452 PLINY'S NATURAL HISTORY. [Book XXII. 



tion, cures chilblains and prurigo ; and it is thought by some, 

 that if it is taken daily, fasting, it will improve the complexion 

 of all parts of the body. 



Used as an aliment, this pulse is far from wholesome, 157 being 

 apt to produce vomiting, disorder the bowels, and stuff the 

 head and stomach. It weakens the knees also; but the effects 

 of it may be modified by keeping it in soak for several days, in 

 which case it is remarkably beneficial for oxen and beasts of 

 burden. The pods of it, beaten up green with the stalks and 

 leaves, before they harden, stain the hair black. 



CHAP. 74. LUPINES: THIRTY-FIVE REMEDIES. 



There are wild lupines, 68 also, inferior in every respect to 

 the cultivated kinds, except in their bitterness. Of all the 

 alimentary substances, there are none which are less heavy or 

 more useful 59 than dried lupines. Their bitterness is consider- 

 ably modified by cooking them on hot ashes, or steeping them 

 in hot water. Employed frequently as an article of food, they 

 impart freshness to the colour; the bitter lupine, too, is good for 

 the sting of the asp. Dried lupines, stripped of the husk and 

 pounded, are applied in a linen cloth to black ulcers, in which 

 they make new flesh : boiled in vinegar, they disperse scrofu- 

 lous sores and imposthumes of the parotid glands. A decoc- 

 tion of them, with rue and pepper, is given in fever even, as 

 an expellent of intestinal worms, 60 to patients under thirty 

 years of age. For children, also, they are applied to the sto- 

 mach as a vermifuge, the patient fasting in the meantime : and, 

 according to another mode of treatment, they are parched and 

 taken in boiled must or in honej r . 



Lupines have the effect of stimulating the appetite, and of 

 dispelling nausea. The meal of them, kneaded up with vine- 

 gar, and applied in the bath, removes pimples and prurigo ; 

 employed alone, it dries up ulcerous sores. It cures bruises 

 also, and, used with polenta, allays inflammations. The wild 

 lupine is found to be the most efficacious for debility of the 



57 Fee says that this is the case, and that the use of it is said to produce 

 a marked debility. 



58 See B. xviii. c. 10. 



fi9 Fee remarks that it is surprising to find the ancients settin? so much 

 value on the lupine, a plant that is bitter and almost nauseous, difficult to 

 boil, and bad of digestion. 



60 It must be the rue, Fee says, that nets ao the vermifuge. 



