CHAP. 73.—REMEDIES FOR DROPSY. ACTE OR EBULUM. CHAMÆACTE.
For the cure of dropsy, tithymalos characias[1398] is employed; panaces[1399] also; plantago,[1400] used as a diet, dry bread being eaten first, without any drink; betony, taken in doses of two drachmæ in two cyathi of ordinary wine or honied wine; agaric or seed of lonchitis,[1401] in doses of two spoonfuls, in water; psyllion,[1402] taken in wine; juice of either anagallis;[1403] root of cotyledon[1404] in honied wine; root of ebulum,[1405] fresh gathered, with the mould shaken off, but not washed in water, a pinch in two fingers being taken in one hemina of old wine mulled; root of trefoil, taken in doses of two drachmæ in wine; the tithymalos[1406] known as “platyphyllos;” seed of the hypericon,[1407] otherwise known as “caros;” the plant called “acte”—the same thing as ebulum[1408] according to some—the root of it being pounded in three cyathi of wine, if there are no symptoms of fever, or the seed of it being administered in red wine; a good handful of vervain also, boiled down in water to one half. But of all the remedies for this disease, juice of chamæacte[1409] is looked upon as by far the most efficacious.
Morbid or pituitous eruptions are cured by the agency of plantago, or else root of cyclaminos[1410] with honey. Leaves of ebulum,[1411] bruised in old wine and applied topically, are curative of the disease called “boa,” which makes its appearance in the form of red pimples. Juice of strychnos,[1412] applied as a liniment, is curative of prurigo.