Hedera, Ivy, is composed of opposite powers, for it is astringent and cooling, and acrid and hot; consisting of a watery and tepid ingredient when green. Its leaves, when boiled with wine, are agglutinative of wounds and relieve burns and splenic affections. Its juice is an errhine, and cures chronic defluxions from the ear. Its tears, being more acrid, kill lice and act as a depilatory.
Commentary. We need have no hesitation in referring it with the best authorities to the Hedera Helix, L. Dioscorides describes three varieties of it, the white, the black, and the helix; but it is easy to see that they are all varieties of the same species. His distinctions, however, occasioned great trouble and confusion both to his Arabian copyists and to the modern herbalists. See Serapion (De Simpl. 41), and Parkinson (Theatre of Plants, 680), and Gerard (History of Plants, 857.) Our author’s account of its medicinal properties is taken from Galen. The tears of it, mentioned by Dioscorides and our author, were evidently its resin, now generally known by the name of gum ivy. All the ancient writers recommend it for thinning the hair and killing lice.
Κίτριον,
Citrium, Citron, called also Malum Medicum; its middle part is acid or devoid of qualities; but the part in which the seed is contained belongs to the third rank of cooling and desiccative medicines. The bark is desiccative in the second degree, but not cooling, for it is acrid. Its flesh engenders thick chyme, is phlegmatic and cold. Its seed is discutient and desiccative in the second degree; and the leaves of the tree are possessed of desiccative and discutient powers.
Commentary. Without doubt, as Sprengel states, it is the Malus Medica, L., or Citron. Most of the commentators on Virgil agree that it is his “felix malum” (Georg, ii, 127.) Dr. Paris remarks that it probably deserves the praises bestowed on it by him as an antidote to poisons (Pharmacol. 254); and on this head there is a very interesting dispute between the celebrated Fr. Hoffmann and Moses Charras, the famous French authority on the Pharmacopœia. See Pharm. (ii, 39.) According to Macrobius, it is the θύον of Homer, who mentions it in the following line:
θύον ἄνα νῆσον ὀδώδει.—Odyss. v.
Pliny, however, is not of this opinion (H. N. xiii, 16.) Our author copies closely from Galen. Dioscorides’s account of its medicinal properties is far more precise and interesting. Citrons, he says, when drunk with wine, counteract the operation of deadly poisons, and loosen the belly; the decoction is a gargle for occasioning sweetness of the breath; its juice is much used by women labouring under pica (see [Book I, 1], of this work), and their seeds seem to preserve clothes in a chest from being moth-eaten. (i, 166.) The Arabians treat very fully of the medicinal properties of the citron. See Serapion (De Simpl. i, 1), Avicenna (ii, 2, 116), and Rhases (Cont. l. ult. i, 219.) They all agree that its seed is alexipharmic, both when taken in hot water, and when the juice is applied to a poisoned wound. See particularly Avicenna (De Med. Cord. ii.) They also hold that it is an excellent cordial and stomachic; that it stops bilious purgings, fluxes, and vomiting; and that it dispels sorrow. They hold, however, that it is prejudicial to the lungs and nerves. They speak highly of the oil of citrons in paralysis and other affections of the nerves. We need scarcely remark that this preparation has been much celebrated in modern times (see Charras, l. c.), and is still retained in our Pharmacopœia. See Pereira, 1235.
Κιχόριον ἤ πικρὶς,
Cichorium, Succory, is, as it were, a wild endive, being cooling and desiccant in the first degree. It has also some astringency, and hence it agrees with hepatic dysenteries.
Commentary. It is the Cichorium Intybus. We have treated of it among the pot-herbs in the [First Book]. It occurs in the Flora Hippocratica. Dioscorides recommends both the garden and the wild succory as being astringent, cooling, and stomachic, in various cases, both internally and externally, for binding the bowels in dysentery, as a cataplasm in cardiac affection, and as a remedy for gout and ophthalmy. (ii, 159.) Celsus also ranks the intybus and ambubeia, which are the wild and garden succory, with astringents. (ii, 30.) Galen and the other Greek authorities give it the same general characters. The Arabians treat of the seris and intybus at greater length, and seem to confound the latter, or endive, with the taraxacon (Leontodon taraxacum?). See in particular Avicenna (ii, 2, 229, 683.) He recommends the latter most particularly as a deobstruent in obstructions of the liver and other viscera; he speaks favorably of it as a plaster in palpitations of the heart, and as a gargle along with Cassia fistula in inflammations of the throat. All the Arabians recommend both species as antidotes to the bites of venomous animals. See Avicenna (l. c.), Serapion (c. 143), and Rhases (Cont. l. ult. i, 266.) The wild succory (Cichorium Intybus) is still sometimes employed in medicine. Dr. Pereira says, “the medicinal properties of Cichorium Intybus are analogous to those of Taraxacum Densleonis.” (Mat. Med. 698.) It occurs in the modern Greek Pharmacopœia.