Commentary. This is a Syrian plant, which, although both Matthiolus and Gerarde pretend to give figures of it, has never been satisfactorily determined. Serapion and Avicenna have completely omitted treating of it, and Rhases merely says of the androsafes, by which he probably meant the androsaces, that it is decidedly heating with moderate astringency. (Cont. l. ult.) Our author seems to copy from Dioscorides (iii, 140.)
Ἀνεμώνη,
Anemone, Wind-flower; all the varieties of it have powers which are acrid, detergent, epispastic, and open the mouths of vessels: whence they increase phlegm, remove leprosy when applied, and attract milk.
Commentary. The wind-flowers, so celebrated in ancient poetry, being a numerous genus, there has been some difficulty in determining exactly the species described by Dioscorides. He mentions two, the cultivated and the wild, and divides each into two varieties, according to the difference of colour in their flowers. The former may be set down as the A. coronaria, and the other as the A. nemorosa. The latter only is indigenous in this country, but the other is commonly cultivated in gardens. He recommends them principally as external applications, as for foul ulcers, in collyria for inflammation of the eyes, and in pessaries to promote menstruation. (ii, 207.) Galen and the succeeding authorities follow him. The anemone is not to be found in Celsus. For the Arabians, see Avicenna (ii, 2, 655); Serapion (c. 72); Rhases (Cont. l. ult. iii, 48); Ebn Baithar (ii, 100.) They do little more than copy from Dioscorides. The A. pratensis occurs in the modern Greek Pharmacopœia (132.)
Ἄνηθον,
Anethum, Dill; it warms in the second degree intensely, and dries in nearly the same degree. When boiled in oil it is diaphoretic, anodyne, and soporific; and concocts crude swellings. But when burnt it becomes of the third order of heating and drying medicines, and is useful when sprinkled upon foul ulcers. But the green is more humid, and less hot and digestive.
Commentary. Our author condenses and abridges the account of the dill (Anethum graveolens) given by Galen. Dioscorides, in his usual empirical style, recommends it for various purposes, such as promoting the flow of milk, stopping slight vomiting, opening the bowels, increasing the urine, proving useful to hysterical women in a hip-bath, and so forth. (iii, 60.) The Arabians as usual copy from both. See Avicenna. (ii, 2, 69.)
Ἄνθυλλις,
Anthyllis; there are two varieties, both of which are desiccant applications to ulcers; but that resembling the ground-pine consists of more subtile particles, so as to be beneficial in epileptic cases. It is also more detergent.