Bdellium; both the Scythian and Arabian are possessed of powers which prove emollient of indurated tumours, more especially the recent. The Arabian is also diuretic, lithontriptic, and digestive.
Commentary. Dioscorides, as Dr. Ainslie remarks (Mat. Ind. i, 30), has sufficiently well described this article; and yet he adds afterwards, it is a lamentable fact that the actual tree from which bdellium is got has not hitherto been clearly ascertained by botanists. He rejects the conjecture of Sprengel, although supported by the high authority of Kæmpfer and Rumphius that it is procured from the Borassus flabelliformis, and also that of Matthiolus, who maintained that it is procured from the dwarf palm, or Chamœrops humilis. Upon the whole, the opinion of Virey, founded on the authority of Forskael, that it is got from some species of Amyris, seems to be the most probable. Dr. Pereira gives the following account of this article: “The term Bdellium is applied to two gummy resinous substances. One of these is Indian bdellium, or false myrrh, the bdellium of Scripture, which is obtained from Amyris (Balsamodendron?) Commiphora. See further Royle (Hindoos Med. p. 90.) The other kind is called African Bdellium, and is obtained from the Heudolotia Africana.” (Mat. Med. 1634.) On the Bdellium, see further what we have said in the Appendix to Dunbar’s Greek Lexicon. The ancients would appear to have been well acquainted with both these kinds of bdellium; at all events they were acquainted with the Indian, for Dioscorides has described it. He represents the bdellium to be calefacient, emollient, and dissolvent, and recommends it for dissolving hard tumours, for promoting menstruation in pessaries, and fumigations, and as an emetic, diuretic, and expectorant (i, 80.) The Arabians were evidently still more familiar with the bdellium than their Grecian masters; but have supplied little or no additional information respecting it. See in particular Serapion (De Simpl. 117), and Avicenna (ii, 2, 112.) Celsus recommends it frequently as an ingredient in external applications. As far as we have been able to discover, it does not occur in the works of Hippocrates.
Βεττονικὴ,
Bettonica, Bettony, is a herb having slender branches like those of the pennyroyal, but still more slender, and is possessed of scarcely any quality to the taste. It grows mostly in rocky situations, and is used for the composition of nephritic medicines. There is among the Romans another herb called bettonica, to which Dioscorides gives the name of cestrum; but others name it psychotrophon, because it delights in cold situations, having no resemblance to the aforementioned, except its medicinal powers. In addition to its action as a diuretic, it is useful for many other purposes; for its root in particular, when drunk with hydromel, occasions vomiting, and the leaves open the bowels.
Commentary. Dr. Alston says, “There is a Libellus (De Betonica) attributed commonly to Augustus’s physician, Antonius Musa, by some to L. Apuleius, of which there are said to be very ancient MSS.” We have seen the work mentioned by Alston. It is published Tiguri, A.D. 1537, with notes by Humelbergius. It is a small work, occupying scarcely four leaves in octavo. The author commences with a dedication to Augustus, in which he informs the emperor that the betony is useful for forty-seven complaints, which he proceeds to enumerate, after giving a short description of the herb. He says of it, “Cestron vocatur, etiam psychotrophon, siquidem frigidis reperitur in locis, radicibus tenuibus, thyrso tenui ultra cubitum quadrangulo, foliis quercui similibus, boni odoris, semine in summitate thyrsi spicato, modo thymbræ.” The following are some of the cases in which he recommends it: For fractures of the head, as an external application; for pains of the eyes in a fomentation; for pains in the teeth, boiled in old wine or vinegar; for consumption and difficulty of breathing; for complaints of the liver, spleen, and kidneys; as a purgative when given to the amount of four drachms in eight cyathi of hydromel; for calculus; for dropsy; to prevent intoxication; as an antidote to poisons and the bites of venomous reptiles and mad dogs; for gout, &c. Many different opinions, as stated by Sprengel, have been entertained respecting this herb. Perhaps, as he suggests, it may have been the Rumex Hydrolapathum or Aquaticus. The κεστρεὺς of Dioscorides he thinks is the B. alopecurus. But for the general literature of this subject, we must refer to our discussion on it in the Appendix to Dunbar’s Greek Lexicon. The betony held a place in the Materia Medica down to a very late period. Both Dioscorides and Pliny recommend it in hæmoptysis and purulent affections of the chest, and it enters as an ingredient into several of Myrepsus’s antidotes for dysentery and cæliac affection. Celsus mentions it only in one place, where he says of it, that it is an useful application to the stings of venomous snakes (v, 27, 10.) For the Arabians, see in particular Serapion (322), and Averrhoes (Coll. v, 42.) Our old herbalists and other modern authorities who treat of betony, praise it as a vulnerary herb, and as being possessed of diuretic and emmenagogue faculties.
Βηχίον,
Tussilago, Coltsfoot, it is also called Bechicon; it is so named from its proving useful for coughs, and orthopnœa in fumigations; and it is composed of a hot and watery substance.
Commentary. It is the Tussilago Farfara, or Coltsfoot. Both Dioscorides and Galen recommend it in fumigations for the cure of coughs, and this reputation it has retained down to the present day. Though now expelled from our Dispensatories, a patent medicine, prepared from coltsfoot, is still in considerable celebrity. It is retained in the modern Greek Pharmacopœia (p. 67.)