BOOK XXV. xLix. 87-L. 90 



mer, and only when freshly gathered will it serve. 

 There is difficulty in pounding it. For sciatica and all 

 complaints of the joints it is, with a little axle-grease 

 added, very beneficial. The longest appUcation is 

 four hours for men and half as long for women ; then 

 the patient must go down to the hot water of the 

 baths, and afterwards must be rubbed all over the 

 body with wine and oil. The treatment should be 

 repeated at intervals of twenty days, if any hint of 

 pain persists. This treatment cures all hidden fluxes. 

 The appHcation is not made when inflammation is 

 acute, but only when it has gone down. 



L. Animals too have discovered plants, and among 

 the chief is the cheHdonia. For by means of it 

 swallows cure the eyes of the chicks in the nest, and 

 restore the sight, as some hold, even when the eyes 

 have been torn out." There are two kinds of it. 

 The larger kind is bushy, and its leaf is Hke that of 

 the wild carrot, but bigger, the pkant itself being 

 two cubits high, the colour light and the blossom 

 yellow. The smaller has leaves Hke those of ivy, 

 rounder and less pale.^ The juice is Hke saffron 

 juice and pungent ; the seed resembles that of the 

 poppy. Both plants blossom when the swallow 

 arrives and wither when he departs. The juice is 

 extracted while the plants are flowering, and is gently 

 boiled down with Attic honey in a copper vessel over 

 hot ashes, being a sovereign remedy for dimness of 

 vision. The juice is used both by itself and in the 

 eye-salves called cheHdonia after the plant. 



out, whereas it merely means " blindness ", as can be seen 

 from TV(f>\cD9fj. The reading ocules of V^ probably arose from 

 tbe ending of hirundines, the word immediately before it. 

 * I.e., than the larger plant. 



