254 PLINY'S NATTJKAL HISTOET. [Book XX. 



female, the former having smaller leaves than the other, and 

 of a grass-green colour ; the female plant, he says, has leaves 

 of a larger size and a more vivid hue. The same author , too, 

 has considered rue to be injurious to the eyes ; but this is an 

 error, for engravers and painters are in the habit of eating it 

 with bread, or else nasturtium, for the benefit of the sight ; 

 wild goats, too, eat it for the sight, they say. Many persons 

 have dispersed films on the eyes by rubbing them with a mix- 

 ture of the juice of rue with Attic honey, or the milk of a 

 woman just delivered of a male child : the same result has 

 been produced also by touching the corners of the eyes with 

 the pure juice of the plant. Applied topically, with polenta, 

 rue carries off defluxions of the eyes ; and, taken with wine, 

 or applied topically with vinegar and rose oil, it is a cure for 

 head- ache. If, however, the pain attacks the whole of the 

 head, 67 the rue should be applied with barley-meal and vin- 

 egar. This plant has the effect also of dispelling crudities, 

 flatulency, and inveterate pains of the stomach ; it opens the 

 uterus, too, and restores it when displaced ; for which purpose 

 it is applied as a liniment, with honey, to the whole of the" 

 abdomen and chest. Mixed with figs, and boiled down to 

 one half, it is administered in wine for dropsy ; and it is taken 

 in a similar manner for pains of the chest, sides, and loins, as 

 well as for coughs, asthma, and affections of the lungs, liver, and 

 kidneys, and for shivering fits. Persons about to indulge in 

 wine, take a decoction of the leaves, to prevent head-ache and 

 surfeit. Taken in food, too, it is wholesome, whether eaten 

 raw or boiled, or used as a confection ; boiled with hyssop, 

 and taken with wine, it is good for gripings of the stomach. 

 Employed in the same way, it arrests internal haemorrhage, 

 and, applied to the nostrils, bleeding at the nose : it is beneficial 

 also to the teeth if rinsed with it. In cases of ear-ache, this 

 juice is injected into the ears, care being taken to moderate 

 the dose, as already stated, if wild rue is employed. Eor 

 hardness of hearing, too, and singing in the ears, it is simi- 

 larly employed in combination with oil of roses, or oil of laurel, 

 or else cummin and honey. 



Juice of rue pounded in vinegar, is applied also to the 

 temples and the region of the brain in persons affected with 

 phrenitis; some persons, however, have added to this mixture 



57 "Si vero sit cephulaea." 



