BARTHOLOMAEUS’ ASTER-PROPERTIES 289 
helyth and emptyth and moysteth the brayn. And the more ver- 
tuous the floure thereof is, ye more it bendyth the head thereof 
dounwarde. Also floures of spryngynge tyme sprynge the fyrste 
and shewyth somer. The lytellnes* thereof in substaunce 
is nobly rewarded in gretnesse of savour, and of vertue, as 
Dyascorides and Plinius meane.”’ + De proprietatibus, bk. 17, ¢. 
Igl. 
Aster Samius, the white astringent earth stamped and exported 
into Greece since the time of Aretaeus onward, from Samos, now 
in Saracen dominion, still appears in Bartholomaeus as Terra 
sigilata, of which he remarks that ‘that kind is specially called 
Terra sigillata, and is the true earth, singularly frigid and dry, 
which is called according to Platearius, Zervra Saracenica or Terra 
argentea, which indeed is somewhat whitish, aromatic and clear ; 
its most potent property is to constrict. For its powder worked 
up with white of egg arrests the flow of blood from the nostrils. 
Very powerful it is also against inflation of the feet and against 
theumatic joints if its plaster is bound upon the suffering spot ; 
as is said in Platea[rius].”’ t 
Reputed Aster-powers.—Bartholomaeus has much to say of the 
mad dog’s bite, for which aster, plantain, and onion were classic reme- 
dies, and for which we find him still recommending his p/anfago and 
allium though aster has dropped out of his knowledge. His gen- 
eral remedy for poisonous bites is to secure vomiting or evacuation ; 
but for the morsus rabiat, which is ‘ mortifer et venenosus’’§ he would 
“sear the wound with fire or iron’’; or, says Bartholomaeus, “ use 
a compound cataplasma, made from a river-crab with Genciana and 
7.24% 
* Parvitatem eius in substantia, magnitudo odoris pariter et virt ise 
pensat; ut dicit Dyas, : 
ft The violet was also the plant which aroused Matthioli to one of his most ex- 
tended allusions to his personal observation of flowers ; this violet which kindled his 
enthusiasm was a white species, unmentioned he remarks (Latin edn. of ‘ie PP 
574-5) by Dioscorides, ‘‘ growing so close and full in April in the Araniensian fields 
above Trent as to seem from a distance like linen sheets spread on the ground ( ¢xtensa 
‘intea).”” Miatthioli described and figured in his Italian edition of 1568, four other 
species of violet, including the pansy, which he calls [accea ithe Jacea of Jeg 
botanists) or Herba della Trinita (from its three colors), and his ‘‘altra laccea, 
Which seems to have been Viola arvensis L. 
i Fol. 131, in book xvi; taken largely from Platearius. 
2 Fol. 63, book 7, and fol. 64. 
