160 
Pliny's natueal history. 
[Book XXYI. 
and by these means restore so much territory to the regions of 
Italy in the neighbourhood of our city. In the works, too, of 
Democritus, already mentioned,^^ we find a recipe for the compo- 
sition of a medicament which will ensure the procreation of 
issue, both, sure to be good and fortunate. — "What king of Persia, 
pray, ever obtained that blessing ? It really would be a mar- 
vellous fact that human credulity, taking its rise originally in 
the very soundest of notions, should have ultimately arrived at 
such a pitch as this, if the mind of man understood, under any 
circumstances, how to keep within the bounds of modera- 
tion ; and if the very system of medicine thus introduced by 
Asclepiades, had not been carried to a greater pitch of extra- 
vagance than the follies of magic even, an assertion which 
I shall prove on a more appropriate occasion. 
Such, however, is the natural constitution of the human 
mind, that, be the circumstances what they may, commencing 
with what is necessary it speedily arrives at the point of 
launching out in excess. 
We will now resume our account of the medicinal properties 
of the plants mentioned in the preceding Book, adding to our 
description such others as the necessities of the case may seem 
to require. 
CHAP. 10. — lichen: five eemedies. 
As to the treatment of lichen, so noisome a disease as it is, 
we shall here give a number of additional remedies for it, 
gathered from all quarters, although those already described 
are by no means tew in number. For the cure of lichen 
plantago is used, pounded, cinquefoil also, root of albucus'^^ in 
combination with vinegar, the young shoots of the fig-tree 
boiled in vinegar, or roots of marsh-mallow boiled down to 
one-fourth with glue and vinegar. The sores are rubbed also 
with pumice, and then fomented with root of rumex^^ bruised 
in vinegar, or with scum of viscus^^ kneaded up with lime. A 
decoction, too, of tithymalos^^ with resin is highly esteemed for 
the same purpose. 
But to all these remedies the plant known as lichen," from 
36 In B. xxiv. c. 102. 
33 See B. xxi. c. 68. 
Flos visci.'* 
^'^ In B. xxix. c. 5. 
39 See B. XX. c. 85. 
4^ See c. 39 of tliis Book. 
