448 PLINY'S NATURAL HISTORY. [Book XXII. 



ings of the bowels. Bruised, and boiled with garlic, they are 

 taken with the daily food for inveterate coughs, and for sup- 

 purations of the chest. Chewed by a person fasting, they are 

 applied topically to ripen boils, or to disperse them ; and, 

 boiled in wine, they are employed for swellings of the testes 

 and diseases of the genitals. Bean-meal, boiled in vinegar, 

 ripens tumours and breaks them, and heals contusions and 

 burns. M. Yarro assures us that beans are very good for the 

 voice. The ashes of bean stalks and shells, with stale hogs'- - 

 lard, are good for sciatica and inveterate pains of the sinews. 

 The husks, too, boiled down, by themselves, to one-third, 

 arrest looseness of the bowels. 



CHAP. 70. LENTILS : SEVENTEEN REMEDIES. 



Those lentils 41 are the best which boil the most easily, and 

 those in particular which absorb the most water. They injure 

 the eye-sight, 42 no doubt, and inflate the stomach ; but taken 

 with the food, they act astringently upon the bowels, more 

 particularly if they are thoroughly boiled in rain-water : if, 

 on the other hand, they are lightly boiled, they are laxative. 43 

 They break purulent ulcers, and they cleanse and cicatrize 

 ulcerations of the mouth. Applied topically, they allay all 

 kinds of abscesses, when ulcerated and chapped more parti- 

 cularly ; with meliloteor quinces they are applied to defluxions 

 of the eyes, and with polenta they are employed topically for 

 suppurations. A decoction of them is used for ulcerations of 

 the mouth and genitals, and, with rose-oil or quinces, for 

 diseases of the fundament. For affections which demand a 

 more active remedy, they are used with pomegranate rind, 

 and the addition of a little honey ; to prevent the composition 

 from drying too quickly, beet leaves are added. They are ap- 

 plied topically, also, to scrofulous sores, and to tumours, whether 

 ripe or only coming to a head, being thoroughly boiled first 

 in vinegar. Mixed with hydromel they are employed for the 

 cure of chaps, and with pomegranate rind for gangrenes. 

 With polenta they are used for gout, for diseases of the 

 uterus and kidneys, for chilblains, and for ulcerations which 



41 Most of the properties here ascribed to the lentil, Fee says, are quite 

 illusory. 



*~ This, Fee remarks, is not the fact. 



48 This statement, Fee thinks, is probably conformable with truth. 



