RANDOLPH. MANDRAGORA IX FOLK-LORE AND MEDICINE. 523 



The statement about the use of mandragora as an anaesthetic as it 

 appears in Pliny is so unemphatic, so purely incidental, and Pliny's 

 generally uncritical habits are so well known, that it furnishes no 

 argument for its truth. 



On the other hand, how strong an argument for its truth is the fact 

 that it is found in Dioscorides? The claim to originalitt/ made in the 

 preface of his work* must, in the light of Wellmann's arguments, be ad- 

 mitted to be considerably exaggerated. Yet he is not to be charged 

 with being grossly uncritical in the admission of material. A careful 

 reading of all his writings reveals a decidedly conservative spirit, tem- 

 pered in the main by sound judgment. ''Child of his time" (Wellmann) 

 he undoubtedly was, and it is somewhat disappointing to find in his work 

 a certain amount of nonsense mixed in here and there alongside of 

 perfectly sound doctrine. Yet where he makes mention of amulets, 

 *•' sympathetic " f remedies, and the like, his tendency is to report them 

 with the addition of "they say" (lo-ropoio-i), "it is said" (to-ro^eirat), 

 "some record" (ypd<f>ov<TL tu'c?), as saving clauses. Doubtless many of 

 the bogus remedies are mentioned only because of the feeling common to 

 writers of his time that everything pertaining to a given subject must be 

 brought in ; witness his reason for describing a very great number of 

 ways of preparing wine : 



1. 713 : Xot because the use of them is extensive or necessary, but in 

 order that our report may not be found wanting in regard to any of them. 



Furthermore, it is very probable that he was a practising physician, $ 

 and in that case he must have had an especial interest in such a matter as 

 this, with an excellent opportunity for observation. So that his unre- 

 served admission into his work of the statements here recorded should 

 not be without weight in our estimate of the evidence before us. 



The use of the plant is stated three times in his chapter on mandra- 

 gora, as we have seen. The third of these must be disregarded, since 

 all that he says about the " third species " of mandragora is given on 

 hearsay ; the plant referred to has not been surely identified, and this 

 use is nowhere else asserted of a plant resembling and yet distinct from 



* Diosc , 1. 4. 



t On the nature of and ancient belief in " sympathetic" remedies (tlie word in 

 this sense is not defined in tiie Century or Standard Dictionaries), see Kiess, in 

 Pauly-Wissowa's Ixealencyclopadie, vol. 1, col. 36. 



t Tliis is the opinion of Sprengel (Praef. ed. Diosc, p. x) and Meyer (vol. 2, 

 p. 100), and is thought probable by Haser (vol. 1, p. 302). 



