Chap. 8.] MOLY. 87 
these cases, we find, and not in others, that patients are 
tempted to commit suicide. 
For my own part, I am surprised that the Greek authors 
have gone so far as to give a description of noxious plants 
even ; in using which term, I wish it to be understood that 
I do not mean the poisonous plants merelj^* for such is our 
tenure of life that death is often a port of refuge to even the 
best of men. We meet too, with one case of a somewhat 
similar nature, where M. Varro speaks of Servius Clodius,^^ a 
member of the Equestrian order, being so dreadfully tormented 
with gout, that he had his legs rubbed all over with poisons, 
the result of which was, that from that time forward all sensa- 
tion, equally with all pain, was deadened in those parts of his 
body. But what excuse, I say, can there be for making the 
world acquainted with plants, the only result of the use of 
which is to derange the intellect, to produce abortion, and to 
cause numerous other effects equally pernicious ? So far as I am 
concerned, I shall describe neither abortives nor philtres, 
bearing in mind, as I do, that Lucullus, that most celebrated 
general, died of the effects of a philtre.^^ ]N"or shall I speak 
of other ill-omened devices of magic, unless it be to give 
warning against them, or to expose them, for I most emphati- 
cally condemn all faith and belief in them. It will suffice for 
me, and I shall have abundantly done my duty, if I point out 
those plants which were made for the benefit of mankind, and 
the properties of which have been discovered in the lapse of 
time. 
CHAP. 8. (4.)--moly: theee eemedies. 
According to Homer, the most celebrated of all plants is 
that, which, according to him, is known as moly^^ among the 
'^^ See the case of M. Agrippa, mentioned in B. xxiii. c. 27. 
39 Said, by Plutarch, to have been administered to him by his freedman 
Callistlienes, with the view of securing his affection. 
*o Od. X. 1. 302, et scq. 
Fee devotes a couple of pages to the vemta qucestio ofthe identification 
of this plant, and comes to the conclusion that the Moly of Homer, 
mentioned on the present occasion, and of Theophrastus, Ovid, and the 
poets in general is only an imaginary plant ; that the white-flowered Moly 
of Dioscorides and Galen is identical with the Allium Dioscoridis of Sib- 
thorpe ; and that the yellow-flowered Moly of the author of the Priapeia 
is not improbably the Allium Moly or magicum of Linnaeus. Sprengel 
