Poppy (Papaver somniferum).
1. For sore of eyes, that is what we denominate blearedness, take the ooze of this wort, which the Greeks name Makona and the Romans Papaver album, and the Engles call white poppy, or the stalk with the fruit; lay it to the eyes.
2. For sore of temples or of the head, take ooze of this same wort, pound with vinegar, and lay upon the sore; it alleviates the sore.
3. For sleeplessness, take ooze of this same wort, smear the man with it, and soon thou sendest the sleep on him.
Many of the herbs named in the Herbarium were employed for other purposes than those for which they were used in later practice. Comfrey is recommended for one “bursten within.” It was to be roasted in hot ashes and mixed with honey; then to be taken fasting. But nothing is said of its bone-setting property. Mullein, subsequently famous as a pectoral medicine, is recommended in the Herbarium as an external application in gout, and to carry about to prevent the attacks of wild beasts. Dill is prescribed as a remedy against local itching; fennel in cough and sore bladder; and madder for broken legs, which it would cure in three days.
To prevent sea-sickness the traveller had to smear himself with a mixture of pennyroyal and wormwood in oil and vinegar. Peony laid over a lunatic would soon cause him to upheave himself whole; and vervain or verbena if carried on the person would ensure a man from being barked at by dogs.
A Professed Translation.
The next document presented is the Medicina de Quadrupedibus of Sextus Placitus, an unknown personage, who adds to the interest of his narrative by pretending that “a king of the Egyptians, Idpartus he was highten,” sent this treatise to the Emperor Octavius Cæsar, “for,” he said, “I wist thee worthy of this.” Probably this manuscript was not a translation at all; if it was, the pretended authors were almost certainly fictitious. Most of the instructions here given relate to the medicinal uses of animals. The idea that foxes’ lungs will strengthen ours is hardly dead yet. Here it is in this old Saxon document:—