It is applied also to whitlows, in vinegar, and to callosities of the feet. Stale bread, or sailors’-bread,[2789] beaten up and baked again, arrests looseness of the bowels. For persons who wish to improve the voice, dry bread is very good, taken fasting; it is useful also as a preservative against catarrhs. The bread called “sitanius,” and which is made of three-month[2790] wheat, applied with honey, is a very efficient cure for contusions of the face and scaly eruptions. White bread, steeped in hot or cold water, furnishes a very light and wholesome aliment for patients. Soaked in wine, it is applied as a poultice for swellings of the eyes, and used in a similar manner, or with the addition of dried myrtle, it is good for pustules on the head. Persons troubled with palsy are recommended to take bread soaked in water, fasting, immediately after the bath. Burnt bread modifies the close smell of bedrooms, and, used in the strainers,[2791] it neutralizes bad odours in wine.
CHAP. 69.—BEANS: SIXTEEN REMEDIES.
Beans,[2792] too, furnish us with some remedies. Parched whole, and thrown hot into strong vinegar, they are a cure for gripings of the bowels. Bruised, and boiled with garlic, they are taken with the daily food for inveterate coughs, and for suppurations of the chest. Chewed by a person fasting, they are applied topically to ripen boils, or to disperse them; and, boiled in wine, they are employed for swellings of the testes and diseases of the genitals. Bean-meal, boiled in vinegar, ripens tumours and breaks them, and heals contusions and burns. M. Varro assures us that beans are very good for the voice. The ashes of bean stalks and shells, with stale hogs’-lard, are good for sciatica and inveterate pains of the sinews. The husks, too, boiled down, by themselves, to one-third, arrest looseness of the bowels.
CHAP. 70.—LENTILS: SEVENTEEN REMEDIES.
Those lentils[2793] are the best which boil the most easily, and those in particular which absorb the most water. They injure the eye-sight,[2794] no doubt, and inflate the stomach; but taken with the food, they act astringently upon the bowels, more particularly if they are thoroughly boiled in rain-water: if, on the other hand, they are lightly boiled, they are laxative.[2795] They break purulent ulcers, and they cleanse and cicatrize ulcerations of the mouth. Applied topically, they allay all kinds of abscesses, when ulcerated and chapped more particularly; with melilote or quinces they are applied to defluxions of the eyes, and with polenta they are employed topically for suppurations. A decoction of them is used for ulcerations of the mouth and genitals, and, with rose-oil or quinces, for diseases of the fundament. For affections which demand a more active remedy, they are used with pomegranate rind, and the addition of a little honey; to prevent the composition from drying too quickly, beet leaves are added. They are applied topically, also, to scrofulous sores, and to tumours, whether ripe or only coming to a head, being thoroughly boiled first in vinegar. Mixed with hydromel they are employed for the cure of chaps, and with pomegranate rind for gangrenes. With polenta they are used for gout, for diseases of the uterus and kidneys, for chilblains, and for ulcerations which cicatrize with difficulty. For a disordered stomach, thirty grains should be eaten.
For cholera,[2796] however, and dysentery, it is the best plan to boil the lentils in three waters, in which case they should always be parched first, and then pounded as fine as possible, either by themselves, or else with quinces, pears, myrtle, wild endive, black beet, or plantago. Lentils are bad for the lungs, head-ache, all nervous affections, and bile, and are very apt to cause restlessness at night. They are useful, however, for pustules, erysipelas, and affections of the mamillæ, boiled in sea-water; and, applied with vinegar, they disperse indurations and scrofulous sores. As a stomachic, they are mixed, like polenta, with the drink given to patients. Parboiled in water, and then pounded and bolted through a sieve to disengage the bran, they are good for burns, care being taken to add a little honey as they heal: they are boiled, also, with oxycrate for diseases of the throat.[2797]
There is a marsh-lentil[2798] also, which grows spontaneously in stagnant waters. It is of a cooling nature, for which reason it is employed topically for abscesses, and for gout in particular, either by itself or with polenta. Its glutinous properties render it a good medicine for intestinal hernia.
CHAP. 71.—THE ELELISPHACOS, SPHACOS, OR SALVIA: THIRTEEN REMEDIES.
The plant called by the Greeks “elelisphacos,”[2799] or “sphacos,” is a species of wild lentil, lighter than the cultivated one, and with a leaf, smaller, drier, and more odoriferous. There is also another[2800] kind of it, of a wilder nature, and possessed of a powerful smell, the other one being milder. It[2801] has leaves the shape of a quince, but white and smaller: they are generally boiled with the branches. This plant acts as an emmenagogue and a diuretic: and it affords a remedy for wounds inflicted by the sting-ray,[2802] having the property of benumbing the part affected. It is taken in drink with wormwood for dysentery: employed with wine it accelerates the catamenia when retarded, a decoction of it having the effect of arresting them when in excess: the plant, applied by itself, stanches the blood of wounds. It is a cure, too, for the stings of serpents, and a decoction of it in wine allays prurigo of the testes.
Our herbalists of the present day take for the “elelisphacos” of the Greeks the “salvia”[2803] of the Latins, a plant similar in appearance to mint, white and aromatic. Applied externally, it expels the dead fœtus, as also worms which breed in ulcers and in the ears.