INTRODUCTION 



BooKS XX-XXVII of Pliny's Natural History are 

 concerned with the uses of trees, plants and flowers, 

 especially in medicine. To understand his treat- 

 ment of this subject it is necessary to examine the 

 diseases he dealt with and the nature of the remedies 

 he prescribed. 



DiSEASES OF Italy, and Their Names in Pliny. 



The chief diseases in Pliny's day were those of 

 the chest, skin and eyes, together with the various 

 forms, intermittent or remittent, of malaria (ague). 

 The ordinary infectious fevers — smallpox, measles, 

 scarlet fever, diphtheria, enteric, influenza — were 

 apparently unknown. Enteric is doubtful, because 

 it is so like certain types of remittent malaria, which 

 was very prevalent, that only the microscope can 

 distinguish between them. Plague (pesiis, pesii- 

 lentia) often appeared in epidemic form, and, when 

 not malignant malaria, was probably typhus or 

 bubonic plague. The main difficulty met when 

 attempting to find modern equivalents for ancient 

 diseases is due to the old method of diagnosis, that 

 is, by general symptoms. Two cases superficially 

 alike were usually called by the same name. Many 

 things besides gout were included under podagra, 

 many besides leprosy under lepra, many besides 

 cancer under carcinovia. 



