246 Pliny's i^atural nisToiiY. [Book XXVII. 



ticularly when dried : when wanted for use, they should be 

 dried in the sun. These plants are found growing everywhere, 

 but in cold soils more particularly ; they should be taken up, 

 too, at the setting of the Yergiliae.''^ The root is only used at the 

 end of three years, neither before that period nor after. They 

 act as an expellent of intestinal worms ; for tapeworm'^ honey 

 is taken with them, but in other cases sweet wine, for three days. 

 They are, both of them, extremely detrimental to the sto- 

 mach, but are laxative to the bowels, carrying off first the bile 

 and then the aqueous humours of the body. AVhen used for 

 tapeworm, it is the best plan to take scammony with them, in 

 equal proportions. For rheumatic defluxions, the root is taken 

 in doses of two oboli, in water, after a day's abstinence from 

 food, a little honey being taken first. Neither kind must ever 

 be given to females ; for in pregnancy they are productive of 

 abortion, and in other cases entail sterility. Powdered fern is 

 sprinkled upon sordid ulcers, as also upon the necks of beasts 

 of burden, when chafed. Fern-leaves kill bugs, and serpents 

 will never harbour among them : hence it is a good plan to 

 strew them in places where the presence of those reptiles is 

 suspected. The very smell, too, of burnt fern will put serpents 

 to flight. Medical men have made this distinction as to ferns ; 

 that of Macedonia, they say, is the best, and that of Cassiope 

 the next. 



CHAP. 56. FEMUR BUBULT7M, OR OX THIGH. 



The name of femur bubulum'^ is given to a plant which is 

 good for the sinews, applied fresh, and beaten up with salt and 

 vinegar. 



CHAP. 57. GALEOPSIS, GALEOBDOLOlSr, OR GALION : SIX REMEDIES. 



Galeopsis,'''^ or as some call it, " galeobdolon" or ''gallon," 



'" See B. xviii. c. 59. 



"^ Fee remarks that root of fern is an undoubted remedy for tapeworm, 

 and that it is worthy of remark that we owe to the ancients the two most 

 efficient anthelmintics known, fern-root, namely, and pomegranate rind. 



^2 The Femur bubulum has not been identified. C. Bauhin has suggested 

 the Leonurus cardiaca of Linnaeus, Motherwort. 



'3 It has been suggested that this plant is the same as the Laraiura, 

 mentioned in B. xxii. c. 16, but Fee is not of that opinion. He identifies 

 the Galeopsis with the Lamium purpureum of Linnaeus, the Purple arch- 

 angel, or dead-nettle. Littre gives as its synonym the Scrofularia pere- 

 grina of Linnaeus, the Foreign figwort. 



