Chap. 51.] HUE. 253 



boxes of Cyprian copper. Given in large doses, this juice has 

 all the baneful effects of poison, ^^ and that of Macedonia more 

 particularly, which grows on the banks of the river Aliac- 

 mon.^'^ It is a truly wonderful thing, but the juice of hemlock 

 has the property of neutralizing its effects. Thus do we find 

 one thing acting as the poison of another poison, for the juice 

 of hemlock is very beneficial, rubbed upon the hands and 

 [face]^^ of persons employed in gathering rue. 



In other respects, rue is one of the principal ingredients 

 employed in antidotes, that of Galatia more particularly. 

 Every species of rue, employed by itself, has the effect also of 

 an antidote, if the leaves are bruised and taken in wine. It 

 is good more particularly in cases of poisoning by wolfsbane^ 

 and mistletoe, as well as by fungi, whether administered in the 

 drink or the food. Employed in a similar manner, it is good 

 for the stings of serpents ; so much so, in fact, that weasels," 

 when about to attack them, take the precaution first of pro- 

 tecting themselves by eating rue. Eue is good, too, for the 

 injuries by scorpions and spiders, the stings of bees, hornets, 

 and wasps, the noxious effects produced by cantharides and 

 salamanders,^ and the bites of mad dogs. The juice is taken 

 in doses of one acetabulum, in wine ; and the leaves, beaten 

 up or else chewed, are applied topically, with honey and 

 salt, or boiled with vinegar and pitch. It is said that people 

 rubbed with the juice of rue, or even having it on their per- 

 son, are never attacked by these noxious creatures, and that 

 serpents are driven away by the stench of burning rue. The 

 most efficacious, however, of all, is the root of wild rue, taken 

 with wine; this too, it is said, is more beneficial still, if 

 drunk in the open air. 



Pythagoras has distinguished this plant also into male and 



^^ It is not the rue that has this effect, so much as the salts of copper 

 which are formed, 



^2 Fee thinks it not Ukely that the rue grown here was at all superior 

 to that of other localities, 



^3 This word, omitted in the text, is supplied from Dioscorides. 



^ Or aconite. There is no truth whatever in these assertions, that rue 

 has the effect of neutralizing the effects of hemlock, henbane, or poisonous 

 fungi. Boerrhave says that he employed rue successfully in cases of hyste- 

 ria and epilepsy ; and it is an opinion which originated with Hippocrates, 

 and is still pretty generally entertained, that it promotes the catamenia. 



55 See B. viii, c. 40. se See B. x. c. 86. 



