84 pli>'y's natural HISTOET. [Book XXV. 



the mother of a soldier who was serving in the praetorian guard, 

 received a warning in a dream, to send her son the root of 

 the wild rose, known as the cynorrhodos,-^ a plant the beauty 

 of whicli had attracted lier attention in a shrubbery the 

 day before, and to request him to drink the extract of it. The 

 army was then serving in Lacetania, the part of Spain which 

 lies nearest to Italy ; and it so happened that the soldier, 

 having been bitten by a dog, was just beginning to manifest a 

 horror of water when his mother's letter reached him, in 

 which she entreated him to obey the words of this divine 

 warning. He accordingly complied with her request, and, 

 against all hope or expectation, his life was saved ; a result'^ 

 which has been experienced by all who have since availed them- 

 selves of the same resource. Uefore this, the cynorrhodos had 

 been only recommended by writers for one medicinal purpose ; 

 the spongy excrescences, they say, which grow'^^ in the midst of 

 its thorns, reduced to ashes and mixed with honey, will make the 

 hair grow again when it has been lost by alopecy, I know too, 

 for a fact, that in the same province there was lately discovered 

 in the land belonging to a person with whom I was staying, a 

 stalked plant, the name given to which was dracunculus."^ This 

 plant, about an inch in thickness, and spotted with various 

 colours, like a viper's skin, was generally reported to be an 

 effectual preservative against the sting of all kinds of serpents. 

 I should remark, however, that it is a different plant from the 

 one of the same name of which mention has been made in the 

 preceding Book,-^ having altogether another shape and appear- 

 ance. There is also another marvellous property belonging to 

 it : in spring, when the serpents begin to cast their slough, it 

 shoots up from the ground to the height of about a couple of 

 feet, and again, when they retire for the winter it conceals 

 itself within the earth, nor is there a serpent to be seen so long 

 as it remains out of sight. Even if this plant did nothing 

 else but warn us of impending danger, and tell us when to 

 be on our guard, it could not be looked upon otherwise than 

 as a beneficent provision made by Nature in our behalves. 



^* Dog-rose, or eglantine. See B. viii. c. 63. , 



-^ An unwarranted assertion, no doubt. 



26 He alludes to a substance known to us as " bedeguar," a kind of 

 gall-nut, produced liy the insect called Cynips rosse. 



■-7 Or " little dragon." The Arum dracunculus of Linnaeus. Sec B. 

 xxiv. CO. 91, 93. 28 In c. 93. 



