246 
PLIKy's natural HI8T0BT. 
[Book XXVIT. 
ticularly when dried : when wanted for use, they should he 
dried in the sun. These plants are found growing everywhere, 
but in cold soils more particularly ; they should be taken up, 
too, at the setting of the Yergilise."^^ The root is only used at the 
end of three years, neither before that period nor after. They 
act as an expellent of intestinal worms ; for tapeworm honey 
is taken with them, but in other cases sweet wine, for three days. 
They are, both of them, extremely detrimental to the sto- 
mach, but are laxative to the bowels, carrying off first the bile 
and then the aqueous humours of the body. When used for 
tapeworm, it is the best plan to take scammony with them, in 
equal proportions. Tor rheumatic defluxions, the root is taken 
in doses of two oboli, in water, after a day's abstinence from 
food, a little honey being taken first. ISTeither kind must ever 
be given to females ; for in pregnancy they are productive of 
abortion, and in other cases entail sterility. Powdered fern is 
sprinkled upon sordid ulcers, as also upon the necks of beasts 
of burden, when chafed. Fern-leaves kill bugs, and serpents 
will never harbour among them : hence it is a good plan to 
strew them in places where the presence of those reptiles is 
suspected. The very smell, too, of burnt fern will put serpents 
to flight. Medical men have made this distinction as to ferns ; 
that of Macedonia, they say, is the best, and that of Cassiope 
the next. 
CHAP. 56.^ FEMUR BUBULUM, OR OX THIGH. 
The name of femur bubulum*^ is given to a plant which is 
good for the sinews, applied fresh, and beaten up with salt and 
vinegar. 
CHAP. 57. GALEOPSIS, GALEOBDOLOIf, OR GALION : SIX REMEDIES. 
Galeopsis,"^^ or as some call it, galeobdolon" or gallon,*' 
See B. xviii. c. 59. 
Fee remarks that root of fern is an undoubted remedy for tapeworm, 
and that it is worthy of remark that we owe to the ancients the two most 
efficient anthelmintics known, fern-root, namely, and pomegranate rind. 
"^2 The Femur bubulum has not been identified. C. Bauhin has suggested 
the Leonurus cardiaca of Linnaeus, Motherwort. 
"^3 It has been suggested that this plant is the same as the Lamiura, 
mentioned in B. xxii. c. 16, but Fee is not of that opinion. He identifies 
the Galeopsis with theXamium purpureum of Linnaeus, the Purple arch- 
angel, or dead-nettle. Littre gives as its synonym the Scrofularia pere- 
grina of Linnaeus, the Foreign figwort. 
