1/0 PLINY'S NATUEAL HI3T0EY. [Book XXVI. 



that the belly should have to be indebted to the aid of medicine 

 in the very highest degree ! 



Scordotis,*^ fresh-gathered and beaten up, in doses of one 

 drachma, with wine, arrests flux of the bowels ; an effect 

 equally produced by a decoction of it taken in drink. Pole- 

 monia,^^ too, is given in wine for dysentery, or two fingers* 

 length of root of verbascum,"^ in water ; seed of nymphsea 

 heraclia,^^ in wine ; the upper root of xiphion,^'' in doses of one 

 drachma, in vinegar ; seed of plantago, beaten up in wine ; 

 plantago itself boiled in vinegar, or else a pottage of alica^* 

 mixed with the juice of the plant ; plantago boiled with 

 lentils ; plantago dried and powdered, and sprinkled in drink, 

 with parched poppies pounded ; juice of plantago, used as an 

 injection, or taken in drink ; or be tony taken in wine heated 

 with a red-hot iron. For cceliac affections, betony is taken in 

 astringent wine, or iberis is applied topically, as already^^ 

 stated. For tenesmus, root of nymphaea heraclia is taken in 

 w^ne, or else psyllion^*^ in water, or a decoction of root of 

 acoron.^^ Juice of aizoiim^^ arrests diarrhoea and dysentery, and 

 expels round tape-worm. Boot of symphytum,^^ taken in wine, 

 arrests diarrhoea and dysentery, and daucus'^* has a similar 

 effect. Leaves of aizoum^° beaten up in wine, and dried 

 alcea^^ powdered and taken in wine, are curative of griping 

 pains in the bowels. 



CHAP. 29. THE ASTBAGALTJS: SIX REMEDIES. 



Astragalus^' is the name of a plant which has long leaves, 

 with numerous incisions, and running aslant near the root. 

 The stems are three or four in number, and covered with leaves : 

 the flower is like that of the hyacinth, and the roots are red, 

 hairy, matted, and remarkably hard. It grows on stony local- 



37 Sprengel identifies it with the Phaca Baetica, Spanish bastard vetch ; 

 but the flowers of that plant, as Fee remarks, are yellow. He considers 

 it to be the Lathyrus tuberosus of Linnaeus, the Pease earth-nut. Littre 

 gives the Orobus sessilifolius of Sibthorp. 



