Chap. 33.] T1IE CABBAGE. 235 



the preceding one, is useful for ruptures and spasmodic con- 

 tractions, and relieves persons who are suffering from sperma- 

 torrhoea. 



CHAP. 32. SKKIS, THREE VARIETIES OF IT : SEVEN REMEDIES 



BORROWED FROM IT. 



The vegetable, too, called " seris," 72 which hears a consi- 

 derable resemblance to the lettuce, consists of two kinds. The 

 wild, which is of a swarthy colour, and grows in summer, is 

 the best of the two ; the winter kind, which is whiter than 

 the other, being inferior. They are both of them bitter, but 

 are extremely beneficial to Jhe stomach, when distressed by 

 humours more particularly. Used as food with vinegar, they 

 are cooling, and, employed as a liniment, they dispel other 

 humours besides those of the stomach. The roots of the wild 

 variety are eaten with polenta for the stomach ; and in cardiac 

 diseases they are applied topically above the left breast. Boiled 

 in vinegar, all these vegetables are good for the gout, and for 

 patients troubled with spitting of blood or spermatorrhoea ; the 

 decoction being taken on alternate days. 



Petronius Diodotus, who has written a'medical Anthology, 73 

 utterly condemns seris, and employs a multitude of arguments 

 to support his views : this opinion of his is opposed, however, 

 to that of all other writers on the subject. 



CHAP. 33. (9). -THE CABBAGE: EIGHTY- SEVEN REMEDIES. RE- 

 CIPES MENTIONED BY CATO. 



It would be too lengthy a task to enumerate all the praise s 

 of the cabbage, more particularly as the physician Chrysippus 

 has devoted a whole volume to the subject, in which its vir- 

 tues are described in reference to each individual part of the 

 human body. Dieuches has done the same, and Pythagoras 

 too, in particular. Cato, too, has not been more sparing in its 

 praises than the others ; and it will be only right to examine 

 the opinions which he expresses in relation to it, if for no 

 other purpose than to learn what medicines the Roman people 

 made use of for six hundred years. 



The most ancient Greek writers have distinguished three 

 varieties of the cabbage ; the curly 75 cabbage, to which they 



72 The kind known as garden endive, the Cichorium endivia of Linnaeus. 



w Antkologumena." See B. xix. c. 41.- ' Cnspam. 



