292 Pliny's natueal histoet. [Book XX. 



for a dry cough, as also for gangrenes and hang-nails.^^ The 

 juice, too, taken with honey, is good for the ears and nos- 

 trils : it is a remedy also for jaundice, and diminishes the 

 bilious secretions. Among the few antidotes ^^ for poisons, it 

 is one of the very best known. 



The plant itself, taken with iris and honey, purges the sto- 

 mach and promotes expectorations : it acts, also, as a strong 

 diuretic, though, at the same time, care must be taken not to 

 use it when the bladder is ulcerated and the kidneys are af- 

 fected. It is said, too, that the juice of horehound improves 

 the eyesight. Castor speaks of two varieties of it, the black 

 horehound and the white, which last he considers to be the 

 best. He puts the juice of it into an empty eggshell, and then 

 mixes the egg with it, together with honey, in equal pro- 

 portions : this preparation used warm, he says, will bring 

 absct-sses to a head, and cleanse and heal them. Beaten up, 

 too, with stale axle-grease and applied topically, he says, hore- 

 hound is a cure for the bite of a dog. 



CHAP. 90. WILD THYME : EIGHTEEN EEMEDIES. 



Wild thyme, it is said, borrows its name, '* serpyllum," from 

 the fact that it is a creeping^^ plant, a property peculiar to the 

 wild kind, that which grows in rocky places more particularly. 

 The cultivated^^ thyme is not a creeping plant, but grows up- 

 wards, as much a palm in height. That which springs up 

 spontaneously, grows the most luxuriantly, its leaves and 

 branches being whiter than those of the other kinds. Thyme 

 is efficacious as a remedy for the stings of serpents, the cen- 

 chris^^ more particularly ; also for the sting of the scolopendra, 

 both sea and land, the leaves and branches being boiled for the 

 purpose in wine. Burnt, it puts to flight all venomous crea- 



5^ " Pterygia." " Pterygium" is also a peculiar disease of the eye. 



5"^ " Inter pauca." He has mentioned, however, a vast number of so- 

 called antidotes or remedies. It is just possible that he may mean, " There 

 are few antidotes like it for efficacy." 



53 " A serpendo :" the Thymus serpyllum of Linnaeus. 



s* The Thymus zygis of Linnseus : the Serpyllum folio thymi of C. 

 Eauhin. Dioscorides says that it is the cultivated thyme that is a creeping 

 plant. 



^* See Lucan's Pharsalia, B. ix. 1. 712, et seq. 



