DicEest oF ANCIENT BELIEF 57 
The purple rays preferred when in full flower, to mopgovptfov 
zo” dvOovc, the purpled part of the flower, is the best (for labor- 
pains, in decoction ; and for epilepsy), D. 
So Dioscorides again, in the same words, of his purple violet 
[meaning Aster ?], D., bk. iv., c. 120. 
Dioscorides, distinguishing his yellow, white and purple species 
of Anthemis, remarks there again “the purple flower is the best” 
(Anthemts rosea DC.). 
So of the different kinds of the orchid Satyrion (now Serapias). 
Brunfels, 1 : 110, on Satyrion, quotes “ex Aggregatore Herbario”’ 
[de Dondis, Aggregator Paduanus? or the unknown Aggregator 
Practicus ? see zzfra] as ascribing to it properties like those of 
Aster in curing ulcers, tumors and hemorrhoids, and particularly 
‘quod habet flores purpureos.”’ 
Perhaps this preference for the purple part of the Aster, which 
inclined toward blue, may have lent its aid to the development of 
that superstitious preference for blue, of which Dr. Millengen 
writes: “To this day, flannel dyed nine times blue is supposed to 
be more efficacious in glandular swellings.” (Curtosities of Med- 
ical Experience, 2: 140. Lon., 1837). 
ASTER NAMES 
Tue Worp ASTER IN GREEK 
Aster, Greek dotyo and sometimes darpov, a star, usually oc- 
curring in this sense in the plural, dozpa; from the root of the 
equivalent Eng. sar, Gothic stairno, Lat. stella (i. ¢., sterula), 
Sansk. staras, Zend. star; the root conjecturally the Aryan star 
=strew, from the thought of the stars as sprinkled over the sky. 
Aster in transferred sense, as name of the plant identified as 
Aster Amellus L., occurs about 160 B.C., Nicander’s Georgica, 
(in Atheneaus 15, 683); Pliny, 27, 5; and with local modifier 
making it in effect a binomial, in the form Aster Atticus, "Aor7e 
"Arcexdc, Dioscorides, 4, 118 (or 120 or 110 in various editions) ; 
which binomial continues as its name in most subsequent writings, 
till Linnaeus, 1753. The plant was so named from the resem- 
blance of its radiate flower-head to a star, as both Dioscorides and 
Pliny declare, apparently independently of each other. 
