BOOK XX. x.wii. 76-.\x.\iii. 79 



XXXII. Seris also, itself very similar to lettuce, "Seris"- 

 is of two kinds. The vvild is the better ; it is dark 



and grovi^s in summer, while the winter variety, which 

 is whiter, is not so good. Each is bitter, and very 

 beneficial to the stomach, especially to one troubled 

 by a humour. They are cooling when taken with 

 vinegar in food, and when applied as liniment ; they 

 disperse other humours besides those in the stomach. 

 With pearl-barley the roots of the wild variety are 

 taken in a draught to benefit the stomach ; for heart- 

 burn" they are applied above the left breast; prepared 

 with vinegar all these ai*e useful for gout, for spit- 

 ting of blood, and hkewise for fluxes of sperm, a dose 

 to be taken on alternate days. Petronius Diodotus, 

 who wrote a medical Herbal, gives many arguments 

 condemning seris altogether, but the opinion of all 

 others is against him. 



XXXIII. It would be a long task to make a Hst cabOage. 

 of all the praises of the cabbage, since not only did 

 Chrysippus the physician devote to it a special 

 vohnne, divided according to its effects on the various 

 parts of the body, but Dieuches also, and Pythagoras 

 above all, and Cato ^ no less lavishly, have celebrated 



its virtues ; the views of the latter it is meet to set 

 forth all the more carefully for the sake of learning 

 what medicine the Roman people used for six 

 hundred years. The earhest Greeks divided cabbage 

 into three varieties ; (a) the curly, which they called 

 seHnas from the resemblance of its leaves to those 

 of parsley, useful for the stomach and moderately 

 laxative ; (b) the helia, with broad leaves growing 

 out of the stem, from which some have called it 

 caulodes, of no importance in medicine ; (c) the third, 

 crambe properly so-called, with thinner leaves of 



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