BOOK XX. XXXIX. loo-xL. 104 



and stomach, when food floats undigested, provided 

 that no ulceration is felt, for griping pains, jaundice, 

 and chronie cough with asthma. Scrofula is cleared 

 away by squill leaves, if they are left on for 

 four days ; dandruff and running sores by an 

 application of squills cooked in oil. Cooked too in 

 honey squills are used as food, especially to promote 

 digestion. So prepared they also purge the bowels. 

 Cooked in oil and mixed with resin squills heal 

 cracks in the feet. The seed mixed with honey is 

 applied to reUeve lumbago. Squills too, hung in a 

 (loorway, are said by Pythagoras to have power to 

 keep off evil enchantments. 



XL. The other bulbs" cure cuts on the face when Buib& 

 used with vinegar and sulphur, contraction of the 

 sinews too when pounded up and used by themselves, 

 dandruff when mixed with wine, and the bites of dogs 

 when mixed with honey ; Erasistratus would mix 

 them with pitch. The same authority holds that 

 applied w ith honey they stop a flow of blood. Others 

 add coriander and flour for bleeding at the nose. 

 Theodorus treats hchen also with bulbs in vinegar, 

 adding a dry wine or egg for eruptions on the head. 

 The same authority appHes them for eye-fluxes, and 

 their centres for dry ophthahnia. Red bulbs in 

 particular, applied in the sun with honey and soda, 

 remove spots on the face, and freckles when applied 

 with wine or with vinegar.* They are wonderfully 

 good too for wounds, either by themselves, or as 

 Damion advises, with honey wine,"^ if the appUcation 

 be allowed to remain for four days at least. By the 

 same means he treats broken ear-laps and hydrocele, 



" V. Rose's reacUng would mean " with moss." 



61 



