Chap. 92.] THE AEON. 50 



in the ears. Dieuches prescribes it, mixed in bread 61 with meal, 

 for the cure of coughs, asthma, hardness of breathing, and 

 purulent expectorations. Diodotus recommends it, in combi- 

 nation with honey, as an electuary for phthisis and diseases of 

 the lungs, and as a topical application even for fractured bones. 

 Applied to the sexual parts, it facilitates delivery in all kinds 

 of animals ; and the juice extracted from the root, in combina- 

 tion with Attic honey, disperses films upon the eyes, and 

 diseases of the stomach. A decoction of it with honey is 

 curative of cough ; and the juice is a marvellous remedy for 

 ulcers of every description, whether phagedaenic, carcinomatous, 

 or serpiginous, and for polypus of the nostrils. The leaves, 

 boiled in wine and oil, are good for burns, and, taken with 

 salt and vinegar, are strongly purgative ; boiled with honey, 

 they are useful also for sprains, and used either fresh or 

 dried, with salt, for gout in the joints. 



Hippocrates has prescribed the leaves, either fresh or 

 dried, with honey, as a topical application for abscesses. Two 

 drachmae of the seed or root, in two cyathi of wine, are a 

 sufficient dose to act as an emmenagogue, and a similar quan- 

 tity will have the effect of bringing away the after-birth, in 

 cases where it is retarded. 62 Hippocrates used to apply the root 

 also, for the purpose. They say too, that in times of pestilence 

 the employment of aron as an article of food is very beneficial. 

 It dispels the fumes of wine ; and the smoke of it burnt drives 

 away serpents, 63 the asp in particular, or else stupefies them to 

 such a degree as to reduce them to a state of torpor. These 

 reptiles also will fly at the approach of persons whose bodies 

 have been rubbed with a preparation of aron with oil of 

 laurel : hence it is generally thought a good plan to administer 

 it in red wine to persons who have been stung by serpents. 

 Cheese, it is said, keeps remarkably well, wrapped in leaves 

 of this plant. 



61 Fe thinks that, thus employed, it would be more injurious than 

 beneficial. Though Pliny is treating here of the Arum colocasia or 

 Egyptian Arum, he has mingled some few details with it, relative to the 

 Arum dracunculus, a plant endowed with much more energetic properties. 

 See Note 57 above. 



62 See B. viii. c. 54, as to the use alleged to be made by animals of this 

 plant. 



** Fee says that this is very doubtful. 



