414 pltny's NATUEAL HISTOET. [Book XXII. 



juice of this plant is collected in summer, at the sixth ^^ hour 

 of the day ; it is usually mixed with wine, which makes ^^ it 

 keep all the better. Combined with rose-oil, it alleviates 

 head-ache. The juice extracted from the leaves, combined 

 with salt, removes warts ; from which circumstance our people 

 have given this plant the name of " verrucaria,"^* although, 

 from its various properties, it fully merits a better name. For, 

 taken in wine or hydromel, it is an antidote to the venom of 

 serpents and scorpions," as ApoUophanes and Apollodorus state. 

 The leaves, too, employed topically, are a cure for the cerebral 

 affections of infants, known as '• siriasis,"^^ as also for convul- 

 sions, even when they are epileptic. It is very wholesome, 

 too, to gargle the mouth with a decoction of this plant. Taken 

 in drink, it expels tapeworm and gravel, and, with the addition 

 of cummin, it will disperse calculi. A decoction of the plant 

 with the root, mixed with the leaves and some suet of a he-goat, 

 is applied topically for the cure of gout. 



The other kind, which we have spoken^''' of as being called 

 the " tricoccum," and which also bears the name of '' scor- 

 piuron,"^^ has leaves that are not only smaller than those of 

 the other kind, but droop downwards towards the ground : the 

 seed of it resembles a scorpion's tail, to which, in fact, it owes 

 its latter appellation. It is of great efficacy for injuries received 

 from all kinds of venomous insects and the spider known as 

 the " phalangium," but more particularly for the stings of 

 scorpions, if applied topically. ^^ Those who carry it about their 

 person are never stung by a scorpion, and it is said that if a 

 circle is traced on the ground around a scorpion with a sprig 

 of this plant, the animal will never move out oi it, and that if 

 a scorpion is covered with it, or even sprinkled with the water 

 in which it has been steeped, it will die that instant. Four 



5- Midday, namely. ^' " Sic firmior." 



5' The "wart plant;" from "verruca," a "wart." 



^5 Tliis notion arose probably, Fee thinks, from the clusters of its flowers 

 resembling the tail of a scorpion in appearance. 



56 Probably an inflammation of the membranes of the brain. 



*'' At the beginning of this Chapter. 



*3 " Scorpion's tail." Dioscoridcs gives this name to the Helioscopium, 

 or great Heliotropium. 



^* Fee is surprised that no mention is made of its colouring properties, 

 it being extremely rich in the colouring principle, and having been much 

 used in former times for dyeing purposes. 



