



MEADOW SAFFRON. 199 
In such a night 
Medea gathered the enchanted herbs 
That did renew old Aison. 
SHAKSPEARE, 
It has been suggested also that, as Medea is 
sometimes called Colchis, it was this plant that 
relieved AXson from his infirmities. Hence it 
came to be considered as a preservative against 
all sorts of diseases. 'The Swiss hang it round 
their children’s necks, and imagine them to be 
thenceforth exempt from every kind of ailment. 
Most superstitious: notions, however, ridicu- 
lous as they may now appear, originated in the 
first instance in some reasonable opinion. Could 
we divest the tales of antiquity of their fabulous 
dress, we should probably find them all expla- 
natory of real events. In this case, we should 
perhaps discover that Medea, having relieved 
{ison from a fit of the gout, his subjects cele- 
brated her praise for having restored their sove- 
reign to youthful sprightliness.. This interpre- 
tation is rendered the more plausible by the late 
discovery of the powerful efficacy of the Colchi- 
cum, not only in gout and rheumatic affections 
of the joints, but also in most inflammatory dis- 



























