Chap. 50.] NASTURTIUM, 251 



natural colour. It is said that if this plant is taken in wine 

 by persons who are about to undergo a flogging, it will impart 

 a certain degree of insensibility to the body. So agreeable is 

 its flavour as a savouring for food, that the Greeks have given 

 it the name of *' euzomon."^^ It is generally thought that 

 rocket, lightly bruised, and employed as a fomentation for the 

 eyes, will restore the sight to its original goodness, and that 

 it allays coughs in young infants. The root of it, boiled in 

 water, has the property of extracting the splinters of broken 

 bones. 



As to the properties of rocket as an aphrodisiac, w^e have 

 mentioned them already.*^ Thre§ leaves of wild rocket 

 plucked with the left hand, beaten up in hydromel, and then 

 taken in drink, are productive of a similar effect. 



CHAP. 50. NASTURTIUM : FOETY-TWO REMEDIES. 



Nasturtium,*^ on the other hand, is an antiaphrodisiac ;** it 

 has the effect also of sharpening the senses, as already stated.*^ 

 There are two *^ varieties of this plant : one of them is pur- 

 gative, and, taken in doses of one denarius to seven of water, 

 carries off the bilious secretions. Applied as a liniment to 

 scrofulous sores, with bean-meal, and then covered with a 

 cabbage-leaf, it is a most excellent remedy. The other kind, 

 which is darker than the first, has the eflfect of carrying off 

 vicious humours of the head, and sharpening the sight : taken 

 in vinegar it calms the troubled spirits, and, drunk with wine 

 or taken in a fig, it is good for affections of the spleen ; taken 

 in honey, too, fasting dailj', it is good for a cough. The seed 

 of it, taken in wine, expels all kinds of intestinal worms, and 

 with the addition of wdld mint, it acts more efficaciously 

 still. It is good, too, for asthma and cough, in combina- 

 tion with wild marjoram and sweet wine ; and a decoction of 

 it in goats' milk is used for pains in the chest. Mixed with 



*^ " Good for sauces." ^2 j^ B. xix, c. 44. 



^3 The Lepidium sativum of Linnaeus, cresses or nose-smart. 



" This opinion is corroborated by Dioscorides, B. ii. c. 185, and confirmed 

 by the author of the Geoponica, B. xii. c. 27. Fee inclines to the opinion 

 of Dioscorides, and states that is liighly antiscorbutic. 



*5 In B. xix, c. 44. 



*^ The two varieties, the white and the black, are no longer distin- 

 guished. The only variety now recognized; Fee says, is that with crisped 

 leaves. 



