154 



POPULAR NAMES 



MILK-WORT, from its " virtues in procuring milk in the 

 breasts of nurses," says Gerarde, p. 450, 



Polygala vulgaris, L. 

 SEA-, Glaux maritima, L. 



MILL-MOUNTAIN, from the Lat. cha-7wce/-inum monta- 

 num, Gr. xapai-Xivov, ground flax, 



Linum catharticum, L. 



MILLET, Fr. millet, It. miglietto, dim. of miglio, from L. 

 milium, a name which, for want of good distinctive terms, 

 is popularly extended to several different species of the 

 genera Milium, Panicum, Paspalum, and Sorghum. 



MILTWASTE, the finger-fern or ceterach of which Du 

 Bartas says, p. 79 (Sylvester's transl. 1611), 



" The Finger-ferne, which being given to swine, 



It makes their Milt to melt away in fine;" 

 a notion adopted from an assertion made by Vitruvius, as 

 quoted by Matthioli (1. iii., c. 134), that in the island 

 Crete, near the river Poterius, which flows between Gnosus 

 and Cortyna, on the side towards Cortyna, the flocks and 

 herds were found without spleens because they browsed on 

 this herb ; while, on the other side, towards Gnosus, they 

 had spleens because it does not grow there. W. Coles, to 

 improve the story, tells us that " if the asse be oppressed 

 with melancholy he eates of this herbe, Asplenion or Milt- 

 waste, and so eases himself of the swelling of the spleen." 

 The notion was probably suggested, on the doctrine of 

 signatures, by the lobular milt-like outline of the leaf in 

 the species to which the name was originally given, the 

 ceterach ; a species which is now rather inconsistently made 

 the type of a genus bearing this last name of " Ceterach," 

 while another set of plants, in no respect resembling a 

 spleen, are called " Spleenworts," and " Miltwastes." The 

 enlarged spleen, called ague-cake, was that which it was 

 supposed to waste or diminish when given medicinally. 

 Gerarde and other herbalists praise its efficacy in all in- 



