CHAP. 17.—THE SKIRRET: ELEVEN REMEDIES.
The wild[1380] skirret, too, is very similar to the cultivated kind,[1381] and is productive of similar effects. It sharpens[1382] the stomach, and, taken with vinegar flavoured with silphium, or with pepper and hydromel, or else with garum, it promotes the appetite. According to Opion, it is a diuretic, and acts as an aphrodisiac.[1383] Diocles is also of the same opinion; in addition to which, he says that it possesses cordial virtues for convalescents, and is extremely beneficial after frequent vomitings.
Heraclides has prescribed it against the effects of mercury,[1384] and for occasional impotence, as also generally for patients when convalescent. Hicesius says that skirrets would appear to be prejudicial[1385] to the stomach, because no one is able to eat three of them following; still, however, he looks upon them as beneficial to patients who are just resuming the use of wine. The juice of the cultivated skirret, taken in goats’-milk, arrests looseness of the stomach.