Chap. 84.] THE MALLOW. 285 



exempt from all diseases. 9 Left to putrefy in wine, mallows are 

 remedial for running sores of the head, and, mixed with honey, 

 for lichens and ulcerations of the mouth ; a decoction of the root, 

 too, is a remedy for dandriff 10 of the head and looseness of the 

 teeth. With the root of the mallow which has a single stem, 11 

 it is a good plan to prick the parts about a tooth when it aches, 

 until the pain has ceased. With the addition of human saliva, 

 the mallow cleanses scrofulous sores, imposthumes of the parotid 

 glands, and inflammatory tumours, without producing a wound. 

 The seed of it, taken in red wine, disperses phlegm and relieves 

 nausea ; and the root, attached to the person with black wool, 

 is a remedy for affections of the mamillae. Boiled in milk, and 

 taken as a pottage, it cures a cough within five days. 



Sextius Niger says that mallows are prejudicial to the sto- 

 mach, and Olympias, the Tlieban authoress, asserts that, em- 

 ployed with goose-grease, they are productive of abortion. 

 Some persons are of opinion, that a good handful of the leaves, 

 taken in oil and wine, promotes the menstrual discharge. At 

 all events, it is a well-known fact, that if the leaves are strewed 

 beneath a woman in labour, the delivery will be accelerated ; 

 but they must be taken away immediately after the birth, or 

 prolapsus of the uterus will be the consequence. Mallow-juice, 

 also, is given to women in labour, a decoction of it being taken 

 fasting in wine, in doses of one hemina. 



Mallow seed is attached to the arms of patients suffering 

 from spermatorrhoea ; and, so naturally adapted is this plant 

 for the promotion of lustfulness, that the seed of the kind with 

 a single stem, sprinkled upon the genitals, will increase the 

 sexual desire in males to an infinite degree, according to 

 Xenocrates ; who says, too, that if three roots are attached to 

 the person, in the vicinity of those parts, they will be produc- 

 tive of a similar result. The same writer informs us also, that 

 injections of mallows are good for tenesmus and dysentery, and 

 for maladies of the rectum even, if used as a fomentation 

 only. The juice is given warm to patients afflicted with melan- 



9 The same was said in the middle ages, of the virtues of sage, and in 

 more recent times of the Panax quinque folium, the Ginseng of the Chinese. 



10 Q. Serenus Sammonicus speaks of the accumulation of dandriff in the 

 hair to such a degree as to form a noxious malady. He also mentions the 

 present remedy for it. 



11 Some commentators have supposed this to be the Alcea rosa of Lin- 

 naeus ; but Fee considers this opinion to be quite unfounded. 



