AGRIMONY 133 



dried is an excellent remedy against the oppilation of 

 the Liver and Splene by reason of flemme, and is 

 taken either the Herbe it selfe or else sodden among 

 with Wine." It might after all well be that the 

 oppilated could be advantageously philanthropolated, 

 since, while it is easy to deride our forefathers for 

 believing that almost every roadside plant was a 

 specific against multitudinous ailments, we must be 

 careful not to go to the opposite extreme and 

 strenuously deny the possession of any healing 

 virtues in our native Flora. Botanically our plant is 

 the Agrimonia Eupatorium ; and as agrimony is a 

 corruption from argemone, the name given by the 

 ancient Greek physicians to a plant supposed to 

 cure cataract, while the second name is from Mithri- 

 dates Eupator, who, according to Pliny, was a great 

 medical authority, some people, at all events, be- 

 lieved pretty strenuously in the plant, the only weak 

 point in this and many other such cases is as to 

 whether the plant we now call agrimony is identical 

 with the plant so called centuries ago, botanical 

 description and illustration being often inadequate 

 even in much later days to the identification of any 

 given plant. 



Any one who has seen in the Summer or early 

 Autumn one of our grand old country hedges one 

 mass of the white blossoms of the bindweed, or a 

 strip of waste ground starred over with the delicate 

 pink flowers of its little relative the field con- 



