[2528] In B. xv. c. 7. The Urtica urens has no oleaginous principles, and the oil of nettles, as Fée says, must have been a medicinal composition, the properties of which are more than hypothetical. The plant boiled, he remarks, can have no medicinal properties whatever, and it is with justice excluded from the modern Materia Medica. It is, however, still employed by some few practitioners, and the leaves are used, in some cases, to restore the vital action, by means of urtication.
[2529] “Cicutæ.”
[2530] Mercury, as already mentioned in a previous Note, is not poisonous.
[2531] “Testudinis.” He may, possibly, mean a turtle.
[2532] See B. x. c. 86.
[2533] The process of “urtication,” alluded to in Note [2528].
[2534] Fée considers this extremely doubtful.
[2535] An abominable refinement (if we may use the term) in gluttony, which would appear to have been practised among the Romans; though Fée thinks it possible that such a practice may have been considered advisable in the medical treatment of certain maladies. Be this as it may, the system of using vomits has prevailed to some extent in this country, and during the present century, too, among persons in the fashionable world, when expected to play their part at several entertainments in one evening.
[2536] “Sapa.” Grape-juice boiled down to one-third.
[2537] De Morb. Mul. text. 47.