DiGEst OF ANCIENT BELIEF 47 
listed as efficacious against viper bites when used either in wine or 
in food ; so catalogued in the Euporista attributed to Dioscorides, 
bk. ii., c. 115 ; the immediate succession being asclepiadis radix ; 
datépog drtxod 76 dvbog ; atractidis flores et folia [three others |; 
gentianae radix ; asteris sami [the white earth of Samos ; see Aster 
names], etc., etc. 7 
Aster-blossom added to a drink is a remedy against serpents ; 
—bibitur et adversus serpentes—FPtiiny. 
Aster Fumes put Serpents to Flight—Aster puts serpents to 
flight if its fumes are burned.—Cvratevas in D. Incensa serpentes 
fugat.—Ruel, Matthioli. It driveth away serpents if it be burned. 
—Farkinson. 
The protective power of fumes of special plants is still a part 
of the folk-belief of Greece; ‘‘so the modern Greek fumigates 
his house by burning branches of dry olive, to ward against the 
evil eye.’’—Rodd, 162. 
Compare also Pliny,* ‘‘The odor even, of Lysimachia, puts 
serpents to flight.” Other plants of magical efficacy against 
serpents, mentioned by Pliny in the same connection, are his 
Plistolochia (Aristolochia Plistolochia 1.) of which he says “in- 
deed it will be quite sufficient to suspend this last over the hearth, 
to make all serpents leave the house” ; and of his Betony [Be- 
tonica alopecurus L.?] he quotes the belief that ‘if a circle of it is 
traced around a serpent, it will lash itself to death with its tail.” 
Pliny similarly attributes to serpents an abhorrence of the beech 
tree and the ash tree. Compare also, Bartholomaeus, etc., 27/ra. 
AstER as Usep sy LowER ANIMALS 
Aster as a Remedy to the Toad—Dorstenius, in 1540, remark- 
ing that some had connected the Aster Atticus under its name 
Bubonium with the Toad, dufo, narrates that “some feign that to 
toads Inguinalis is a great medicine, that in battles fought with 
spiders the toads are conquered and wounded and smitten by 
them. And they say that toads and other venomous creatures— 
aliaque animalcula venenosa—make their home for the sake of this 
herb in stony places [where it grows], and with this herb they 
refresh themselves and heal themselves.”’ 
* Pliny, bk, 25, c. 553 in Riley’s tr., 5: 119. 
