 cyathi of lukewarm or cold water, in the measure of a spoonful, twice or three times a day at intervals, as the case requires; for purging, at most 3 drachmas, more effective if food is taken after it is drunk. It holds falling hair when the head is anointed against the lie of the hair with dry wine. It soothes pain of the head, applied to the temples and forehead in vinegar and rose oil, and poured in more dilute.
18| It is suitable for curing all defects of the eyes, in particular itching and roughness of the eyelids; likewise marks and bruises, applied with honey, above all Pontic; also tonsils, gums and all sores of the mouth, and bloody expectorations, if moderate, a drachma drunk in water, if not, in vinegar. It also stops the blood of wounds, flowing from wherever, by itself or in vinegar.
19| In other respects too it is most useful for wounds, bringing them to a scar. The same is sprinkled on ulcerated genitals of men, on condylomata and cracks of the seat, sometimes in wine, sometimes in raisin wine, sometimes dry by itself, as the treatment requires to be eased or checked. It also gently checks an abundance of hemorrhoids.
20| It is poured into dysentery, and if food is hard to digest it is drunk after dinner after a short interval, and in jaundice 3 obols in water; pills are also swallowed with boiled honey or terebinth resin to clean the interior. It removes hangnails of the fingers. For eye medicines it is washed so that whatever is grittiest settles, or it is roasted in a potsherd and turned from time to time with a feather so that it can be roasted evenly.—
21| Alcea has leaves like verbenaca, which is surnamed aristereon, 2 or 4 stalks, full of leaves, a flower of the rose, white roots, at most 6, a cubit long, slanting. It grows in rich soil and not dry. The use of the root, in wine or water, is for dysentery, for loose bowels, for ruptures and convulsions.—
22| Alypon is a little stalk with a soft head, not unlike beet, sharp in taste and tenacious and biting vehemently and inflaming. It loosens the bowels in honeyed water with a little salt added. The smallest dose is 2 drachmas, the middle 4, the greatest 6, with outstanding purging for those to whom it is given in chicken broth.
23| — Alsine, which some call myosoton, grows in groves, whence it is called alsine. It begins in midwinter and withers in midsummer. When it creeps forward it imitates the ears of mice in its leaves. But we shall show that there is another that is more properly called myosotis. This one would be the same as helxine, were it not smaller and less hairy. It grows in gardens and especially on walls. When rubbed it gives off the smell of a cucumber.
24| Its use is for gatherings and inflammations, and likewise all the same as helxine, but weaker. It is applied especially to running of the eyes, and to the private parts and ulcers, with barley meal. Its juice is poured into the ears.
25| — Androsaces is a white herb, bitter, without leaves, having little pods on its tendrils and in them the seed. It grows by the sea in Syria. It is given chiefly to dropsy patients in 2 drachmas, ground or boiled in water or vinegar or wine; for it moves urine vehemently. It is given also to gout sufferers and applied. The seed has the same effect.
26| — Androsaemon or, as others have called it, ascyron is not unlike hypericon, of which we spoke, with larger, denser and more reddish stalks. The leaves are white, in the shape of rue, the seed that of the black poppy. The crests, when ground, run with a bloody juice; the smell is resinous. It grows in vineyards, is generally dug up in mid-autumn, and hung up.
27| Its use is for purging the bowels, ground with the seed and drunk in the morning or after dinner, 2 drachmas in honeyed water or wine or pure water, a sextarius of the whole drink. It draws bile and is of most benefit for sciatica, but on the next day the root of the caper, mixed with resin, must be swallowed in a dose of a drachma by weight, and the same done again after an interval of four days; after the purging itself the stronger should drink wine, the weaker water. It is also applied to gout and burns, and to wounds, checking blood.
28| — Ambrosia, of vague name and wavering among other herbs, has one certain form: dense, branching, slender, about 3 palms high, with the root shorter by a third, and leaves like rue around the lowest part of the stalk. On the little branches is a seed hanging like grapes, with a smell of wine, for which reason it is called botrys by some, and by others artemisia. The Cappadocians crown themselves with it. Its use is for those things which need to be dispersed.—
29| Anonis some prefer to call ononis, branching, and like fenugreek, except that it is bushier and hairier. Pleasant in smell, thorny after spring. It is even eaten, preserved in brine; fresh, however, it eats away the edges of ulcers. The root is boiled in posca for toothache. The same, drunk with honey, drives out stones. It is given to epileptics boiled down to half in oxymel.
30| — Anagyros, which some call acopon, is bushy, heavy in smell, with the flower of a vegetable, and bears its seed in pods not short, like kidneys, which hardens around the harvests. The leaves are applied to gatherings, and tied on women in difficult childbirth, in such a way that they are removed immediately after the birth. But if a dead fetus is stuck and the afterbirth and the menses are delayed, the leaves are drunk, a drachma in raisin wine. So also they are given to asthmatics, and in old wine for bites of phalangia. The root is used to disperse and to ripen; the seed, chewed, causes vomiting.
31| — Anonymos by not finding a name found one. It is brought from Scythia, made famous by Hicesius, a physician of no small authority, and also by Aristogiton, outstanding for wounds, pounded in water and applied, and drunk for breasts or midriff that have been struck, and for those spitting blood. They thought it should be drunk by the wounded too. I consider fabulous what is added, that if it is burned fresh it is welded to iron or bronze.—
32| Some call aparine omphalocarpon, others philanthropon, branching, hairy, with leaves in fives or sixes in a circle around the branches at intervals. The seed is round, hard, hollow, faintly sweet. It grows in grain fields or in gardens or meadows, clinging even to clothes by its roughness. It is effective against serpents, the seed drunk in wine, a drachma, and against phalangia. Leaves applied hold back an abundance of blood from wounds; the juice is poured into the ears.
33| — Arction some prefer to call arcturus. It is like verbascum in the leaves, except that they are hairier, with a long, soft stalk and the seed of cumin. It grows in rocky places with a tender root, white and sweet, which is boiled in wine for toothache, so that it is held in the mouth. The decoction is drunk for sciatica and strangury. In wine it is applied to burns and chilblains; the same are bathed with the seed ground in wine, with the root.
34| — Asplenon, which some call hemionion, has many leaves a third of a foot long, a slimy root, hollow like fern's, whitish and hairy. It has neither stalk nor flower nor seed. It grows on rocks and shady, damp walls; most praised in Crete. They say that the spleen is wasted away by drinking the leaves boiled in vinegar for 30 days; and they are also applied. They quiet hiccups too. It is not to be given to women, since it causes sterility.
35| — Asclepias has the leaves of ivy, long branches, many slender roots, fragrant, a heavy odor of the flower, and a hatchet-shaped seed. It grows in the mountains. The roots treat colic and against the stings of serpents, not only by drinking but by applying.
36| — Aster is called by some bubonion, since it is a ready remedy for the groin. It has a little stalk with oblong leaves, 2 or 3, and at the top small heads radiating like a star. It is also drunk against serpents. But for the treatment of the groin they direct that it be picked with the left hand and tied near the girdle. Tied on, it helps pain of the hip as well.
37| — Ascyron and ascyroides are similar to each other and to hypericon, but the one called ascyroides has larger branches, like ferula, reddish at the crest, with small yellow heads. The seed in little cups is tiny, black, resinous. The crests, ground, seem to bleed, for which reason some have called this androsaemon. The use of the seed, for sciatica, is drunk in doses of 2 drachmas in a sextarius of hydromel. It loosens the bowels and draws off bile. It is also applied to burns.
38| — Aphaca has very fine, tiny leaves. Taller than the lentil, it bears larger pods, in which there are three or four seeds, blacker and smaller than the lentil. It grows in plowed fields. In nature it is more effective at thickening than the lentil; its other uses are the same. The seed, boiled, checks fluxes of the stomach and bowels.
39| — What sort of herb alcibium is I have not found in the authors, but they say its root and leaves, ground, are applied and drunk for the bite of a serpent, leaves as much as a hand can hold, ground with 3 cyathi of unmixed wine, or the root, by weight 3 drachmas, with the same measure of wine.
40| — Alectoros lophos, which among us is called crista, has several leaves like the cock's comb, a slender stalk, and a black seed in pods. Cooked with crushed bean, honey being added, it is useful for those who cough, and for dimness of the eyes. The whole seed is put into the eye and does not disturb it, but draws the dimness into itself; it changes color and begins to turn from black to white, and swells, and comes out of itself.
41| — We call it alus, the Greeks symphyton petraeum, like cunila bubula, with small leaves, 3 or 4 branches from the root, tops like thyme, twiggy, fragrant, sweet in taste, provoking saliva, with a long, reddish root. It grows on rocks, and therefore is surnamed petraeum; it is most useful for the sides, kidneys, colic, chest, lungs, those who spit blood, and rough throats. The root is drunk ground and boiled in wine, and sometimes also smeared on.
42| Indeed, chewed it quenches thirst and especially cools the lung. It is also applied to sprains and bruises, and soothes the intestines. It checks the bowels cooked in ashes and, the pods removed, ground with 9 grains of pepper and drunk in water. Its excellence for healing wounds is such that it even glues together pieces of meat while they are being cooked, if added, whence the Greeks gave it its name. It also treats broken bones; alga rufa, the stings of scorpions.— Actaea, with a heavy smell of the leaves,
43| rough, jointed stalks, a black seed like that of ivy, soft berries, grows in shady, rough and watery places. It is given in a full acetabulum for internal diseases of women.
44| — Ampelos agria is the name of a herb with hard leaves, of an ashen color, such as we described among cultivated plants, with long, callused, reddish tendrils like the flower we call Jupiter's flame. In clusters it bears a seed like the kernels of a pomegranate. Its root, boiled down in three cyathi of water, with 2 cyathi of Coan wine added, loosens the bowels gently and so is given to dropsy patients. The clusters correct defects of the skin on the faces of women. For sufferers from sciatica, too, it helps to use this herb pounded with its leaves and applied with its own juice.
45| Of absinthium there are several kinds: the Santonic is so called from a state of Gaul, the Pontic from Pontus, where cattle grow fat on it and for that reason are found without gall; and none is more excellent; the Italian is much more bitter, but the pith of the Pontic is sweet. About its use there is agreement, as it is the easiest of herbs and among the few most useful, and moreover celebrated in the rites of the Roman people in particular, since at the Latin festival the four-horse chariots race on the Capitol and the victor drinks absinthium—I believe because our ancestors thought it an honor that health be given as the prize.
46| It strengthens the stomach, and for this reason its flavor is transferred to wines, as we said. A decoction in water is also drunk, then cooled for a night and a day in the open air; 6 drachmas of leaves with their branches should be boiled in 3 sextarii of rainwater, and the adding of salt is a very ancient practice. A dilution of the soaked plant is also drunk; for the kind is so called. The method of the dilution is that, whatever the measure of water, it is covered for three days.
47| The ground plant is seldom used, as is the juice pressed out. It is pressed out, however, when the seed first swells, soaked in water for three days if fresh, or for 7 days if dry, then boiled in a bronze vessel down to a third, 10 heminae in 45 sextarii of water, and strained again, the herb being removed, and boiled to the thickness of honey, as the juice is sought from the lesser centaurium. But this juice [of absinthium] is useless to the stomach and head, whereas the decoction is very wholesome.
48| For it braces the stomach and draws off bile, moves urine, softens the bowels and heals them in pain, drives out the creatures of the belly, and disperses softness of the stomach and flatulence, with sile and Gallic nard and a little vinegar added; it wipes away disgust, aids digestion, and removes indigestion with rue and pepper and salt. The ancients gave it for purging, 6 drachmas of the seed with 3 of salt in a sextarius of old sea water and a cyathus of honey; with the salt doubled it purges more effectively.
49| It ought, however, to be carefully ground because of its toughness. Some have given the weight stated above in barley meal, with pennyroyal added; others gave [leaves] in dried figs to children, to cheat the bitterness. It clears the chest, taken with iris. In jaundice it is drunk raw with celery or adiantum. Against flatulence it is sipped hot, little by little, in water; for the liver, with Gallic nard; for the spleen it is taken with vinegar, or porridge, or a fig.
50| It counters mushrooms, in vinegar; likewise mistletoe; cicuta, in wine; the bites of the shrew; the sea dragon; scorpions. It contributes much to clearness of the eyes; it is applied with raisin wine for running, with honey for bruises. The steam of its decoction, by fumigation, cures the ears, or if they run with matter, it is ground with honey. Urine and menses are moved by 3 or 4 little sprigs with a single root of Gallic nard in 6 cyathi of water; menses particularly when taken with honey and placed as a pessary on wool.
51| It helps quinsy with honey and soda. It cures epinyctides in water, fresh wounds, applied before they are touched by water, and besides this ulcers of the head. It is applied to the flanks in particular with Cyprian wax or with a fig. It cures itching too. It is not to be given in fever.
52| Drunk, it wards off seasickness on voyages, and swelling of the groin when kept in a belt. It entices sleep by its smell, or placed under the head without the sleeper's knowledge. Inserted in clothing, it keeps off moths. It drives off gnats, for those anointed with it in oil, and with its smoke if it is burned. Scribes' ink mixed with a dilution of it protects letters from mice. The ash of absinthium, mixed with ointment and rose oil, blackens the hair.
53| — There is also sea absinthium, which some call seriphum, most approved in Taposiris of Egypt. The devotees of Isis have a custom of carrying a branch of this before them. It is narrower than the former and less bitter, hostile to the stomach; it softens the bowels and drives out the creatures of the intestines. It is drunk with oil and salt, or diluted in a gruel of the meal of three-month wheat. As much as a hand can hold is boiled in a sextarius of water to half.
54| Ballote, by another name porrum nigrum, as the Greeks call it, is a bushy herb with angular stalks, black and hairy, with leaves clothing it larger than those of the leek and blacker, heavy-smelling. Its power is effective against dog bites, the leaves ground with salt and applied, and likewise for condylomata, cooked in ashes in a cabbage leaf. It also cleans foul ulcers with honey. — Botrys is a bushy herb with yellow little branches.
55| the seed grows all around, the leaves like chicory. It is found on the banks of torrents. It treats those with orthopnoea. The Cappadocians call this ambrosia, others artemisia.— Brabilla has a thickening power, in the manner of the quince, and the authors report nothing more of it.
56| — Bryon marinum is without doubt a herb like lettuce in its leaves, wrinkled as if shrunken, without a stalk, the leaves coming out from a single root. It grows on rocks, and above all on potsherds held in the earth. Its power is chief in drying and thickening, and in checking gatherings and all inflammations, particularly gout and whatever needs to be cooled.
57| — I find that the seed of bupleurum is given for the stings of serpents, and that wounds are bathed with a decoction of that herb with leaves of mulberry or origanum added. The Thessalian herb catanance, what it is like, is superfluous for us to describe, since its use is for love charms alone. This is not out of place to say, to expose magical vanities: it was chosen for this use by inference, because as it dries it draws itself together into the form of a dead kite's claws. For the same reason cemos too will be passed over in silence by us.
58| — Calyx is of two kinds. One, like arum, grows in plowed fields and is gathered before it withers. It has the same uses as aris, but the root of this one is also drunk to empty the bowels and the menses of women; and the stalks with the leaves, boiled with pulses, cure tenesmus.
59| The other kind of it some call anchusa, others rhinoclia. The leaves are longer than lettuce, feathery, the root red, which cures sacred fires, applied with fine barley meal, and defects of the liver, drunk in white wine.
60| — Circaea is like the cultivated trychnos, with a black flower, tiny, with a small seed like millet growing in little horns, a root half a foot long, generally triple or quadruple, white, fragrant, of a hot taste. It grows on sunny rocks. It is dissolved in wine and drunk for pain of the womb and its defects—a quadrans of pounded root must be steeped in 3 sextarii for a night and a day—and the same drink draws the afterbirth; the seed [diminishes] milk, drunk in wine or honeyed water.
61| — Cirsion is a tender little stalk of 2 cubits, like a triangle, surrounded by thorny leaves. The thorns are soft; the leaves are like ox tongue, smaller, whitish, and at the top are purple heads that dissolve into down. They report that this herb, or its root tied on, cures the pains of varicose veins.
62| — Crataegonon is like an ear of wheat, with many reeds shooting from a single root and of many joints, in shady places, with the seed of millet, of a vehemently harsh taste. If a woman and a man drink it in wine before dinner, 3 obols in as many cyathi of water, for 40 days before conception, they say the child will be of the male sex.
63| And there is another crataegonos, which is called thelygonos; the difference is recognized by the mildness of the taste. There are those who report that women drinking the flower of crataegonon conceive within 40 days. The same cures old black ulcers with honey and fills the pockets of ulcers and makes wasting sores fleshier, and cleanses the purulent ones; it disperses buboes, eases gout and all gatherings, particularly of the breasts. Theophrastus meant a kind of tree to be understood by crataegon or crataegona, which the Italians call aquifolium.
64| — Crocodileon has the shape of the black herb chamaeleon, with a long root, equally thick, of harsh smell. It grows in sandy places. Drunk, it expels from the nose copious and thick blood; so too it is said to consume the spleens.
65| — Cynosorchis some call orchis, with the leaves of the olive, soft, in threes, lying on the ground over a half foot of length, with a bulbous, oblong root in a double row, the upper being harder, the lower softer. They are eaten like cooked bulbs, found generally in vineyards. If of these roots men eat the larger, they say males are begotten; if women eat the smaller, the other sex. In Thessaly men drink the softer in goat's milk to stimulate intercourse, but the harder to restrain it. The one counters the other.
66| — Chrysolachanum grows in a pine grove, like lettuce. It heals cut sinews, if applied at once. And elsewhere a kind of chrysolachanum is reported with a golden flower and the leaves of a vegetable. It is cooked and eaten as a soft vegetable. This herb, tied on those with jaundice so that they can see it, is reported to cure that ailment.
67| About chrysolachanum I know that not enough can be said, nor do I find more. For this fault has afflicted at any rate our nearest herbalists, that they have indicated plants known to themselves, as though common, hastily and by names only, such as that the bowels are checked by the earth's rennet, strangury is dissolved, if it is drunk in water or wine,
68| that leaves of cucullus ground with vinegar cure the stings of serpents and scorpions. Some call this by another name strumus, others in Greek strychnos. It has black berries; of these a cyathus of juice with 2 of honey wine treats the loins, and for headache it is poured in with rose oil; the plant itself is applied for scrofula.
69| — Peculiar to the rivers of the Alps above all is what is called conferva, from conferuminare, rather a sponge of fresh waters than moss or herb, shaggy in its density and hollow. I know that a pruner who fell from a high tree with almost all his bones broken was cured by it, wrapped around his whole body, those attending sprinkling it with its own water whenever it dried, and rarely, only when the herb failed, loosening it for the sake of change, and that he recovered with scarcely credible speed.
70| — The Cnidian coccus has the color of coccus, is larger than a grain of pepper, and has a burning power; so it is swallowed in bread, lest it burn the throat in passing. Its power is immediate against cicuta; it checks the bowels.
71| Dipsacos has the leaves of lettuce and thorny blisters in the middle of the back, a stalk of 2 cubits bristling with the same thorns, its joints embraced by pairs of leaves with a hollow armpit in which a salty dew collects. At the top are little heads bristling with spines. It grows in watery places. It cures cracks of the seat, and likewise fistulas, the root boiled in wine until it has the thickness of wax, so that it can be put into the fistulas as a plug; likewise warts of all kinds. Some also smear on these the juice of the armpits we mentioned above.
72| — Dryopteris, like fern, grows on trees, with a fine cutting of its faintly sweet leaves, and a hairy root. Its power is caustic, and for that reason the pounded root is a depilatory; it is applied until it brings out sweat, a second and third time, so long as the sweat is not washed off.—
73| Drabe is a herb like phonos, with slender stalks a cubit high, surrounded on either side with leaves of an inch's breadth, like those of oxymyrsine, but whiter and softer, with the white flower of the elder. They eat the stalks boiled, and use its seed in place of pepper.
74| Elatine has the leaves of casia, tiny, hairy, round, with little branches half a foot long, in fives and sixes, leafy from the root at once. It grows in grain fields, sour in taste, and therefore effective for fluxes of the eyes, the leaves ground with barley meal and applied, a small linen cloth being placed beneath. The same, cooked with linseed, in the use of a gruel, frees from dysentery.
75| — Empetros, which our people call calcifraga, grows on mountains by the sea, generally on rock. That which grew nearer the sea is salty and, drunk, draws bile and phlegm; that which grew farther away and is more earthy tastes more bitter. It draws water; it is taken in some broth or in hydromel. With age it loses strength; fresh, it moves urine, boiled in water or ground, and breaks stones. Those who seek credit for this claim say that small stones that are slightly heated are broken along with it.
76| — Epicactis is called by others elleborine, a small herb with tiny leaves, most useful for defects of the liver and drunk against poisons.— Epimedion is a stalk not large, with ivy leaves in tens and twelves, never flowering, with a thin, black root, of heavy smell and [….]; it grows in damp places. This too has the nature of thickening and cooling, and should be avoided by women. Leaves ground in wine restrain the breasts of girls.
77| — Enneaphyllon has long leaves, nine in number, of caustic nature. It is applied wrapped in wool, so that it does not burn more widely—it raises blisters at once—and is most useful for pains of the loins and hips.
78| Of fern there are two kinds, which have neither flower nor seed. The Greeks call one pteris, others blachnon; from a single root many ferns come up, exceeding two cubits in length, not heavy in smell; this they consider the male. The other kind the Greeks call thelypteris, others nymphaea pteris; it is single and not bushy, shorter and softer and denser, channeled with its leaves at the root.
79| Pigs grow fat on the root of either. The leaves of both are feathered on the sides, whence the Greeks gave the name. The roots of both are long, slanting, black, especially when they have dried; they ought to be dried in the sun. They grow everywhere, but chiefly in cold soil. They ought to be dug at the setting of the Pleiades. The use of the root is only at three years old, neither before nor after. They drive out the animals of the intestines, tapeworms with honey, the rest drunk in sweet wine for three days; both are most unsuitable for the stomach. It loosens the bowels, first drawing bile, then water, and better against tapeworms with an equal weight of scamonium.
80| Its root is drunk by the weight of 2 obols in water after a day's abstinence, with honey tasted first, against rheums. Neither should be given to women, since it causes abortion in the pregnant and sterility in the others. Their meal is sprinkled on foul ulcers, even of beasts of burden on the neck. The leaves kill bedbugs, and do not harbor serpents; therefore it is useful to spread them beneath in suspect places, and burnt they also drive serpents off by the smell. The physicians have made a distinction of this herb as well: the best is the Macedonian, second the Cassiopic.—
81| Femur bubulum is the name of a herb, itself useful for the sinews, fresh, ground in vinegar and salt. Galeopsis or, as others call it, galeobdolon or gallon has a stalk and leaves smoother than the nettle, which when crushed give off a heavy smell, with a purple flower. It grows around hedges and paths everywhere. The leaves and stalks, ground in vinegar and applied, disperse hardnesses and cancers, and also scrofula, buboes and swellings of the parotid. It is also practiced to bathe with the juice of the decoction. It cures festering sores and gangrenes too with salt.—
82| Glaux was anciently called eugalacton, like cytisus and the lentil in its leaves; the undersides are whiter. The branches creep along the ground, five or six, very slender, from the root. Little purple flowers come out. It is found by the sea. It is cooked in a gruel of fine wheat flour to rouse the abundance of milk; those who have drunk it should use baths.
83| Glaucion grows in Syria and Parthia, a low herb with dense leaves generally like the poppy's, smaller however and dirtier, of foul smell, of bitter taste with astringency. It has a grain of saffron color. This they heat in an earthen pot sealed round with clay in ovens, then, when it has been taken out, press from it a juice of the same name. The use both of the juice and of the leaves, if they are ground, is against running of the eyes that fall in a general rush. From it is compounded the eye-salve that physicians call dia glaucium.—(the abundance of milk, too, if it has ceased, is restored; for this purpose it is taken in water).
84| — Glycyside, which some call Paeonia or pentorobon, has a stalk of 2 palms, accompanied by 2 or 3, somewhat reddish, with the skin of laurel, leaves like those of isatis, fatter and rounder and smaller, and seed in pods, one with a red grain, another with a black.
85| There are two kinds: the female is reckoned to be the one to whose roots about 8 or 6 acorn-like growths, rather long, cling. The male has no more than one, resting on a single root, a palm in height, white, astringent to the taste. The leaves of the female smell of myrrh and are denser. They grow in woods. They say it must be dug by night, because by day it is dangerous with the woodpecker of Mars attacking the eyes; and that when the root is dug there is danger that the seat will prolapse—a great vanity, I think, invented to make a show of the matter. The use in these is different.
86| The red grains, drunk in dark wine, about 15, stop reddish menses. The black grains treat the womb, drunk in raisin wine or wine, as many. The root soothes all pains of the belly in wine and purges the bowels, cures opisthotonos, jaundice, the kidneys, the bladder, and the windpipe and stomach, boiled in wine, and checks the bowels. It is even eaten as food, but in treatment 4 drachmas are enough.
87| The black grains help also with nightmares, drunk in wine in the number stated, and for stomach sufferers and gnawing pains it is beneficial both to eat them and to smear them on. Suppurations too are dispersed, fresh ones by the black seed, old ones by the red. Both help those struck by a serpent, and children against stones when strangury is beginning.
88| — Gnaphalium some call chamaezelon; they use its white and soft leaves in place of stuffing; indeed they are also similar. It is given in dry wine for dysentery, and checks loosenesses of the belly and the menses of women. It is also poured in for tenesmus. It is applied to the festering parts of ulcers.
89| — Gallidraga is the name Xenocrates gives to a plant like leucacantha, marsh-dwelling and thorny, with a stalk like ferula, tall, on whose top clings something like an egg. In this, as it grows in summer, he says little worms are born, and that these, shut in a box and tied with bread on the arm on the side where the tooth aches, remove the pain at once and wonderfully. He says they are good no longer than a year, and then only if they have not touched the ground.
90| Holcus grows on dry rocks. It has awns at the top, with a slender stalk, such as barley that crops repeatedly. Tied around the head or around the upper arm, it draws awns out of the body. Some on that account call it aristis.— Hyoseris, like endive, but smaller and rougher to the touch, ground, treats wounds excellently.
91| — Holosteon is a herb without hardness, named by the Greeks by contraries, as sweet gall is; its root slender, almost to the likeness of a hair, 4 fingers long, like grass with narrow leaves, astringent in taste. It grows on earthy hills. Its use is for torn and ruptured parts, drunk in wine. It also glues wounds together, for it even does so with pieces of meat, if added while they are cooked.
92| — Hippophaeston grows among the thorns from which the fullers' [….] are made, without a little stalk, without flower, with only empty little heads and small leaves, many, of a grassy color. The little roots are white, soft. Their juice is pressed out in summer to loosen the bowels, by obols, above all in epileptic and tremulous disorders, in dropsy, against vertigo, orthopnoea, and beginning paralysis.
93| — Hypoglossa has leaves in the shape of wild myrtle, with a spiny crest, and on these, as it were, tongues coming out from the leaves with a small leaf. A garland of them applied lessens headache.— Hypecoon grows in grain fields, with the leaves of rue. Its nature is the same as the juice of the poppy. Of the herb of Ida the leaves are those of oxymyrsine. Clinging to them are things like tendrils, in which is the flower. It itself checks the bowels, menses, and every abundance of blood by its nature of thickening and restraining.
94| — Isopyron some call phaselion, because its leaf, which is like anise, is twisted into the tendrils of the bean. There are slender little heads at the top of the stalk, full of seed of melanthium, for cough and other defects of the chest with honey or honeyed water, and most useful for the liver.
95| Lathyris has many leaves like lettuce, finer, with many shoots, in which the seed is held in little coats, like the caper, and when they have dried, grains as big as a peppercorn are removed, white, sweet, easy to cleanse. These, drunk twenty at a time in pure water or honeyed water, cure dropsy patients; they also draw bile. Those who wish to be purged more vehemently take them with the little husks themselves, for they hurt the stomach; therefore it was devised to take them with fish or chicken broth.—
96| Leontopetalon some call rapadion, with the leaf of cabbage and a stalk half a foot long. The branches are numerous, the seed at the top in pods like those of the chickpea, the root like a turnip, large, black. It grows in fields. The root counters all kinds of serpents, drunk in wine, and nothing else works more quickly. It is given also to sufferers from sciatica.
97| — Lycapsos has leaves longer than lettuce and thicker, with a long stalk, many hairy growths attached, a cubit high, and a small purple flower; it grows in level country. It is applied with barley meal to sacred fire; it brings on sweats in fevers, its juice mixed with hot water.
98| — Among all herbs nothing is more marvelous than lithospermum. Some call it exonychon, others dios pyron, others heracleous. The herb is about a quincunx tall, with leaves twice as large as rue, little twiggy branches the thickness of a rush. Beside the leaves it bears single little beards, as it were, and on the tips of these small stones, with the whiteness and roundness of pearls, the size of a chickpea, but stony in hardness. Where they cling to their stalks they themselves have little cavities, and inside, the seed.
99| It grows in Italy too, but the most praised comes from Crete, and among herbs I have looked on nothing with greater wonder. Such is its beauty, as if with the goldsmiths' art pearls gleamed white in alternation among the leaves, so exquisitely rare is a stone that grows out of a herb. Authors report that it lies and creeps along the ground; I saw it plucked, not attached. It is agreed that a drachma's weight of these little stones, taken in white wine, breaks and expels stones in the bladder and relieves strangury. In no other herb is the assurance surer of the ailment it was born to cure, and its appearance is such that even without an authority it can be recognized at once by sight.
100| A common stone beside rivers bears a dry, grey moss. This is rubbed against a second stone with human spittle added; with that stone the impetigo is touched. The one who touches says: "Flee, cantharides, a wild wolf hunts blood."
101| Limeum is the name the Gauls give to a herb with which they dip their hunting arrows, a drug they call stag poison. Of this, as much as is usually put on a single arrow is added to 3 modii of salivatum; the mass is then pushed down the throats of cattle in diseases. Afterwards they must be tied to the mangers until they are purged, for they tend to go mad; if sweat follows, they are to be drenched with cold water.
102| Leuce, like Mercurialis, took its name from a feature: a white line runs across the middle of the leaf, which is why some call it mesoleucon. Its juice heals fistulas, and the herb itself, pounded, heals cancers. Perhaps it is the same as the one called leucas, effective against all poisons of the sea. The authors do not describe its appearance, nor say anything beyond that there is a wild kind with broader leaves, which is more effective because its seed is sharper.
103| What sort of plant leucographis is I have not found written, which I wonder at all the more because it is reported to be useful, in doses of 3 obols with saffron, for those who spit blood, likewise for those with coeliac complaints; pounded in water and applied, for a flow of the women's courses; also for eye medicines and for filling up ulcers that arise in tender parts.
104| Medion has the leaves of the cultivated iris, a stem three feet tall and on it a large, purple, round flower, with tiny seed and a root half a foot long. It grows on shaded rocks. The root, 2 drachmas with honey taken as a linctus over several days, stops the women's courses. The seed also is given in wine against excessive flow.
105| Myosota, or myosotis, is a smooth herb with several stems from a single root, somewhat reddish, hollow from the bottom, with narrow, oblong, black leaves with a sharp back, constantly set in pairs at intervals, with thin little stalks issuing from the axils, and a blue flower. The root is as thick as a finger, fringed with many hair-like fibres. Its force is caustic and ulcerating, and for that reason it heals aegilopes. They report that in Egypt, in the month they call Thoth, on the 28th day, which falls roughly in the month of August, if anyone is anointed in the morning with the juice of this herb before he speaks, he will not have bleary eyes that year.
106| Myagros is a herb of the giant-fennel kind, with leaves like madder, three feet tall. Its seed is oily, and oil is made from it. It cures sores of the mouth when they are anointed with this juice. The herb called nyma, with 3 long leaves like endive, applied, restores scars to their colour.
107| There is a herb called natrix, whose root, when pulled up, smells of the rank odour of a he-goat. In Picenum women use it to drive off those whom, by a marvellous persuasion, they call Fatui; I would believe that these are forms of minds seized by frenzy, which are helped by such a remedy.
108| Odontitis is among the kinds of hay, with dense little stalks from the same root, jointed, three-sided, black. At the joints it has small leaves, yet longer than those of polygonum, and in the axils a seed like barley, and a small purple flower. It grows in meadows. A decoction of its little stalks in harsh wine, as much as a hand can hold, cures toothache, provided it is kept in the mouth.
109| Othonna grows in Syria, like rocket, with leaves frequently perforated, and with the flower of saffron; for which reason some have called it anemone. Its juice is suited to eye medicines; for it bites gently and warms, and by drying it contracts, and clears scars and films and whatever obstructs. Some report that it is washed, and when dried in this way is divided into lozenges.
110| Onosma has long leaves, about 3 fingers, lying on the ground like anchusa, [….] similar in stem, flower and seed. A pregnant woman, if she eats it or steps over it, is said to cause miscarriage. Asses are said to break wind when they have eaten onopradon. It draws urine and the courses, stops the belly, and disperses suppurations and collections.
111| Osyris bears black, slender, pliant twigs, and on them black leaves like those of flax, and a seed, black on the twigs at first, then changing colour and turning red. Cosmetic salves are made from them for women. A decoction of the roots as a drink heals those with jaundice. The same roots, before the seed ripens, cut up and dried in the sun, stop the belly; but gathered after ripening and boiled in a gruel, they cure flux of the belly, and pounded by themselves they are drunk in rainwater.
112| Oxys has leaves in threes. It is given for a relaxed stomach. Those who have enterocele also eat it. Polyanthemum, which some call batrachion, ulcerates by caustic force, and restores scars to their colour, and the same herb unites vitiligines with the body.
113| Polygonum is the Greek name for what we call sanguinaria. It does not rise from the ground; with leaves like rue, it looks like grass. Its juice, poured into the nostrils, checks blood, and drunk with wine it restrains a flow from any part and bloody spitting. Those who make several kinds of polygonum wish this one understood as the male, and named from the multitude of its seed or the density of its shrub; others call it polygonaton from the frequency of its joints, others thalattias, others carcinothron, others clema, many myrtopetalum. And there are found those who say this is the female, while the male is larger and less black, with denser joints, and with the seed swelling under all the leaves.
114| However these things stand, their force is to thicken and to cool. By the seed they loosen the belly; taken more freely, they move urine; they restrain fluxes, which, if there are none, they do not help. The leaves are laid on for heat of the stomach, and smeared on for pain of the bladder and for sacred fires. The juice is also dropped into running ears and for pain of the eyes. By itself it is given in fevers before the onsets, 2 cyathi, especially in tertians and quartans, likewise to those with cholera and dysentery and in looseness of the stomach.
115| A third kind they call orion, growing on mountains, like a tender reed, with a single stem, with dense joints stuffed into one another, but with the leaves of the pitch-pine, and a root that is of no use; it is less effective than the kinds above, and a specific for sciatica.
116| A fourth kind is called silvestre, almost the shrub of a tree, with a woody root, the stock reddish like cedar, with branches like broom of two palms each, black, with the joints in threes and fours. This too has the nature of thickening; its taste is that of the quince. It is boiled down in water to a third, or the powder of it dried is sprinkled on sores of the mouth and on chafed parts. For faults of the gums it is chewed as it stands.
117| It checks nomae and everything that creeps or has a scar hard to form, and in particular it heals ulcers caused by snow. Herb-gatherers use it also for quinsies, and for headache they set a wreath of it on the head, and against fluxes of the eyes they put it around the neck; in tertians they tie it on, pulled up with the left hand, so effective is it against fluxes of blood; and there is no herb they keep dried more than polygonum.
118| Pancratium some prefer to call a small squill, with leaves longer and thicker than those of the white lily, a root with a large bulb, of reddish colour. It loosens the belly, the juice taken with meal of bitter vetch, and it cleans ulcers. To those with dropsy and spleen trouble it is given with honey. Others boil it until the water becomes sweet, and, pouring that off, they pound the root and divide it into lozenges dried in the sun, and afterwards use them for sores of the head and other things that need cleaning, likewise for cough, giving as much as they can grasp with 3 fingers in wine, and for pains of the side, or as a linctus for those with pneumonia. They also give it in wine to be drunk for sciatica, and for gripings and to bring on the courses.
119| Peplis, which some call syce, others meconion, others mecon aphrodes, grows into a shrub from a single slender root, with leaves a little broader than those of rue. The seed is under the leaves, round, not so large as the white poppy's. It is generally gathered among the vines at harvest, and dried with its fruit, things being set under it for it to fall into. Drunk, this loosens the belly and draws off bile and phlegm. The middle dose is the measure of an acetabulum in 3 heminae of honeyed water. It is also sprinkled on food and relishes to soften the belly.
120| Periclymenon also grows into a shrub, having 2 leaves at an interval, whitish, soft, but at the top a seed among the leaves, hard and hard to pluck. It grows in fields and hedges, winding itself around any supports. Its seed, dried in the shade, is pounded and divided into lozenges; these, dissolved, are given in 3 cyathi of white wine for thirty days for the spleen, and it consumes it, by bloody urine or through the bowels, which can be seen from the tenth day onward. The leaves, boiled, also move urine, and are helpful to those who cannot breathe unless upright. Taken as drinks in a similar way, they also help childbirth and expel the afterbirth.
121| Pelecinon, as we have said, grows in the cornfields, a shrubby plant with little stalks and the leaves of the chickpea. It bears seed in pods, hooked like little horns, three or four together, such as we know git, bitter, useful for the stomach. It is added to antidotes. Polygala fills a palm in height, with leaves at the top of the stem like lentil, of astringent taste. Drunk, it produces an abundance of milk.
122| Poterion, or, as others call it, phrynion or neuras, grows plentifully into a shrub, bristling with thorns, thick with down, with small, round leaves, long, soft, tough, slender twigs, a long flower of herbaceous colour. The seed has no use; it has a sharp taste and smell. It is found on watery hills.
123| It has 2 or 3 roots, two cubits in depth, sinewy, white, firm. It is dug around in autumn, and when a root is cut it gives a juice like gum. The root is reported to be marvellous for healing wounds, especially smeared on sinews, even cut ones. A decoction of it, drunk with honey, also helps loosenings of the sinews, and their weaknesses and cuts.
124| Phalangitis is called by some phalangion, by others leucanthemum or, as I find in some copies, leucacantha. Its twigs are never fewer than 2, pointing in different directions; the flower is white, like a red lily, the seed black, broad, in the shape of half a lentil but much thinner, with a slender root, of herbaceous colour. With its leaf or flower or seed they give aid against the stings of scorpions and phalangia and snakes, and likewise against gripings.
125| What sort of plant phyteuma is I think superfluous to describe, since its use is only for love potions. Phyllon is the name the Greeks give to a herb on rocky mountains. The female is more herbaceous in colour, with a slender stem and a small root. The seed is like that of the round poppy. This one produces offspring of its own sex, while the male produces males; they differ only in the seed, which is like that of an olive just beginning. Either is drunk in wine.
126| Phellandrion grows in marshy places, with the leaf of celery. Its seed is drunk for stones and troubles of the bladder. Phaleris has a long thyrsus, slender as a reed, bearing at its top a drooping flower, and seed like sesame. This too breaks stones, drunk in wine or vinegar or with honey and milk; the same heals faults of the bladder. Polyrrhizon has the leaves of myrtle and many roots. These, pounded, are given in wine against snakes; they also benefit four-footed animals.
127| Proserpinaca is a common herb, of outstanding remedy against scorpions. They report that the same herb, pounded, with brine of maenae and oil added, cures quinsy outstandingly, and that tired people are restored from any degree of weariness, even when they have lost their voice, if it is put under the tongue; if swallowed, a salutary vomiting follows.
128| Rhecoma is brought from the regions that lie above the Pontus. The root is like black costus, smaller and a little redder, without smell, warming and astringent to the taste. The same, pounded, gives wine a colour inclining to saffron. Smeared on, it quiets collections and inflammations, heals wounds, and quiets fluxes of the eyes in raisin wine; with honey it treats weals, and with vinegar other livid marks.
129| Its powder is sprinkled on against cacoethes, and for those who bring up blood, a drachma's weight in water; for those with dysentery and coeliac complaints, if free of fever, in wine, if otherwise, in water. When soaked the night before, it is pounded more easily. A decoction of it is also given to drink in double measure for ruptures, convulsions, bruises, and falls from a height.
130| If there are pains in the chest, some pepper and myrrh is added; if looseness of the stomach, it is taken in cold water; so also in an old cough and purulent spitting, likewise for the liver, the spleen, sciatica. But faults of the kidneys, gasping, difficulty in breathing unless upright, roughness of the windpipe, it cures when 3 obols, pounded, or a decoction of it, are drunk in raisin wine. Applied in vinegar it also cleanses lichens. It is drunk against flatulence and chills, cold fevers, hiccup, gripings, herpes, heaviness of the head, melancholic dizziness, pains of weariness, and convulsions.
131| Around Ariminum a herb is known that they call reseda. It disperses all collections and inflammations. Those who treat with it add these words: "Reseda, cure the diseases, reseda; do you know, do you know, what chick has dug up these roots? Let it have neither head nor feet." They say this three times and spit as often. Stoechas is produced only on the islands of the same name, a sweet-smelling herb, with the hair of hyssop, bitter to the taste. Drunk, it brings on the courses and relieves pains of the chest. It is also mixed into antidotes.
132| Solanum the Greeks call strychnon, as Cornelius Celsus reports. Its force is to repress and to cool.
133| Smyrnion has the stem of celery, broader leaves and especially around its many shoots, from whose hollow they spring, fat and bent down toward the ground, with a medicinal smell pleasant with a certain sharpness, a colour fading into yellow, the heads of the stalks round as in celery, and a round black seed; it dries up as summer begins. The root also is fragrant, bites with a sharp taste, juicy, soft. Its bark is black outside, pale within. Its smell has the quality of myrrh, whence also the name.
134| It grows both on rocky hills and in earthy places. Its use is to warm and to thin. The leaves and root and seed move urine and the courses. It stops the belly. The root, smeared on, disperses collections and suppurations not old, and hardnesses; it also helps against phalangia and snakes, mixed with cachrys or polium or melissophyllum and drunk in wine, but a little at a time, since taken all at once it provokes vomiting; for which reason it is sometimes given with rue.
135| The seed or root relieves cough and difficulty in breathing unless upright, likewise faults of the chest or spleen or kidneys or bladder, and the root those with ruptures and convulsions. It also helps childbirth and expels the afterbirth. It is given for sciatica with crethmus in wine. It brings on sweat and belching, and therefore disperses flatulence of the stomach. It brings wounds to a scar.
136| A juice is also pressed out from the root, useful to women and for complaints of the chest and midriff; for it warms and digests and purges. The seed is given as a drink particularly to those with dropsy, to whom the juice is also smeared on. They also use the dry bark in a poultice, and for relishes with honeyed wine and oil and garum, most of all in boiled meats. Sinon produces digestion, with a flavour very like pepper. The same is effective in pain of the stomach.
137| Telephion is like purslane both in stem and leaves. Seven or eight branches shoot from the root, bearing leaves that are thick and fleshy. It grows in tilled places and most of all among vines. It is smeared on freckles and, when it has dried, rubbed off. It is also smeared on vitiligo for about three months, for six hours of the night or day, and then barley meal is smeared on.
138| It also heals wounds and fistulas. — Trichomanes is like adiantum, only slenderer and blacker, with leaves like the lentil's, dense, small and set opposite one another. A decoction of it taken in white wine with wild cumin added cures strangury, and the spleen. Pounded in oil and applied, it stops the hair from falling out, or restores it if it has fallen out, and thickens the growth on bald patches. Tasted, it also provokes sneezing. — Thalictrum has the leaves of coriander, a little fleshier, and the stem of the poppy.
139| It grows everywhere, especially in level country. Its leaves with honey heal ulcers. — Thlaspi is of two kinds. One has narrow leaves, a finger in breadth and in length, turned towards the ground and divided at the tip, and a stalk half a foot high, not without branches, [….] the seed enclosed in what look like little shields, in the shape of a lentil, except that it is crushed in, whence the name. The flower is whitish. It grows by pathways and in hedges. The seed, harsh in taste, draws out bile and phlegm both upwards and downwards; the dose to be taken is the measure of an acetabulum. It is also good for sciatica, injected. In a draught it draws blood and also promotes menstruation, but it kills the unborn child.
140| The other thlaspi some call Persian napy; it has broad leaves and large roots, and it too is useful as an injection for sciatica. Both kinds are also good for the groin. The instruction is that the gatherer should say that he is taking it against the groin, against all abscesses and against wounds, and should pick it with one hand. — What kind of plant trachinia is, is not recorded.
141| I believe that the promise of Democritus is false and monstrous, that tied on as an amulet for three days it consumes the spleen. — Tragonis, or tragion, grows only on the coasts of the island of Crete, like the juniper in seed, leaf and branches. Its milky juice thickened into a gum, or the seed in a draught, [….] expels arrowheads from the body; it is pounded fresh and applied with wine, or the meal of the dried plant with honey. The same plant produces an abundance of milk and is a remedy without equal for the breasts.
142| — There is also another plant, tragos, which some call scorpion, half a foot high, shrubby, leafless, with tiny reddish clusters of grains like wheat, and a sharp tip; it too grows by the sea. Of its clusters, 10 or 12 tips, pounded and taken in wine, help coeliac patients, dysentery, those who spit blood, and excessive menstruation. — There is also tragopogon, which others call come, with a small stem, the leaves of the crocus, a long sweet root, and above the stem a broad black calyx. It grows in rough places and is eaten, but it has no medicinal use.
143| So much, then, have we received or discovered about plants that are worth recording. At their close we judge it not beside the point to give a reminder that different plants keep their potency for different spans of time. Elaterium lasts the longest, as we have said; black chamaeleon 40 years; centaurium not beyond 12; peucedanum and aristolochia up to 6; the wild vine a year — if they are kept in the shade. And of all other animals none touches the roots we have described except the sphondyle, which goes after every one of them. It is a kind of serpent.
144| Nor is this doubted either: that the potency and effect of all roots is lessened if the fruit ripens first, and likewise the potency of the seeds if the root has first been cut for the sake of its juice. Moreover, the potency of them all is undone by habit, and those that have been in daily use cease to help when they are needed, just as they cease to harm. All plants, however, are stronger in effect and potency in cold and northerly places, and likewise in dry ones.
145| There are also no small differences between peoples: thus we are told that tapeworms and intestinal worms occur in the peoples of Egypt, Arabia, Syria and Cilicia, while in those of Thrace and Phrygia they do not breed at all. That is less surprising than that on the border of Attica and Boeotia they breed in the Thebans, while the Athenians are free of them.
146| This reflection carries us on to the natures of the animals themselves, and to the cures for all diseases inborn in them, which are perhaps more certain still. For again, since the parent of things willed that no animal should be born merely to feed itself or to fill others, and implanted health-giving arts even in their vitals — implanting them, indeed, even in things without sense — she willed above all that those most excellent aids to life should come from another living creature: a reflection marvellous before all others.
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