Dicest oF ANCIENT BELIEF 45 
ASTER USED FOR SCIATICA 
Aster is a remedy for pains in regions of the hips, 7” coxendicis, 
if worn tied on.—/iny. 
The purple part of the flower is of aid in sciatica, corendicum 
dolert.— Ruel. f 
Pliny addeth that being bound to the place, it is profitable for 
the paine in the hippes.—/arkinson, 1640. 
It was worn as an amulet for sciatica.*—Adams, 1847. 
ASTER USED FOR GOITRE AND QUINSY 
(For Cratevas’ droncocele seems to have included as much.) 
Aster, using the green plant pounded up with old axle-grease, is a 
remedy for broncocele, a37y yhwpa zonsioa peta OFuyyeov Tahazov, 
Tost pos Booyyoxnhexovs Cratevas, cited in 2. 
Turgentia guttura discutit—Rue/, Matthiol. 
It is good for squinancie.—Lyze. 
It is also good for swolen throats.—Farkinson, 1629. 
It helpeth those that are troubled with quinsies, . . . it con- 
sumeth swellings in the throat.—Farkinson, 1640. 
It is good against the quinsie.—Salmon, 1682. 
ASTER USED FOR VENOMOUS BITES 
For the Bite of a Mad Dog. —Aster is a remedy for the bite of a 
mad-dog, the green plant pounded up with old axle-grease, Cra- 
evas in D. (interpolation, Sprengel). 
Et rabiosi canis morsibus imponebat.—Rue/, Matthioli. 
They are held to be good for the biting of a mad Dogge, 
Parkinson, 1629 ; it helpeth them that are bitten by a mad Dogge, 
as Cratevas saith —Parkinson, 1640. 
Dioscorides’ (genuine ?) Euporista, bk. Ged 1g, CGN: 
Kuhn, pp. 313, 314, in the Theriaca for a mad-dog’s bite, recom- 
mends the use of 23 plants, among which Aster does not occur, 
allium, cepa, silphium, plantaginis folia, apiastrum or peheaaoguddoy 
[deemed usually, Melissa officinalis L.] occur, and others of little 
connection here. 
Pliny, bk. v., c. 6, rejoices in the recent discovery of a cure 
08 Pliny, bk. 25, c. 49, vaunts the virtues of his Iberis [ Jberis amara L. ? ] as an 
application for sciatica, ‘‘mixed with a small proportion of axle-grease’’ ; it had 
recently received the fanciful name Iberis, he says, in verses praising its efficacy writ- 
ten by the physician Servilius Democrates (and quoted by Galen, bk. x., ¢. 2). 
