Gnaphalium, Cudweed, is so called because its soft leaves have been used in place of combed wool (gnaphalum.) They are white and moderately astringent, and are, therefore, drunk with austere wine for dysentery.
Commentary. There has been a great shifting of names by botanical authorities of late, with regard to the Gnaphalia and the cognate genera. It seems now agreed that the medicinal cotton-weed of the ancients shall be called Otanthus maritimus, Link. Our author borrows from Dioscorides and Galen, who both give exactly the same character of this plant, and this it retained down to a very recent period. See Quincy.
Γογγυλὶς,
Rapum, Turnip; the root and seed are flatulent, promote the formation of semen, and rouse to venery.
Commentary. The predominance of authority has determined us, after a good deal of consideration, to set this down as the Brassica Napo-brassica, the navew, or French turnip. All the authorities, in a word, from Dioscorides downwards, held it to be aphrodisiacal. Dioscorides holds it to be a sovereign remedy for chilblains in fomentation, cataplasm, or prepared thus: a turnip is to be scooped out in the middle and filled with rose-cerate, which is to be melted by placing the turnip in hot ashes, when it forms an excellent application to ulcerated chilblains. (ii, 134.) Pliny likewise says of the turnip, “Est et rapo vis medica. Perniones fervens impositum sanat.” (H. N. xx, 9.) A roasted turnip is still a popular remedy in Scotland for chilblains. Galen, Aëtius, and Oribasius give brief descriptions of the gongylis, and from them our author copies. Celsus treats of the napus and rapum only as potherbs. The Arabians give a confused account of the matter; Avicenna under brassica, and Serapion under rapa. (De Simpl. 191.) Rhases, translating the 134th chapter of Dioscorides, renders gongyle by Rapa rotunda. (Cont. l. ult. 557.) Altogether it appears to us strange that some of our late authorities should have referred the gongylis to the Brassica oleracea. See Dierbach (Mat. Med. Hippocrat.) The introduction of the different varieties of the latter into gardening is a very curious but difficult subject. See Beckmann (Hist. of Invent.), and Loudon (Encyc. of Garden. 674.)
Γορδύλιον,
Gordylium (called also by some Seseli), is hot, diuretic, and emmenagogue. The root of it, when taken in a linctus, with honey, promotes expectoration.
Commentary. Most probably it is a species of Seseli. Either our author or some copyist of his works has evidently been guilty of the mistake of writing gordylion for tordylion. See the chapter of Dioscorides on the tordylium (iii, 56.)
Γύρις,
Pollen, Fine Flour, resembles starch in its properties, but is weaker.