58 
plint's NATTJEAL HISTOET. [Book XXIV. 
reddish root of a serpentine form, to which, in fact, it owes its 
name.''^ 
CHAP. 92. THE AEON : THIETEEN EEMEDIES. 
The Greeks themselves, in fact, have established an im- 
mense difference between these two plants, in attributing to 
the seed of the dracunculus certain hot, pungent properties, 
and a fetid odour^"^ so remarkably powerful as to be productive 
of abortion, while upon the aron, on the other hand, they 
have bestowed marvellous encomiums. As an article of food, 
however, they give the preference to the female plant, the 
male plant being of a harder nature, and more difficult to cook. 
It carries off,*® they say, all vicious humours from the chest, 
and powdered and taken in the form either of a potion or of 
an electuary, it acts as a diuretic and emmenagogue. Powdered 
and taken in oxymel, it is good for the stomach ; and we find 
it stated that it is administered in ewe's milk for ulcerations 
of the intestines, and is sometimes cooked on hot ashes and 
given in oil for a cough. Some persons, again, are in the habit 
of boiling it in milk and administering the decoction ; and it 
has been used also in a boiled state as a topical application for 
defluxions of the eyes, contusions, and affections of the tonsil- 
lary glands, i^ * *6o prescribes it with oil, as an 
iDjection for piles, and recommends it as a liniment, with 
honey, for freckles. 
Cleophantus has greatly extolled this plant as an antidote for 
poisons, and for the treatment of pleurisy and peripneumony, 
prepared the same way as for coughs. The seed too, pounded 
with olive oil or oil of roses, is used as an injection for pains 
5^ From "draco," a " dragon" or " serpent." Fee says, that it is not 
to its roots, but to its spotted stem, resembling the skin of an adder, that 
it owes its name. 
57 <i Virus." Fee says that the Arum dracunculus has a strong, fetid 
odour, and all parts of it are acrid and caustic, while the Arum colocasia 
has an agreeable flavour when boiled. 
This, Fee says, is fabulous. 
Though no longer used in medicine, the account here given of the 
properties of the Arum colocasia is in general correct, a few marvellous 
details excepted. 
60 Sillig thinks that there is a lacuna here, and that the name " Cleo- 
phantus " should be supplied. 
