BOOK XXV. VII. 22-24 

 VII. It was one of the ambitions of the past to Piants 



> „ . it i-ii-j.4.h named after 



give one s name " to a plant, as we snall ponit out " persons. 



was done by kings. It was thought a great honour 



to discover a plant and be of assistance to human Hfe, 



although now perhaps some will think that these 



researches of mine are just idle trifling. So paltry 



in the eyes of Luxury are even the things that con- 



duce to our health. It is but right, however, 



to mention in the first place the plants whose j 



discoverers can be found, with their properties 



classified according to the kinds of disease for 



which they are a remedy. To reflect indeed on this 



makes one pity the lot of man ; besides chances and j 



changes and the strange happenings that every 



hour brings, there are thousands of diseases that 



every mortal has to dread. To distinguish which 



are the most grievous of them might be considered 



almost an act of folly, since every man considers that 



the particular disease from which he is suffering at The mosi 



the moment is the most awful. On this point, ^Zeases. 



however, the experience of time has concluded 



that the disease causing the sharpest agony is 



strangury from stone in the bladder ; next comes 



disease of the stomach, and after that pains pro- 



duced by diseases of the head; these being about the 



only diseases that are responsible for suicides. 



I myself am amazed that the Greeks have de- Harmfui 

 scribed even harmful plants, and not the poisonous ^'""*- 

 ones only, since the state of human Hfe is such that 

 death is frequently a hai-bour of i-efuge even for the 

 most excellent of men, Marcus Varro relating that the 

 Roman knight Servius Clodius, owing to the severe 

 pain of gout, was forced to rub his legs all over with , 



a poison, after which that part of his body was as free ' 



153 



