260 plint's natural history. [Book XXVII. 



having but a single stem, with numerous joints running into 

 one another ; the leaves of it are similar to those of the pitch- 

 tree, and the root is never used. This variety, however, is not 

 so efficacious as those already mentioned, and, indeed is used 

 exclusively for sciatica. A fourth kind is known as the wild 

 polygonos : it is a shrub, almost a tree in fact, with a ligneous 

 root a red trunk like .that of the cedar, and branches resem- 

 blinff those of spartum,=« a couple of palms m length, and with 

 three or four dark-coloured, knotted joints. This kind, also is 

 of an astringent nature, and has a flavour like that ot the 

 quince It is either boiled down in water to one third, or else 

 dried and powdered for sprinkling upon ulcerations of the 

 mouth and excoriations : it is chewed, also, for affections ot 

 the gums. It arrests the progress of corrosive ulcers and ot all 

 sores of a serpiginous nature, or which cicatrize with dithculty, 

 and is particularly useful for ulcerations caused by snow. 

 Herbalists employ it also for quinzy, and use it as a chaplet tor 

 head-ache ; for defluxions of the eyes, they put it round the 



In cases of tertian fever, some persons pull it up with the 

 left hand, and attach it as an amulet to the body; the same, 

 too, in cases of hemorrhage. There is no plant that is more 

 generally kept by them in a dry state than the polygonos. 



CHAP. 92. — THE panceatium: twelve remedies. 

 The pancratium is called by some the "little squill, "=^ in 

 preference : it has leaves like those of the white lily, but 

 longer and thicker, and a root composed of a large, red, bulb. 

 The juice of it, taken with meal of fitches, relaxes the bowels, 

 and acts as a detergent upon ulcers : for dropsy, and diseases 

 of the spleen, it is administered with honey. Some persons 

 boil it till the water becomes sweet; the water is then poured 

 off, and the root is pounded and divided into tablets, whicn 

 Mare's tail, or female horse-tail; Littre gives the Equisetum pallidum of 



^"5'/ Identified "b/p^e with the Ephedra distachya of Linnaeus, the Great 



shrubby horsetail. 



68 See B, xix. c. 7. . , .,, ^, . , •,, 



59 " Scillam pusillam." Fee considers it to be a squill, the variety with 



the red root of the Scilla maritima of Linnceus, the Sea-squiU. Littre 



gives as its synonym the Pancratium maritimum of Lmnsus, the bea- 



daffodil. 



