BOOK XX. Lxxxix. 242-xc. 245 



a day swallowed in a cyathus of water. Pounded 

 horehound with honey is remarkably good for 

 maladies of the male genitals. It clears up Hchen if 

 applied in vinegar, and is healing for ruptures, 

 spasms, cramp and the sinews. Taken with salt and 

 vinegar it relaxes the bowels, also helping men- 

 struation and the after-birth. Dried and powdered 

 it is very efficacious with honey for a dry cough, 

 Hkewise for gangrene and hangnails." The juice 

 moreover with honey is good for the ear-laps, nostrils, 

 jaundice, and for lesscning the secrction of bile ; as 

 an antidote for poisons it is aniong the few niost 

 effective. The plant itself with iris and honey 

 purges the stomach, clears the hmgs of phlegm, 

 promotes urine, but should be avoided wlien there 

 is an ulcerated bladder or the kidneys are affected. 

 The juice is also said to improve the eyesight. Castor 

 records two kinds of horehound, the dark and the 

 wliite, the hitter being preferred by him. He puts 

 horehound juice into an empty egg-shell, and then 

 pours in the egg itself and honey in equal propor- 

 tions ; this mixture warmed lie assures us brings 

 abscesses to a head, cleanses them and heals them. 

 Pounded also he apphed horehound with old axle- 

 grease to dog bites. 



XC. Wild thyme is thought to be so named from Thyme. 

 its being a creeping plant; ^* tliis characteristic is to 

 be found only in the wiki kind, mostly in rocky 

 districts ; the cultivated does not creep, but grows 

 up to be a palm in height. Tliat growing spon- 

 taneously Is a more luxuriant plant, with paler 

 leaves and stalks, an efficacious antidote for serpent 

 bites, particularly those of cenchris,*^ scolopendras, 

 land or sea, and scorpions, the stalks and leaves being 



143 



