Chapter XXIV: Book XXII: The Properties of Plants and Fruits (3)

Those lentils[2793] are the best which boil the most easily, and those in particular which absorb the most water. They injure the eye-sight,[2794] no doubt, and inflate the stomach; but taken with the food, they act astringently upon the bowels, more particularly if they are thoroughly boiled in rain-water: if, on the other hand, they are lightly boiled, they are laxative.[2795] They break purulent ulcers, and they cleanse and cicatrize ulcerations of the mouth. Applied topically, they allay all kinds of abscesses, when ulcerated and chapped more particularly; with melilote or quinces they are applied to defluxions of the eyes, and with polenta they are employed topically for suppurations. A decoction of them is used for ulcerations of the mouth and genitals, and, with rose-oil or quinces, for diseases of the fundament. For affections which demand a more active remedy, they are used with pomegranate rind, and the addition of a little honey; to prevent the composition from drying too quickly, beet leaves are added. They are applied topically, also, to scrofulous sores, and to tumours, whether ripe or only coming to a head, being thoroughly boiled first in vinegar. Mixed with hydromel they are employed for the cure of chaps, and with pomegranate rind for gangrenes. With polenta they are used for gout, for diseases of the uterus and kidneys, for chilblains, and for ulcerations which cicatrize with difficulty. For a disordered stomach, thirty grains should be eaten.

For cholera,[2796] however, and dysentery, it is the best plan to boil the lentils in three waters, in which case they should always be parched first, and then pounded as fine as possible, either by themselves, or else with quinces, pears, myrtle, wild endive, black beet, or plantago. Lentils are bad for the lungs, head-ache, all nervous affections, and bile, and are very apt to cause restlessness at night. They are useful, however, for pustules, erysipelas, and affections of the mamillæ, boiled in sea-water; and, applied with vinegar, they disperse indurations and scrofulous sores. As a stomachic, they are mixed, like polenta, with the drink given to patients. Parboiled in water, and then pounded and bolted through a sieve to disengage the bran, they are good for burns, care being taken to add a little honey as they heal: they are boiled, also, with oxycrate for diseases of the throat.[2797]

There is a marsh-lentil[2798] also, which grows spontaneously in stagnant waters. It is of a cooling nature, for which reason it is employed topically for abscesses, and for gout in particular, either by itself or with polenta. Its glutinous properties render it a good medicine for intestinal hernia.

CHAP. 71.—THE ELELISPHACOS, SPHACOS, OR SALVIA: THIRTEEN REMEDIES.

The plant called by the Greeks “elelisphacos,”[2799] or “sphacos,” is a species of wild lentil, lighter than the cultivated one, and with a leaf, smaller, drier, and more odoriferous. There is also another[2800] kind of it, of a wilder nature, and possessed of a powerful smell, the other one being milder. It[2801] has leaves the shape of a quince, but white and smaller: they are generally boiled with the branches. This plant acts as an emmenagogue and a diuretic: and it affords a remedy for wounds inflicted by the sting-ray,[2802] having the property of benumbing the part affected. It is taken in drink with wormwood for dysentery: employed with wine it accelerates the catamenia when retarded, a decoction of it having the effect of arresting them when in excess: the plant, applied by itself, stanches the blood of wounds. It is a cure, too, for the stings of serpents, and a decoction of it in wine allays prurigo of the testes.

Our herbalists of the present day take for the “elelisphacos” of the Greeks the “salvia”[2803] of the Latins, a plant similar in appearance to mint, white and aromatic. Applied externally, it expels the dead fœtus, as also worms which breed in ulcers and in the ears.

CHAP. 72.—THE CHICKPEA AND THE CHICHELING VETCH: TWENTY-THREE REMEDIES.

There is a wild chickpea also, which resembles in its leaf the cultivated kind,[2804] and has a powerful smell. Taken in considerable quantities, it relaxes the bowels, and produces griping pains and flatulency; parched, however, it is looked upon as more wholesome. The chicheling vetch,[2805] again, acts more beneficially upon the bowels. The meal of both kinds heals running sores of the head—that of the wild sort being the more efficacious of the two—as also epilepsy, swellings of the liver, and stings inflicted by serpents. It acts as an emmenagogue and a diuretic, used in the grain more particularly, and it is a cure for lichens, inflammations of the testes, jaundice, and dropsy. All these kinds, however, exercise an injurious effect upon ulcerations of the bladder and kidneys: but in combination with honey they are very good for gangrenous sores, and the cancer known as “cacoethes.” The following is a method adopted for the cure of all kinds of warts: on the first day of the moon, each wart must be touched with a single chickpea, after which, the party must tie up the pease in a linen cloth, and throw it behind him; by adopting this plan, it is thought, the warts will be made to disappear.

Our authors recommend the plant known as the “arietinum”[2806] to be boiled in water with salt, and two cyathi of the decoction to be taken for strangury. Employed in a similar manner, it expels calculi, and cures jaundice. The water in which the leaves and stalks of this plant have been boiled, applied as a fomentation as hot as possible, allays gout in the feet, an effect equally produced by the plant itself, beaten up and applied warm. A decoction of the columbine[2807] chickpea, it is thought, moderates the shivering fits in tertian or quartan fevers; and the black kind, beaten up with half a nut-gall, and applied with raisin wine, is a cure for ulcers of the eyes.

CHAP. 73.—THE FITCH: TWENTY REMEDIES.

In speaking of the fitch,[2808] we have mentioned certain properties belonging to it; and, indeed, the ancients have attributed to it no fewer virtues than they have to the cabbage. For the stings of serpents, it is employed with vinegar; as also for bites inflicted by crocodiles and human beings. If a person eats of it, fasting, every day, according to authors of the very highest authority, the spleen will gradually diminish. The meal of it removes spots on the face and other parts of the body. It prevents ulcers from spreading also, and is extremely efficacious for affections of the mamillæ: mixed with wine, it makes carbuncles break. Parched, and taken with a piece of honey the size of a hazel nut, it cures dysuria, flatulency, affections of the liver, tenesmus, and that state of the body in which no nourishment is derived from the food, generally known as “atrophy.” For cutaneous eruptions, plasters are made of it boiled with honey, being left to remain four days on the part affected. Applied with honey, it prevents inflamed tumours from suppurating. A decoction of it, employed as a fomentation, cures chilblains and prurigo; and it is thought by some, that if it is taken daily, fasting, it will improve the complexion of all parts of the body.

Used as an aliment, this pulse is far from wholesome,[2809] being apt to produce vomiting, disorder the bowels, and stuff the head and stomach. It weakens the knees also; but the effects of it may be modified by keeping it in soak for several days, in which case it is remarkably beneficial for oxen and beasts of burden. The pods of it, beaten up green with the stalks and leaves, before they harden, stain the hair black.

CHAP. 74.—LUPINES: THIRTY-FIVE REMEDIES.

There are wild lupines,[2810] also, inferior in every respect to the cultivated kinds, except in their bitterness. Of all the alimentary substances, there are none which are less heavy or more useful[2811] than dried lupines. Their bitterness is considerably modified by cooking them on hot ashes, or steeping them in hot water. Employed frequently as an article of food, they impart freshness to the colour; the bitter lupine, too, is good for the sting of the asp. Dried lupines, stripped of the husk and pounded, are applied in a linen cloth to black ulcers, in which they make new flesh: boiled in vinegar, they disperse scrofulous sores and imposthumes of the parotid glands. A decoction of them, with rue and pepper, is given in fever even, as an expellent of intestinal worms,[2812] to patients under thirty years of age. For children, also, they are applied to the stomach as a vermifuge, the patient fasting in the meantime: and, according to another mode of treatment, they are parched and taken in boiled must or in honey.

Lupines have the effect of stimulating the appetite, and of dispelling nausea. The meal of them, kneaded up with vinegar, and applied in the bath, removes pimples and prurigo; employed alone, it dries up ulcerous sores. It cures bruises also, and, used with polenta, allays inflammations. The wild lupine is found to be the most efficacious for debility of the hips and loins. A decoction of them, used as a fomentation, removes freckles and improves the skin; and lupines, either wild or cultivated, boiled down to the consistency of honey, are a cure for black eruptions and leprosy. An application of cultivated lupines causes carbuncles to break, and reduces inflamed tumours and scrofulous sores, or else brings them to a head: boiled in vinegar, they restore the flesh when cicatrized to its proper colour. Thoroughly boiled in rain-water, the decoction of them furnishes a detersive medicine, of which fomentations are made for gangrenes, purulent eruptions, and running ulcers. This decoction is very good, taken in drink, for affections of the spleen, and with honey, for retardations of the catamenia. Beaten up raw, with dried figs, lupines are applied externally to the spleen. A decoction of the root acts as a diuretic.

The herb chamæleon,[2813] also, is boiled with lupines, and the water of it strained off, to be used as a potion for cattle. Lupines boiled in amurca,[2814] or a decoction of them mixed with amurca, heals the itch in beasts. The smoke of lupines kills[2815] gnats.

CHAP. 75.—IRIO, OR ERYSIMUM, BY THE GAULS CALLED VELA: FIFTEEN REMEDIES.

When treating of the cereals, we have already stated[2816] that the irio, which strongly resembles sesame, is also called “erysimon” by the Greeks: the Gauls give it the name of “vela.” It is a branchy plant, with leaves like those of rocket, but a little narrower, and a seed similar to that of nasturtium. With honey, it is extremely good for cough and purulent expectorations: it is given, also, for jaundice and affections of the loins, pleurisy, gripings of the bowels, and cœliac affections, and is used in liniments for imposthumes of the parotid glands and carcinomatous affections. Employed with water, or with honey, it is useful for inflammations of the testes, and is extremely beneficial for the diseases of infants. Mixed with honey and figs, it is good for affections of the fundament and diseases of the joints; and taken in drink, it is an excellent antidote to poisons. It is used, also, for asthma,[2817] and with stale axle-grease for fistulas; but it must not be allowed to touch the interior of them.

CHAP. 76.—HORMINUM: SIX REMEDIES.

Horminum resembles cummin, as already stated,[2818] in its seed; but in other respects, it is like the leek.[2819] It grows to some nine inches in height, and there are two varieties of it. In one of these the seed is oblong, and darker than that of the other, and the plant itself is in request as an aphrodisiac, and for the cure of argema and albugo in the eyes: of the other kind the seed is whiter, and of a rounder form. Both kinds, pounded and applied with water, are used for the extraction of thorns from the body. The leaves, steeped in vinegar, disperse tumours, either used by themselves, or in combination with honey; they are employed, also, to disperse boils, before they have come to a head, and other collections of acrid humours.

CHAP. 77.—DARNEL: FIVE REMEDIES.

Even more than this—the very plants which are the bane of the corn-field are not without their medicinal uses. Darnel[2820] has received from Virgil[2821] the epithet of “unhappy;” and yet, ground and boiled with vinegar, it is used as an application for the cure of impetigo, which is the more speedily effected the oftener the application is renewed. It is employed, also, with oxymel, for the cure of gout and other painful diseases. The following is the mode of treatment: for one sextarius of vinegar, two ounces of honey is the right proportion; three sextarii having been thus prepared, two sextarii of darnel meal are boiled down in it to a proper consistency, the mixture being applied warm to the part affected. This meal, too, is used for the extraction of splinters of broken bones.

CHAP. 78.—THE PLANT MILIARIA: ONE REMEDY.

“Miliaria”[2822] is the name given to a plant which kills millet: this plant, it is said, is a cure for gout in beasts of burden, beaten up and administered in wine, with the aid of a horn.

CHAP. 79.—BROMOS: ONE REMEDY.

Bromos[2823] is the seed also of a plant which bears an ear. It is a kind of oat which grows among corn, to which it is injurious; the leaves and stalk of it resemble those of wheat, and at the extremity it bears seeds, hanging down, something like small locusts[2824] in appearance. The seed of this plant is useful for plasters, like barley and other grain of a similar nature. A decoction of it is good for coughs.

CHAP. 80.—OROBANCHE, OR CYNOMORION: ONE REMEDY.

We have mentioned[2825] orobanche as the name of a plant which kills the fitch and other leguminous plants. Some persons have called it “cynomorion,” from the resemblance which it bears to the genitals of a dog. The stem of it is leafless, thick, and red. It is eaten either raw, or boiled in the saucepan, while young and tender.

CHAP. 81.—REMEDIES FOR INJURIES INFLICTED BY INSECTS WHICH BREED AMONG LEGUMINOUS PLANTS.

There are some venomous insects also, of the solipuga[2826] kind, which breed upon leguminous plants, and which, by stinging the hands, endanger life. For these stings all those remedies are efficacious which have been mentioned for the bite of the spider and the phalangium.[2827] Such, then, are the medicinal properties for which the cereals are employed.

CHAP. 82.—THE USE MADE OF THE YEAST OF ZYTHUM.

Different beverages, too, are made from the cereals, zythum in Egypt, cælia and cerea in Spain, cervesia[2828] and numerous liquors in Gaul and other provinces. The yeast[2829] of all of these is used by women as a cosmetic for the face.—But as we are now speaking of beverages, it will be the best plan to pass on to the various uses of wine, and to make a beginning with the vine of our account of the medicinal properties of the trees.

SUMMARY.—Remedies, narratives, and observations, nine hundred and six.

AUTHORS QUOTED.—All those mentioned in the preceding Book; and, in addition to them, Chrysermus,[2830] Eratosthenes,[2831] and Alcæus.[2832]