BOOK XXVI. XXXVIII. 59-61 



XXXVIII. It is by relaxing the stomach that scamonium. 

 seamonium too brings away bile and loosens the 

 bowels, unless indeed to two oboh of it are added two 

 drachmae of aloes." This is the juice of a plant 

 with many branches at the root, fleshy, three-cornered, 

 pale leaves, and a thick, wet, nauseating root. It 

 grows in rich, pale soil. Near the rising of the 

 Dogstar a hollow is made in this root, so that the 

 juice may collect in it automatically ; this is dried 

 in the sun and worked into lozenges. The root itself 

 or the skin is also dried.* The kind most approved 

 grows in the regions of Colophon, Mysia and Priene. 

 This is shiny, as Uke as possible to bull ghie," spongy 

 with very fine cracks,*^ quickly melting,^ with a poison- 

 ous smeil, gummy, becoming Uke milk at a touch of 

 the tongue, extremely hght, and turning white when 

 dissolved. This happens too with bastard scamon- 

 ium, which is made, generally in Judaea, -with flour of 

 bitter vetch and juice of sea spurge, and even chokes 

 those who take it. The bastard kind is detected by 

 the taste, for the genuine burns the tongue. It is ' 

 to be used when two years old, being of no use 

 either before or after. It has been prescribed by 

 itself in water or in hydromel and salt,/ the dose 

 being four oboU, but most effectively with aloes, 

 though honey wine must be taken as soon as 

 purging begins. The root too is boiled down in 

 vinegar to the consistency of honey, the decoction 



' For this see XXVIII, § 236. 



•* Dioscorides has (IV, 170) arjpayya? e;^<oi' AcTTTas, CTTroyycuSijj. 

 Pliny may have mistaken the first word for auptyya?. 



* Or, " hecoming flabby " (Profcssor A. C. Andrews). 



^ Wistrand's emendation is attractive : " either by itself or 

 in hydromel and salt." 



