The circæa[1831] resembles the cultivated trychnon[1832] in appearance. It has a small swarthy flower, a diminutive seed, like millet, growing in small horn-shaped pods, and a root half a foot in length, generally triple or fourfold, white, odoriferous, and hot in the mouth. It is found growing upon rocks exposed to the sun. An infusion of it is prepared with wine, and administered for pains and affections of the uterus: to make it, three ounces of the pounded root should be steeped in three sextarii of wine a day and a night. This potion is effectual also for bringing away the after-birth. The seed of this plant, taken in wine or hydromel, diminishes the milk in nursing women.
CHAP. 39.—THE CIRSION: ONE REMEDY.
The cirsion[1833] is a plant consisting of a diminutive and delicate stem, two cubits in height, of a triangular form, and covered with prickly leaves. The prickles on the leaves are downy, and the leaves themselves resemble those of buglossos[1834] in shape, but are smaller, and of a whitish colour. At the summit of the plant there are small purple heads, which fall off in the shape of down. This plant or the root of it, worn as an amulet, it is said, is curative of the pains attendant upon varicose veins.
CHAP. 40.—THE CRATÆGONON; TWO KINDS OF IT: EIGHT REMEDIES.
The cratægonon[1835] is similar to an ear of corn in appearance. It is formed of numerous shoots, springing from a single root, and full of joints. It grows in umbrageous localities, and has a seed like that of millet, with a remarkably acrid taste. If a man and woman, before the evening meal, take three oboli of this seed in three cyathi of water, for forty days consecutively, before the conception of their issue, it will be sure to be of the male[1836] sex, they say.
There is another cratægonon, known also as “thelygonos,”[1837] and distinguished from the last mentioned plant by the mildness of the taste. Some persons assert that females, if they take the blossom of this plant in drink, will be sure to conceive before the end of forty days. These plants, used in combination with honey, are curative of black ulcers of a chronic nature; they also fill the concavities made by fistulous ulcers with new flesh, and restore such parts of the body as are wasted by atrophy. They act as a detergent upon purulent sores, disperse inflammatory tumours, and alleviate gout and all kind of abscesses, those of the mamillæ in particular.
Under the name of “cratægos”[1838] or “cratægon,” Theophrastus[1839] speaks of the tree known in Italy as the “aquifolia.”
CHAP. 41.—THE CROCODILEON: TWO REMEDIES.
The crocodileon[1840] resembles the black chamæleon[1841] in shape: the root is long, of an uniform thickness, and possessed of a pungent smell. It is found growing in sandy soils. Taken in drink, it causes a copious discharge of coagulated blood at the nostrils, and in this way, it is said, diminishes the volume of the spleen.