Chap. 13.] THE CULTIVATED EADISH. 217 



as well as epilepsy '*^ and melancholyj^ Praxagoras recom- 

 mends that radishes should be given for the iliac passion, and 

 Plistonicus for the coeliac '^ disease. 



Radishes are good, too, for curing ulcerations of the in- 

 testines and suppurations of the thoracic organs,'^ if eaten 

 with honey. Some persons say, however, that for this pur- 

 pose they should be boiled in earth and water ; a decoction 

 which, according to them, promotes the menstrual discharge. 

 Taken with vinegar or honey, radishes expel worms from the 

 intestines ; and a decoction of them boiled down to one- third, 

 taken in wine, is good for intestinal hernia.'* Employed 

 in this way, too, they have the effect of drawing off the super- 

 fluous blood. Medius recommends them to be given boiled to 

 persons troubled with spitting of blood, and to women who are 

 suckling, for the purpose of increasing the milk. Hippocrates "^ 

 recommends females whose hair falls off, to rub the head with 

 radishes, and he says that for pains of the utenis, they should 

 be applied to the navel. 



Radishes have the effect, too, of restoring the skin, when 

 scarred, to its proper colour ; and the seed, steeped in water, 

 and applied topically, arrests the progress of ulcers known as 

 phagedsenic."® Democritus regards them, taken with the food, 

 as an aphrodisiac ; and it is for this reason, perhaps, that some 

 persons have spoken of them as being injurious to the voice. 

 The leaves, but only those of the long radish, are said to have 

 the effect of improving the eye-sight. 



"When radishes, employed as a remedy, act too powerfully, 

 it is recommended that hyssop should be given immediately ; 

 there being an antipathy " between these two plants. For 



'0 " Morbus comitialis" — literally the " comitial disease." Epilepsy it is 

 said, was so called because, if any person was seized with it at the " Co- 

 mitia^" or public assemblies of the Eoman people, it was the custom to 

 adjourn the meeting to another day. 



'1 From ^ieXac, "black," and xoX/j, " bile." Melancholy, or bad 

 spirits, was so called from a notion that it was owing to a predominance of 

 an imaginary secretion called by the ancients " black bile." 



■^2 The coeliac flux, Fee says, is symptomatic of chronic enteritis ; and 

 is a species of diai-rhoea, in which the ch}'me is voided without undergoing 

 any change in passing through the intestines. 



'"^ "Praecordiorum." "* " Fnterocele." 



•5 De Morb. Mulier. B. ii. c. 67. 



'6 Eating or corroding ulcers. 



'^ Hippocrates, De Diaet4, B. ii. cc. 25, 26, says that radishes are of a 

 cold, and hyssop of a warm, nature. 



