Fermentum, Leaven; it also is composed of opposite ingredients; for it is possessed of a cold acidity and putrefactive (“fermentative?”) heat, and moreover of salts and flour. It is, therefore, heating and discutient in no ordinary degree.
Commentary. On the ancient modes of preparing Fermentum or Leaven, see ‘Geopon.’ (ii, 31); and Pliny (H. N. xviii, 26.) The kind in most common use was prepared from millet and must, or the fresh juice of the grape. Our author’s description of its medicinal powers is taken from Galen. Aëtius treats of it in nearly the same words. Dioscorides praises the leaven of wheat as being heating and epispastic, and suiting with complaints of the heels, phymata, and furunculi. (ii, 107.) Serapion under this head gives two extracts from Dioscorides and Galen, followed by one from Abenmesuai (the elder Mesue?), who recommends it in the fevers of children for quenching thirst. (De Simpl. 29.) Rhases gives a formula for a draught to be prepared from leaven, which he in like manner praises as being wonderfully efficacious in the fevers of children. (Cont. l. ult. i, 306.)
Ζωμὸς,
Jusculum, Broth, loosens the belly if drunk by itself or with wine, when made from fresh fish; but particularly that which is simply prepared from hakes, scorpion-fishes, rainbows, perches, and other tender fishes which dwell among rocks, with water, oil, dill, and salts. In like manner, also, the broth of the Crustacea, especially of the Tellinæ (limpets), the Chamæ (cockles), and Conchylæ (oysters). The broth of an old cock, boiled with salt to a great degree, is laxative; but that of a hen, on the other hand, is astringent.
Commentary. The account here given of the broth of fishes is taken from Dioscorides (ii, 35.) Galen directs the broth of fish to be prepared in the following manner: first pour in plenty of water, then add of oil q. s. with a little dill and leek; then, when the fish are half boiled, sprinkle a little salt. (De Alim. Facult. iii); (Meth. Med. ix.) Apicius in the tenth chapter of his work, gives fourteen different receipts for preparing soups from fishes. Most of them contain wine, honey, vinegar, and oil, with pepper, lovage, cumin, rue, &c., among the ingredients which enter into their composition. On the fishes mentioned under this head, see [Book I (90.)] The Arabians generally condense the substance of Dioscorides’s two chapters on Garum and Jus into one, under the title of Muria. See Serapion (184), and Avicenna (ii, 2, 486.) Serapion’s Arabian authorities recommend it as a gentle purgative and phlegmagogue in sciatica, both when given by the mouth and in clysters. One of them says of it, that it makes the pustules of smallpox come out, when the eruption is slow in taking place.
Ἡδύσμον,
Mentha, Mint, is hot, consists of subtile particles; its powers are acrid in the third order, with some half-concocted fluids; it therefore provokes to venery. It has, likewise, some bitterness, by which means it kills intestinal worms; and by its sourness its restrains recent discharges of blood.
Commentary. We need have no hesitation in referring it with all the best commentators to the Mentha sativa, L. Dioscorides says it has calefacient, astringent, and desiccative powers; and hence, he adds, it stops the discharge of blood when drunk with vinegar, and kills the round worms. (iii, 36.) According to him, it stimulates the male to venery, but prevents conception in the female when applied on a pessary before coition. He further says of it, that it stops hiccup, vomiting, and cholera, when taken in a draught along with the juice of an acid pomegranate. He also recommends it, in the form of an external application, for headache, complaints of the breast, and other cases. Galen pronounces mint to be one of the most attenuate articles in the Mat. Med. He agrees with Dioscorides that it is useful in hæmoptysis; and that it is anthelminthic and aphrodisiac. The author of the Hippocratic treatise ‘De Diætâ,’ while, like Dioscorides, he gives mint the credit of promoting the urinary discharge and stopping vomiting, says, that taken in great quantity it weakens the semen and stops erections. Aristotle likewise holds the opinion that mint is anaphrodisiac. (Bibl. ii, 20.) Aëtius, seemingly with the desire of reconciling these great authorities, maintains that mint indeed generates much semen, but of a feeble nature. (Tetr. iv, 4, 26.) Ludovicus Nonnius, by the way, also attempts to account for the difference among the professional authorities on this point. (De re Cib. i, 15.) See also Rutty, (Mat. Med. 323), and Parkinson (35.) The Arabians in treating of it follow Dioscorides and Galen closely, and add little or nothing of their own. They all agree with Dioscorides, that it is aphrodisiac and stops vomiting. See in particular Serapion (290), and Avicenna (ii, 2, 188.) We need scarcely mention that this species of Mentha is now rejected from our Mat. Med., but that three other species of it are still retained.
Ἡδύσαρον ἢ Πελέκινος,
Hedysarum, French Honeysuckle, is bitter and subastringent. It is therefore stomachic, when taken in a liquid form, and clears away visceral obstructions.