BOOK XX. xxxiii. 83-xxxiv. 86 



he recommends that the urine ot" a person who has 

 lived on a cabbage diet should be kept, because 

 when warmed it is a cure for pains in the sinews. 

 I will add his actual words to explain histhought: 

 " Little boys " if you bathe them with such urine, 

 never become weak." He also advises that the juice 

 of cabbage should be poured warm into tlie ears, 

 with wine added, and he insists that this treatment 

 benefits those who are hard of hearing, and that 

 impetigo by the same means is cured without 

 ulceration. 



XXXIV. Just because we have dealt with Cato it Greek 

 is well to put down now the views of the Greeks abmii^ 

 also, limiting ourselves to making good Cato's omis- fobbage. 

 sions. If not overcooked they think that cabbage 

 brings away bile, also that it loosens the bowels, 

 checking diarrhoea however if it be boiled twice. 

 As cabbage is the enemy of the vine, they say tliat 

 it opposes wine ; that if taken in food beforehand it 

 prevents drunkenness, taken after drinking it dispels 

 its unpleasant effects. They hold that cabbage 

 taken as food greatly brightens the vision, and that 

 the benefit is very great indeed if the juice of raw 

 cabbage and Attic honey merely touch the corners 

 of the eyes. They add that cabbage is very easily 

 digested, and that its use as food clears the senses. 

 The school of Erasistratus loudly declares that nothing 

 is more useful than cabbage for the stomach and 

 sinews, and he therefore prescribes it for paralysis and 

 palsy, as well as for spitting of blood. Hippocrates 

 prescribed twice-boiled cabbage and salt for coeliac 

 trouble and dysentery, also for tenesmus and kidney 

 troubles, holding also that its use as food gave a rich 

 supply of milk to lying-in women and benefited 



