Chap. 84.] THE MALLOW. 285 



exempt from all diseases.^ Left to putrefy in wine, mallows are 

 remedial for running sores of the head, and, mixed with honey, 

 for lichens and ulcerations of the mouth ; a decoction of the root, 

 too, is a remedy for dandriff ^" of the head and looseness of the 

 teeth. With the root of the mallow which has a single stem,^^ 

 it is a good plan to prick the parts about a tooth when it aches, 

 until the pain has ceased. With the addition of human saliva, 

 the mallow cleanses scrofulous sores, imposthumes of the parotid 

 glands, and inflammatory tumours, without producing a wound. 

 The seed of it, taken in red wine, disperses phlegm and relieves 

 nausea ; and the root, attached to the person with black wool, 

 is a remedy for affections of the mamillae. Boiled in milk, and 

 taken as a pottage, it cures a cough within five days. 



Sextius ^""iger says that mallows are prejudicial to the sto- 

 mach, and Olympias, the Theban authoress, asserts that, em- 

 ployed with goose-grease, they are productive of abortion. 

 Some persons are of opinion, that a good handful of the leaves, 

 taken in oil and wine, promotes the menstrual discharge. At 

 all events, it is a well-known fact, that if the leaves are strewed 

 beneath a woman in labour, the delivery will be accelerated ; 

 but they must be taken away immediately after the birth, or 

 prolapsus of the uterus will be the consequence. Mallow-juice, 

 also, is given to women in labour, a decoction of it being taken 

 fasting in wine, in doses of one hemina. 



Mallow seed is attached to the arms of patients suffering 

 from spermatorrhoea ; and, so naturally adapted is this plant 

 for the promotion of lustfulness, that the seed of the kind with 

 a single stem, sprinkled upon the genitals, will increase the 

 sexual desire in males to an infinite degree, according to 

 Xenocrates ; who says, too, that if three roots are attached to 

 the person, in the vicinity of those parts, they will be produc- 

 tive of a similar result. The same writer informs us also, that 

 injections of mallows are good for tenesmus and dysentery, and 

 for maladies of the rectum even, if used as a fomentation 

 only. The juice is given warm to patients afflicted with melan- 



^ The same was said in the middle ages, of the virtues of sage, and in 

 more recent times of the Panax quinquefolium, the Ginseng of the Chinese. 



^" Q. Serenus Sammonicus speaks of the accumulation of dandriff in the 

 hair to such a degree as to form a noxious malady. He also mentions the 

 present remedy for it. 



1^ Some commentators have supposed this to he the Alcea. rosa of Lin- 

 ncEUS ; but Fee considers this opinion to be quite unfounded. 



