208 pliny's natukal histohy. [Book XX. 



which are of singular utility to mankind for healing dimness' 

 of sight, diseases of the eyes, and ulcerations of the eyelids. 

 It is said that if the roots of a vine are touched with this 

 juice, the grapes of it will be sure never to be attacked by 

 birds. 



The root,^° too, of the wild cucumber, boiled in vinegar, is 

 employed in fomentations for the gout, and the juice of it is 

 used as a remedy for tooth -ache. Dried and mixed with resin, 

 the root is a cure for impetigo^^ and the skin diseases known 

 as " psora" ^- and " lichen :" ^^ it is good, too, for imposthumes 

 of the parotid glands and inflammatory tumours, ^^ and restores 

 the natural colour to the skin when a cicatrix has formed. — 

 The juice of the leaves, mixed with vinegar, is used as an 

 injection for the ears, in cases of deafness. 



CHAP. 3. ELATERIUM ; TWENTY-SEVEN REMEDIES. 



The proper season for making elaterium is the autumn ; and 

 there is no medicament known that will keep longer than this.^^ 

 It begins to be fit for use when three years old ; but if it is 

 found desirable to make use of it at an earlier period than 

 this, the acridity of the lozenges may be modified by putting 

 them with vinegar upon a slow fire, in a new earthen pot. 

 The older it is the better, and before now, as we learn from 

 Theophrastus, it has been known to keep^^ so long as two hun- 

 dred years. Even after it has been kept so long as fifty'*' 

 years, it retains its property of extinguishing a light ; indeed, 



_ 5 Dioscorides, B. iv. c. 154, states to this effect. Fee remarks that, 

 singularly enough, most of the antiophthalmics used by the ancients, were 

 composed of acrid and almost corrosive medicaments, quite in opposition to 

 the sounder notions entertained on the suhject by the moderns. 



^^ Dioscorides says the same ; and much the same statements are made 

 by Celsus, Apuleius, Marcellus Empiricus, and Plinius Yalerianus. The 

 different parts of the plant, dried, have but very feeble properties, Fee says. 



^' A sort of tetter or ring-worm Celsus enumerates four varieties. 



^' Itch -scab, probably. 



13 A disease of the skin, in which the scab assumes the form almost of a 

 lichen or moss. 



1* "Panes." "Panus" was the name given to a wide-spreading, but 

 not deeply-seated, tumour, the surface of which presented a birstered 

 appearance. 



'^ Fee says that this is not the fact, as it speedily deteriorates by 

 keeping 



1^ From Theophrastus, Hist. Plant. B. ix. c. 10. 



