46 AsTER HIsTory 
for mad dog’s bite, in case of a soldier of the pretorian guard, 
healed in Lacetania (Spain) by drinking extract of dog-rose root ; 
of which Riley remarks “ yet this dreadful malady is still incurable 
notwithstanding . . . the virtues of Scutellaria lateriflora, Alisma 
plantago, and Genista tinctoria, as specifics for its cure.” Again, 
bk. 25, c. 77, Pliny mentions the Alisma plantago in this connec- 
tion, still found in Greece (Sibthorp) and ‘till very recent times 
esteemed as curative of hydrophobia,” though without reason. 
Walnuts were another vaunted remedy; Mithridates the 
Great, uneasy on his throne, had in_ his private cabinet a 
recipe in his own handwriting,* of which two dried walnuts 
were the base, closing pathetically, “If a person takes this mix- 
ture fasting he will be proof against all poisons for that day.” 
This we are told by Galen was regularly taken by the Emperor 
Marcus Aurelius. ‘‘ Walnut kernels,” continues Pliny,+ ‘‘ chewed 
by a man fasting, and applied to the wound, effect an instantane- 
ous cure it is said of bites inflicted by a mad dog.” 
Magic formulae were also used, and a signet ring inscribed 
“ Pax, max et adimax,” was thought for the. bite of a mad dog 
“to be irresistible.” + 
Of the serious practice of the ancients in hydrophobia, Dr. 
Millengen comparing the two great physicians notes that ‘ Dios- 
corides seared the wound with iron heated to whiteness ; others 
first excised the wounded part and then applied fire or caustic. 
Celsus considered submersion in water the only remedy.’’t 
For snake-bites, especially viper-bites, “The flower of Aster 
Atticus,” deréoes drcexo> 76 duoc, is one of the 72 plant remedies § 
* So found by Cneius P 
{ Riley’s Pliny, 4: 515. 
t Dr. Millengen’s Curiosities of Medical Experience, 2: 404. Lon., 1837 
2 Among which were 5 Compositae, ‘‘ the Aster Atticus, Helichrysum, Helenium, 
Costus and Leontopetali radix *’ of the Euporista. 
The spurious book of Dioscorides rep? io862uv (edn. Kuhn, 26: 77-80) mentions 
32 remedies for snake bites, among which Aster does not occur ; Eryngium occurs, and 
some Compositae, but none of the five just cited from the Euporista. Again, pp. 85-87, 
for viper bites in particular, 17 plants are recounted, including abrotanum, scilla, cepa, 
and this treatise on poisons (thought 
some to have been written by Dioscorides the Younger, perhaps 100 A.D.) ends with- 
out mention of aster or anything which could be mistaken for it. 
¢ Geoponica, bk. viii., ¢. 10, says of the probably related Conyzites, that its 
wine “ contra reptilium morsus prodest,”’ and this plant is also praised for reptile bites 
by Dioscorides [the Younger ?], bk. v., ¢. 63, and by Galen. 
peius after the defeat of Mithridates, Pliny, bk. 23, c. 77- 
