398 Pliny's natural history. [Book XXII. 



of it, it is said, bears a strong resemblance to the organs of 

 either sex ; it is but rarely found, but if a root resembling the 

 male organs should happen to fall in the Avay of a man, it 

 "will ensure him woman's love ; hence it is that Pliaon the 

 Lesbian was so passionately beloved^^ by Sappho. Upon this 

 subject, too, there have been numerous other reveries, not only 

 on the part of the Magi, but of Pythagorean philosophers even 

 as well. 



So far as its medicinal properties are concerned, in addition 

 to those already mentioned, this plant, taken in hydromel, is 

 good for flatulency, gripings of the bowels, diseases of the 

 heart, stomach, liver, and thoracic organs, and, taken in oxy- 

 crate, for affections of the spleen. Mixed with hydromel, it is 

 recommended also for diseases of the kidneys, strangury, opistho- 

 tony, spasms, lumbago, dropsy, epilepsy, suppression or excess of 

 the catamenia, and all maladies of the uterus. Applied with 

 honey, it extracts foreign substances from the body, and, with 

 salted axle-grease and cerate, it disperses scrofulous sores, im- 

 posthumes of the parotid glands, inflamed tumours, denudations 

 of the bones, and fractures. Taken before drinking, it pre- 

 vents the fumes of wine from rising to the head, and it arrests 

 looseness of the bowels. Some of our authors have recom- 

 mended that this plant should be gathered at the period of 

 the summer solstice, and that it should be applied, in combi- 

 nation with rain water, for all kinds of maladies of the neck. 

 They say too, that, attached as an amulet to the person, it is a 

 cui'e for albugo. ^^ 



CHAP. 10. (9.) THE ACANOS ; ONE REMEDY. 



There are some authors, too, who make the acanos^^ to be a 

 species of eryngium. It is a thorny plant, stunted, and 

 spreading, with prickles of a considerable size. Applied topi- 

 cally, they say, it arrests haemorrhage in a most remarkable 

 degree. 



^2 The root contains a small quantity of essential oil, with, stimulating 

 properties ; and tliis fact, Fee thinks, Avould, to a certain extent, explain 

 this story of Sappho. It is not improbable that it was for these proper- 

 ties that it was valued by the rival wives of Jacob. 



^■^ Wliite specks in the eye. 



^ Sprengel identifies tliis with the Onopordum acanthium; but Fee 

 thinks that if it belongs to the Onopordum at all, it is more likely to be 

 the Onopordum acaulton, or the 0. Gra^cum. 



