Chap. 29.] ENDIVE. 233 



without oil, it is a cure for excoriations. Tn the same way, 

 too, it is good for pimples and eruptions. Boiled, it is applied 

 topically to spreading ulcers, and in a raw state it is employed 

 in cases of alopecy, and running ulcers of the head. The 

 juice, injected with honey into the nostrils, has the effect of 

 clearing the head. Beet-root is boiled with lentils and vinegar, 

 for the purpose of relaxing the bowels ; if it is boiled, how- 

 ever, some time longer, it will have the effect of arresting 

 fluxes of the stomach and bowels. 



CHAP. 28. L1MONION, OR NEUROIDES : THREE REMEDIES. 



There is a wild beet, too, known by some persons as " limo- 

 nion," 62 and by others as "neuroides ;" it has leaves much 

 smaller and thinner than the cultivated kind, and lying closer 

 together. These leaves amount often to eleven 63 in number, 

 the stalk resembling that of the lily. 64 The leaves of this plant 

 are very useful for burns, and have an astringent taste in the 

 mouth : the seed, taken in doses of one acetabulum, is good 

 for dysentery. It is said that a decoction of beet with the 

 root has the property of taking stains out of cloths and 

 parchment. 



CHAP. 29. ENDIVE : THREE REMEDIES. 



Endive, 65 too, is not without its medicinal uses. The juice 

 of it, employed with rose oil and vinegar, has the effect of 

 allaying headache ; and taken with wine, it is good for pains 

 in the liver and bladder : it is used, also, topically, for defl uxions 

 of the eyes. The spreading endive has received from some per- 



62 Dioscorides merely says that the leaves of the limonion are similar 

 to those of beet, but he does not state that it is a kind of wild beet. 



63 Dioscorides says " ten or more." 



64 Fee is inclined to identify the "limonium," or "meadow-plant," 

 with the Statice limonium of Linnaeus ; hut looks upon its identification as 

 very doubtful. Fuchs, Tragus, and Lonicerus, have identified it with 

 the Pyrola rotundifolia ; but that is not a meadow plant, it growing only 

 in the woods. Others, again, have suggested the Senecio doria, or " water 

 trefoil." 



65 Divided by naturalists into wild chicory or endive, the Cichorium 

 intybus of Linnaeus, and cultivated endive, the Cichorium eudivia of Lin- 

 naeus. The name " endive" comes from the Arabian " hindeb ;" but whe- 

 ther that was derived from the Latin " intuhum," or vice versa, is uncer- 

 tain. The two kinds above mentioned, are subdivided, Fee says, into two 

 varieties, the cultivated and the wild. See B. xii, c. 39. 



