BOOK XXV. XXI. 53-xxiii. 57 



taste, and gives out dust when broken. It keeps, it is 

 said, its efficacy for thirty years. 



XXII. Black hellebore is a cure for paralysis, siack 

 madness, dropsy without fever, chronic gout and ''^"^'""■^- 

 diseases of the joints ; it draws froni the belly bile, 

 phlegms and morbid fluids. For gently moving the 

 bowels the maximum dose is one drachma ; a 

 moderate one is four oboH. Some have mixed 

 scammony also with it, but to add salt is safer. A 

 larger dose given in sweet substances is dangerous ; 



used as a fomentation it disperses films over the 

 eyes. Therefore some have also pounded it and 

 made an eye saive. It matures and clears up 

 scrofulous sores, suppurations and indurations ; 

 fistulas also if it be taken ofF on the third day. 

 With copper scales " and sandarach ^ it removes 

 warts. With barley meal and wine it is appHed to 

 the abdomen for dropsy. It cures phlegms in cattle 

 and draught animals if a spray be passed across the 

 ear and taken out at the same hour on the next day ; 

 with frankincense, wax and pitch, or with pisselaeon "-' 

 it cures itch in quadrupeds. 



XXIII. The best white hellebore is that which whue 

 most quickly causes sneezmg. it is, however, tar 

 more terrifying than the black sort, especially if one 

 reads in our old authoi-ities of the elaborate pre- 

 cautions, taken by those about to drink it, against 

 shivering, choking, overpowering and unseasonable 

 sleep, prolonged hiccough or sneezing, fluxes of the 

 stomach, vomiting, too slow or too long, scanty or 



too excessive. In fact they usually gave other things 

 to promote vomiting, and drove out the hellebore it- 

 self by medicine or enema, or more often '^ they used 

 even bleeding. Furthermore, even when the hellebore 



177 



