138 
PLINTHS KATUEAL HISTOST. 
[Book XXV. 
attended with swelling, it will be a good plan to apply worm- 
wood beaten up with honey, as well as powdered betony. 
CHAP. 93. THE ^aiLOPS : TWO REMEDIES. 
The fistula of the eye, called " segilops," is cured by the 
agency of the plant of the same name,^" which grows among 
barley, and has a leaf like that of wheat. The seed is 
pounded for the purpose, and applied with meal ; or else the 
juice is extracted from the stem and more pulpy leaves, the 
ears being first removed. This juice is incorporated with meal 
of three-month wheat, and divided into lozenges. 
CHAP. 94. MANDEAGORA, CIEC^ON, MORION, OR HIPPOPHLOMOS J 
TWO VARIETIES OF IT I TWENTT-EOUR REMEDIES. 
Some persons, too, were in the habit of employing mandra- 
gora for diseases of the eyes ; but more recently, the use of it 
for such a purpose has been abandoned. It is a well-ascertained 
fact, however, that the root, beaten up with rose oil and 
wine, is curative of defluxions of the eyes and pains in those 
organs ; and, indeed, the juice of this plant still forms an in- 
gredient in many medicaments for the eyes. Some persons 
give it the name of circseon."^^ There are two varieties, 
the white mandragora, which is generally thought to be the 
male plant, and the black, ^ which is considered to be the 
female. It has a leaf narrower than that of the lettuce, a 
hairy stem, and a double or triple root, black without and 
white within, soft and fleshy, and nearly a cubit in length. 
Both kinds bear a fruit about the size of a hazel-nut, 
enclosing a seed resembling the pips of a pear in appearance. 
The name given to the white plant by some persons is 
'*arsen,"^^ by others "morion,"^^ and by others again, "hippo- 
phlomos." The leaves of it are white, while those of the other 
^2 See B. xviii. c. 44, and B. xxi. c. 63. 
63 Or " Plant of Circe." 
6^ Identified by Fee with the Atropa mandragora vemalis of Bertolini, 
the Spring mandrake. 
The Atropa mandragora autumnalis of Bertolini, the Autumnal man- 
drake. ^® The Greek for " male.*' 
^'i <^ Dementing. Fee remarks that the "Morion" in reality is a 
different plant, and queries whether it may not be the Atropa bella- 
donna of Linnaeus, the Belladonna, or Deadly nightshade, mentioned above 
in Note 57. 
