BOOK XXV. VI. 16-18 



disgraceful reason for this scanty knowledge is that 



even those who possess it refuse to teach it, just as 



though they would themselves lose what they have 



imparted to others. To this must be added that 



there is no sure method of discovery ; for even of 



those we ah-eady know chance has sometimes been the 



finder; at other times, to speak the truth, the dis- 



coverer was a god. Down to recent years there has 



been no cure for the bite of a mad dog, a symptom of 



which is dread of water and aversion to drink of any 



kind. Recently the mother of a man serving in the 



praetorian guard saw in a dream how she sent " to 



her son to be taken in drink the root of the wild rose, 



called cynorrhodon, which by its appearance had c>jnorrho,ior. 



attracted her the day before in a shrubbery. Opera- phoMa. 



tions were going on in Lacetania, the part of Spain 



nearest to Italy, and by chance it happened that the 



soldier, after being bitten by a dog, was beginning to 



show a horror of water, when a letter arrived from the 



mother, who begged him to obey the heavenly 



warning. So his life was unexpectedly saved, as 



was that of al) who afterwards tried a similar remedy. 



Elsewhere among our authorities the only medicinal 



use of cynorrhodon to be found is that the ash of 



the spongy substance * that forms in the middle of its 



thorns was mixed with honey to make hair grow on 



the head where mange had left it bare. In the 



same province, on the land of my host, I learned 



of a recent discovery there, a stalk called dra- DracuncuUn 



cunculus, of the thickness of a thumb, with spots 



of many colours Uke those of a viper, which people 



said was a remedy for the bites of all creatures, a dif- 



ferent plant from those I have called dracunculus 



in the preceding <^ book. This one has a different 



149 



