162 
PLINY'S NATUEAL HISTORY. 
[Book XXVI. 
solata^^ — this last being applied topically, and covered with the 
leaf of the plant — -artemisia,*^ also, and an infusion of the 
root of mandragora^ in water. The large-leaved sideritis,^ 
cleft by the left hand with a nail, is worn attached as an 
amulet : but after the cure has been effected, due care must be 
taken to preserve the plant, in order that it may not be set 
again, to promote the wicked designs of the herbalists and so 
cause the disease to break out afresh ; as sometimes happens in 
the cases already mentioned,^^ and others which I find stated, 
in reference to persons cured by the agency of artemisia or 
plantago. 
Damasonion,^^ also known as alcea, is gathered at the summer 
solstice, and applied with rain-water, the leaves being beaten 
up, or the root pounded, with axle- grease, so as to admit, when 
applied, of being covered with a leaf of the plant. The same 
plan is adopted also for the cure of all pains in the neck, and 
tumours on all parts of the body. 
CHAP. 13. THE PLANT CALLED BELLIS I TWO KEMEDIES. 
Bellis^ is the name of a plant that grows in the fields, with 
a white flower somewhat inclining to red ; if this is applied 
with artemisia, it is said, the remedy is still more efficacious. 
CHAP. 14. THE CONDUKDUM. 
The condurdum,^^ too, is a plant with a red blossom, which 
flowers at the summer solstice. Suspended from the neck, it 
52 See B. XXV. c. 66. 
53 See B. XXV. c. 36. 54 gge B. xxv. c. 94. 
55 See B. xxv. c. 19, where our author has confused the Achillea with 
the Sideritis ; also c. 15, where he describes the Heraclion siderion. Fee 
identifies the Sideritis mentioned in B. xxv. c. 19, as having a square stem 
and leaves like those of the quercus, with the Stachys heraclea of modern 
botany. That mentioned in the same Chapter, as having a fetid smell, he 
identifies with the Phellandrium mutellina of Linnaeus. The large-leaved 
Sideritis is, no doubt, the one mentioned as having leaves like those of 
the quercus. See the Note to B. xxv. c. 19. 
5« In B. xxi. c. 83, and B. xxv. c. 119. 57 gee B. xxv. c. 77.^ 
58 Probably the Bellis perennis of Linnaeus, the Common daisy. Fee 
remarks, that it was probably unknown to the Greeks. 
59 See B. xxv. c. 36. 
60 Identified by Sprengel and Desfontaines with the Saponaria vaccaria, 
the Perfoliate soap wort. Other commentators have suggested the Valeriana 
rubra, but Fee thinks that its synonym has not been hitherto discovered. 
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