It is in tendencies of this description that the medical art first took its rise; though it was originally intended, no doubt, by Nature, that our only medicaments should be those which universally exist, are everywhere to be found, and are to be procured at no great outlay, the various substances, in fact, from which we derive our sustenance. But at a later period the fraudulent disposition of mankind, combined with an ingenuity prompted by lucre, invented those various laboratories,[16] in which each one of us is promised an extension of his life—that is, if he will pay for it. Compositions and mixtures of an inexplicable nature forthwith have their praises sung, and the productions of Arabia and India are held in unbounded admiration in the very midst[17] of us. For some trifling sore or other, a medicament is prescribed from the shores of the Red Sea; while not a day passes but what the real remedies are to be found upon the tables of the very poorest man among us.[18] But if the remedies for diseases were derived from our own gardens, if the plants or shrubs were employed which grow there, there would be no art, forsooth, that would rank lower than that of medicine.
Yes, avow it we must—the Roman people, in extending its empire, has lost sight of its ancient manners, and in that we have conquered we are the conquered:[19] for now we obey the natives of foreign[20] lands, who by the agency of a single art have even out-generalled our generals.[21] More, however, on this topic hereafter.
CHAP. 2. (2.)—THE LOTUS OF ITALY: SIX REMEDIES
We have already[22] spoken in their appropriate places of the herb called lotus, and of the plant of Egypt known by the same name and as the “tree of the Syrtes.” The berries of the lotus, which is known among us as the “Grecian bean,”[23] act astringently upon the bowels; and the shavings of the wood, boiled in wine, are useful in cases of dysentery, excessive menstruation, vertigo, and epilepsy: they also prevent the hair from falling off. It is a marvellous thing—but there is no substance known that is more bitter than the shavings of this wood, or sweeter than the fruit. The sawdust also of the wood is boiled in myrtle-water, and then kneaded and divided into lozenges, which form a medicament for dysentery of remarkable utility, being taken in doses of one victoriatus,[24] in three cyathi of water.
CHAP. 3. (3.)—ACORNS: THIRTEEN REMEDIES
Acorns,[25] pounded with salted axle-grease,[26] are curative of those indurations known as “cacoethe.”[27] The acorn of the holm-oak, however, is the most powerful in its effects; and in all these trees the bark is still more efficacious, as well as the inner membrane which lies beneath it. A decoction of this last is good for cœliac affections; and it is applied topically in cases of dysentery, as well as the acorns, which are employed also for the treatment of stings inflicted by serpents, fluxes, and suppurations. The leaves, acorns, and bark, as well as a decoction prepared from them, are good as counter-poisons. A decoction of the bark, boiled in cows’ milk, is used topically for stings inflicted by serpents, and is administered in wine for dysentery. The holm-oak is possessed of similar properties.
CHAP. 4. (4.)—THE KERMES-BERRY OF THE HOLM-OAK: THREE REMEDIES.
The scarlet berry[28] of the holm-oak is applied to fresh wounds with vinegar; and in combination with water it is dropt into the eyes in cases of defluxion of those organs or of ecchymosis. There grows also in most parts of Attica, and in Asia, a berry of this description, which becomes transformed with great rapidity into a diminutive worm, owing to which circumstance the Greeks have given it the name of “scolecion:”[29] it is held, however, in disesteem. The principal varieties of this berry have been previously[30] described.
CHAP. 5.—GALL-NUTS: TWENTY-THREE REMEDIES.
And no fewer are the varieties of the gall-nut which we have described:[31] we have, for instance, the full-bodied gall-nut, the perforated one, the white, the black, the large, the small, all of them possessed of similar properties; that, however, of Commagene is generally preferred. These substances remove fleshy excrescences on the body, and are serviceable for affections of the gums and uvula,[32] and for ulcerations of the mouth. Burnt, and then quenched in wine, they are applied topically in cases of cœliac affections and dysentery, and with honey, to whitlows, hangnails, malformed nails, running ulcers, condylomatous swellings, and ulcerations of the nature known as phagedænic.[33] A decoction of them in wine is used as an injection for the ears, and as a liniment for the eyes, and in combination with vinegar they are employed for eruptions and tumours.