418 
MERGE TO GYRENE. 
camels which were sent to us from Bengazi, when we were about to 
leave Grenna, were kept muzzled during the whole time of their 
stay in those parts where the plant was known to be produced. 
With regard to the effects of the silphium upon bipeds, (we mean 
those of the human race,) a few extracts from PHny will fully suffice 
to convince us that it does not yield in omnipotence even to the 
famed balm of Gilead ; or to that well known specific, and sovereign 
remedy for all complaints, distinguished by the humble title of Eau 
de Cologne. Certes, (observes this author, in concluding the remarks 
which we have quoted below upon the wonderful efficacy of his 
specific,) “ if I should take in hand to particularize of the vertues 
that laser hath, being mingled with other matter in confections, I 
should never make an end and the reader will probably be some- 
what of his opinion, before he has waded through half the wondrous 
qualities attributed to the omnipotent silphium. We give them in 
the good old Enghsh version of Holland*. 
* The leaves of the plant, steeped in white wine, were, it seems, a most extraordinary 
specific*; and “ the root is singular” (it is Pliny who speaks) “for to cleare the wind- 
pipes, and to take away all the asperitie and roughness in these parts ; and being applied 
in the form of a liniment it helpeth imposthumat inflamations proceeding from the rank- 
nesse and ebullition of blood. A liniment thereof made with wine and oile is a most 
familiar and agreeable medecine for the black and blue marks remaining after stripes ; 
but if the same with some adition of wax be reduced into a cerot it helpeth the kings 
evill. As for the liquor laser (continues our naturalist) issuing from Silphium, in that 
manner as I have shewed, it is holden for one of the most singular gifts that nature hath 
bestowed upon the world, and entereth into many excellent confections and compositions. 
Of itselfe alone, it reduceth those to their natural health who are starven and benumbed 
» Nam folia ad expurgandas vulvas pellendosque eraortuos partus decoquuntur in vino albo odorato, ut 
bibatur mensura acetabuli a balineis. — Adde — Laser, e silphio profluens fseminis datur in vivo. Et lanis 
mollibus admovetur vulvse ad menses ciendos.— (Hist. Nat. Lib. xxii. c. xxiii.) 
