230 pliny's natural history. [Book XX. 



making incisions in tlie stalk, and is kept in new earthen 

 vessels, being renowned as a remedy for numerous maladies.^'* 

 Mixed with woman's milk, it is a cure for all diseases of the 

 eyes, sucli as argema for instance, films on the eyes, scars and 

 inflammations*^ of all kinds, and dimness of the sight more 

 particularly. It is applied to the eyes, too, in wool, as a remedy 

 for defluxions of those organs. 



This juice also purges the bowels, taken in doses of two oboli 

 in vinegar and water. Drunk in wine it is a cure for the 

 stings of serpents, and the leaves and stalk of the plant are 

 pounded and taken in vinegar. They are employed also as a 

 liniment for wounds, the sting of the scorpion more particu- 

 larly ; combined, too, with oil and vinegar, they are similarly 

 applied for the bite of the phalangium.^'^ They have the 

 effect, also, of neutralizing other poisons, with the exception 

 of those which kill by suffocation or by attacking the bladder, 

 as also with the exception of white lead. Steeped in oxymel, 

 they are applied to the abdomen for the purpose of drawing out 

 vicious humours of the intestines. The juice is found good, 

 also, in cases of retention of the urine. Crateuas prescribes 

 it to be given to dropsical patients, in doses of two oboli, with 

 vinegar and one cyathus of wine. 



Some persons collect the juice of the cultivated lettuce as well, 

 but it is not so efficacious^^ as the other. We have already made 

 mention,^'^ to some extent, of the peculiar properties of the 

 cultivated lettuce, such as promoting sleep, allaying the sexual 

 passions, cooling the body when heated, purging^^ the stomach, 

 and making blood. In addition to these, it possesses no few 

 properties besides j for it has the effect of removing flatulency, 

 and of dispelling eructations, while at the same time it pro- 

 motes the digestion, without ever being indigestible itself. 

 Indeed, there is no article of diet known that is a greater sti- 

 muLint to the appetite, or which tends in a greater degree to 



*8 " Lactucarium," or the inspissated milky juice of the garden lettuce, 

 is still used occasionally as a substitute for opium, having slightly anodyne 

 properties , but, as Fee remarks, all that Pliny says here of its effects is 

 erroneous. ^^ " Adustiones ;" " burns," perhaps. 



50 A kind of spider. See B. xi. cc. 24, 28, 29. 



51 This is consistent with modern experience, as to the medicinal effects 

 of the cultivated plants in general. 52 jj^ g^ ^ix. c. 38. 



5* The lettuce is not a purgative, nor has it the property here ascribed 

 to it, of making blood. 



