Chap. 8.] MOLY. 87 



these cases, we find, and not in others, that patients are 

 tempted to commit suicide. 



Por my own part, I am surprised that the Greek authors 

 have gone so far as to give a description of noxious plants 

 even ; in using which term, I wish it to he understood that 

 I do not mean the poisonous plants merely ; for such is our 

 tenure of life that death is often a port of refuge to even the 

 best of men. We meet too, with one case of a somewhat 

 similar nature, where M. Yarro speaks of Servius Clodius,^^ a 

 member of the Equestrian order, being so dreadfully tormented 

 with gout, that he had his legs rubbed all over with poisons, 

 the result of which was, that from that time forward all sensa- 

 tion, equally with all pain, was deadened in those parts of his 

 body. But what excuse, I say, can there be for making the 

 world acquainted with plants, the only result of the use of 

 which is to derange the intellect, to produce abortion, and to 

 cause numerous other effects equally pernicious ? So far as I am 

 concerned, I shall describe neither abortives nor philtres, 

 bearing in mind, as I do, that Lucullus, that most celebrated 

 general, died of the efiects of a philtre. ^^ Nor shall I speak 

 of other ill-omened devices of magic, unless it be to give 

 warning against them, or to expose them, for I most emphati- 

 cally condemn all faith and belief in them. It will suffice for 

 me, and I shall have abundantly done my duty, if I point out 

 those plants which were made for the benefit of mankind, and 

 the properties of which have been discovered in the lapse of 

 time. 



CHAP. 8. (4.) — MOLY : THKEE EEMEDIES. 



According to Homer,*'^ the most celebrated of all plants is 

 that, which, according to him, is known as moly^^ among the 



38 See tbe case of M. Agrippa, mentioned in B. xxiii. c. 27. 



39 Said, by Plutarch, to have been administered to him by Lis freedman 

 Callisthenes, with the view of securing *ljis affection. 



*o Od. X. 1. 302, et seq. 



*i Fee devotes a couple of pages to the vexata q?(cesfio of the identification 

 of this plant, and comes to the conclusion that tlie Moly of Homer, 

 mentioned on the present occasion, and of Theophrastus, Uvid, and the 

 poets in general is only an imaginary plant ; that the white-flowered Moly 

 of Dioseorides and Galen is identical with the Allium Dioscoridis of Sib- 

 thorpe; and that the yellow-flowered Moly of the author of the Priapeia 

 is not Improbably the Allium Moly or raagicum of Linnseus. Sprengel 



