BOOK XXV. XXIV. 59-xxv. 6i 



fi'om dinner. Wliite hellebore is given even " in a 

 sweet medium,'' although most suitably in lentils or 

 pottage. Recently the method has been discovered 

 of spHtting radishes, inserting helleboi-e, and then 

 pressing the radishes together again, so that the 

 property of the purge penetrates them ; the helle- 

 bore is thus administered in a modified form. Vomit- 

 ing begins after about four hours, and the whole 

 business is over in seven. Thus given hellebore is 

 curative of epilepsy, as has been said, giddiness, 

 melanchoHa, insanity, wild distraction, white leprosy, 

 leprous sores, tetanus, palsy, gouty affections, 

 dropsy and incipient tympanitis^^stomachic affections, 

 spasmodic grins, sciatica, quartan fever that yields 

 to no other treatment, chronic cough, flatulence and 

 recurrent gripings. 



XXV. Hellebore is never prescribed for old people 

 or children, or for those who are soft and effeminate 

 in body or mind, or for the thin or deUcate ; for 

 women it is less suited than for men, unsuitable too 

 for the nervous or when the hypochondria are 

 ulcerated or swollen, very bad when there is spitting 

 of blood, pain in the side, or sore throat.*^ 

 Apphed externally with salted axle-grease it cures 

 pituitous eruptions^ on the bodv and also suppurations 

 of long standing. Mixed with pearl barley it kills 

 rats and mice. The Gauls when hunting dip their 

 arrows in hellebore, and say that the meat when the 

 flesh round the wound has been cut away tastes more 

 tender. FHes too die if pounded white hellebore 



it is a cure for sore throats, and an embrocation of hellebore 

 with salted axle-grease, etc." But the falling out of in- 

 posituni seems too unlikely for the restoration to be adopted 

 with confidence. 



' See hst of diseases, 



l8i 



