BOOK XXV. xciv. 149-150 



everywhere, but where it can be found it is looked " 

 for about vintage time. It has a strong smell, but 

 stronger when the juice comes from the root or fruit 

 of the white mandrake. The ripe fruit is dried in 

 the shade. The fruit juice is thickened in the sun, 

 and so is that of the root, which is crushed or boiled 

 down to one third in dark ^ wine. The leaves are 

 kept in brine, more efFectively those of the white 

 kind. The juice of leaves that have been touched 

 by dew are deadly.<^ Even when kept in brine they 

 retain harmful properties. The mere smell brings 

 heaviness of the head and — although in certain 

 countries the fruit is eaten — those wlio in ignorance 

 smell too much are struck dumb, while too copious 

 a drauffht even brina:s death. When the mandrake 

 is used as a sleeping draught the quantity adminis- 

 tered should be proportioned to the strength of the 

 patient,'' a moderate dose being one cyathus. It is 

 also taken in drink for snake bite, and before surgical 

 operations and punctures to produce anaesthesia. 

 For this purpose some find it enough to put them- 

 selves to sleep by the smelL'' A dose of two oboh 

 of mandrake is also taken in honey wine instead of 

 hellebore — but hellebore is more efficacious/ — as an 

 emetic and to purge away black bile. 



" A clear indication, if one were needed, that the ancients 

 used such anaestheties, at the best very poor ones, as they 

 possessed. 



■^ The usual punctuation would give : " Hellebore is more 

 efficacious as an emetic and purge of black bile." The punctua- 

 tion of Mayhoff is neat, perhaps too neat for PUny ; but we 

 must take into account a feature of Phny's style not generaUy 

 recognised — his habit of makiug parenthetic remarks. This 

 habit sometimes causes misunderstandings, because a reader 

 may easily fail to obaerve an instance. 



243 



