HOREHOUND. 251 



sugar, are esteemed good for colds that 

 affect the chest. 



Among the ancient physicians who recom- 

 mended this herb, Castor directs an equal 

 portion of the juice of the white horehound 

 and honey, to be warmed in an egg-shell, 

 and used as an injection, not only to break 

 imposthumes, but to cleanse and heal them. 

 The same author prescribed a liniment made 

 of lard and horehound stamped, as a cure for 

 the bite of a mad dog, and for scrophulous 

 swellings. 



Pliny informs us, in the twenty-second 

 chapter of his twentieth book, that the 

 Roman physicians thought horehound one of 

 the most valuable herbs used in medicine. 

 The leaves and seeds were pounded together 

 as a cure for the sting of serpents, pains of 

 the breast or sides, for old coughs, and com- 

 plaints of the lungs. No medicine was con- 

 sidered more efficacious in these complaints, 

 than the juice of horehound and fennel boiled 

 into a syrup with honey, to be taken fasting. 

 Stamped with vinegar, it was esteemed a cure 

 for the ring-worm. The juice was thought 

 to clear the eyesight, and mitigate the 

 jaundice ; and for all kinds of poison, says this 

 Roman author, few herbs are so effectual as 



