BOOK XXV. xviii. 40-41 



recognises its virtues after this fashion." He 

 used them as pessaries for uterine troubles, adding 

 thereto honey, or oil of roses or of iris or of Hhes, 

 also as an emmenagogue and to bring away the 

 after-birth. The same elfects, he said, resulted from 

 taking them in di-ink and from using them for fomen- 

 tations. He dropped the juice into foul-smelUng ears, 

 and with the juice and okl wine made an embrocation 

 for the abdomen. The leaves he applied to fluxes 

 from the eyes. A decoction of it with myrrh and 

 frankincense he prescribed for strangury and bladder 

 troubles. For loosening the bowels, however, or for 

 fever, a handful of the plant should be boiled down to 

 one half in two sextarii of water. This is drunk with 

 the addition of salt and honey, and if the decoction 

 has been made with a pig's foot or a chicken added, 

 the draught is all the more beneficial. Some have 

 thought that as a purge both kinds should be 

 administered, either by themselves or with mallows 

 added to the decoction.'' They purge the abdomen « 

 and bring away bile, but they are injurious to the 

 stomach. Their other uses we shall give in the 

 appropriate places.'* 



* With Mayhoff' s conjecture in cibo : " both kinds should 

 be given in food, boiled down with mallows." 



•= This seems to be the meaning here of tliorax, as it is of 

 6u)pa^ very often in Greek. Cf. Festugiere on [Hippocrates] 

 Ancient Medicine XXII, who quotes many passages proving 

 that 0a)pa$ meant the entire cavity of the torso. 



•^ Throughout this chapter the translator misses the four 

 good MSS. VRdT. In many pkxces the reading is uncertain, 

 and I have by emendations and changes of punctuation tried 

 to produce a better text than either Detlefsen or Mayhoff, with 

 an uneasy feehng that I have made no improvement, or 

 perhaps even made bad worse. 



167 



