BOOK XIX. XXVI. 85-xxvii. 88 



Medical men i'ecommend givinsf raw radishes with nedidnai 

 salt for the purpose of concentrating the crude radishes. 

 humours of the bowels, and they use this mixture to 

 act as an emetic. They also say that radish juice is 

 an essential specific for disease of the diaphragm, 

 inasmuch as in Egypt, when the kings ordered post 

 mortem dissections to be made for the purpose of 

 research into the nature of diseases, it was discovered 

 that this was the only dose that was capable of re- 

 moving phtheiriasis " attacking the internal parts of 

 the heart. Also it is said that the radish was ratcd so Vaiueseion 

 far above all other articles of food that, such is the "'« '■«'^"'^- 

 frivolity of the Greeks, in the temple of ApoUo at 

 Delphi, a radish modelled in gold was dedicated as a 

 votive offering, though only a silver beetroot and a 

 turnip of lead. You might be sure that Manius 

 Curius was not a native of Delphi, the general wl\o is 

 recorded in our annals to have been found bv the 

 enemy 's envoys roasting a turnip at the fire , wh en they 

 came brinxrino; the ffold which he was ffoin<; indioj- 

 nantly to refuse. Also the Greek author Moschion 

 wrote a whole voUime about the radish. lladishes 

 are considered an extremely valuable article of food 

 in winter time, though at the same time people tliink 

 tliem to be always bad for the teeth, because they 

 wear them down ; at all events they can be used for 

 pohshing ivory. There is a great antipathy between 

 radishes and vines, which shrink away from radishes 

 planted near them. 



XXVII. The rest of the plants that we have placed Vanetiesoj 

 in the cartilaginous class are of a woodier substance, p'"'"**^- 

 and it is noticeable that they all have an extremely 

 pungent taste. Among these there is one wild kind 

 of parsnip that grows of its own accord, and another 



477 



