Chap. 71.} THE ELELISPHACOS. 449 



cicatrize with difficulty. For a disordered stomach, thirty 

 grains should be eaten. 



For cholera, 44 however, and dysentery, it is the best plan to 

 boil the lentils in three waters, in which case they should 

 always be parched first, and then pounded as fine as possible, 

 either by themselves, or else with quinces, pears, myrtle, wild 

 endive, black beet, or plantago. Lentils are bad for the 

 lungs, head-ache, all nervous affections, and bile, and are very 

 apt to cause restlessness at night. They are useful, however, 

 for pustules, erysipelas, and affections of the mamillse, boiled 

 in sea- water ; and, applied with vinegar, they disperse indura- 

 tions and scrofulous sores. As a stomachic, they are mixed, 

 like polenta, with the drink given to patients. Parboiled in 

 water, and then pounded and bolted through a sieve to disen- 

 gage the bran, they are good for burns, care being taken to 

 add a little honey as they heal : they are boiled, also, with 

 oxycrate for diseases of the throat. 45 



There is a marsh-lentil 46 also, which grows spontaneously 

 in stagnant waters. It is of a cooling nature, for which rea- 

 son it is employed topically for abscesses, and for gout in par- 

 ticular, either by itself or with polenta. Its glutinous pro- 

 perties render it a good medicine for intestinal hernia. 



CHAP. 71. THE ELELISPHACOS, SFHACOS, OB SALVIA : THIKTEEN 



BEMEDIES. 



The plant called by the Greeks " elelisphacos," 47 or " spha- 

 cos," is a species of wild lentil, lighter than the cultivated one, 

 and with a leaf, smaller, drier, and more odoriferous. There 

 is also another 48 kind of it, of a wilder nature, and possessed 



44 Fee remarks, that we must not confound the cholera of the ancients 

 with the Indian cholera, our cholera niorbus. Celsus describes the cholera 

 with great exactness, B. iv. c. 11. 



45 They would be of no benefit, Fee thinks, in such a case. 



46 It bears no relation whatever to the lentil, not being a leguminous 

 plant. Fee would include under this head the Lemna minor, the Lemna 

 gibba, and the Lemna polyrrhiza of modern botany, all being found to- 

 gether in the same stagnant water. 



47 Fee remarks, that Pliny is clearly speaking of two essentially different 

 plants under this name; the first, he thinks, may very probably be the 

 Ervum tetraspermum of Linnaeus. 



48 Tli is, Fee thinks, is the Salvia ofFicinalis of Linnaeus, our common 

 sage, which has no affinity whatever witli the lentil. 



VOL. IV. O G 



