Delphi Complete Works of Pliny the Elder

by Pliny the Elder

  Of thlaspi there are two kinds; the first of which has narrow leaves, about a finger in length and breadth, turned to wards the ground, and divided at the point. It has a slender stern, half a foot in length, and not wholly destitute of branches; the seed, enclosed in a crescent-shaped capsule, is similar to a lentil in shape, except that it has a jagged appearance, to which, in fact, it owes its name; the flower is white, and the plant is found near footpaths and in hedges. The seed, which has an acrid flavour, carries off bile and pituitous secretions, by vomit and by alvine evacuation, the proper dose being one acetabulum. It is used, also, for sciatica, in the form of an injection, this treatment being persevered in until it has induced a discharge of blood: it acts also as an emmenagogue, but is fatal to the fœtus.

  The other thlaspi, known by some as “Persicon napy,” has broad leaves and large roots, and is also very useful as an injection for sciatica. Both plants are very serviceable for inguinal complaints; it being recommended that the person who gathers them should mention that he is taking them for diseases of the groin, for abscesses of all kinds, and for wounds, and that he should pluck them with one hand only.

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  CHAP. 114.

  THE TRACHINIA: ONE PROPERTY.

  What sort of plant the trachinia is, the authorities do not state. I think that the assurance given by Democritus must be false: for it would be nothing less than a prodigy, for a plant, attached as an amulet, to consume the spleen in so short a time as three days.

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  CHAP. 115.

  THE TRAGONIS OR TRAGION: FOUR REMEDIES.

  The tragonis, or tragion, grows nowhere but in the maritime districts of the Isle of Crete; it resembles the juniper in the seed, leaf, and branches. Its milky juice, which thickens in the form of a gum, or its seed, taken in drink, expels pointed weapons from the flesh. The plant, too, is pounded fresh and applied as a liniment with wine, or, dried and powdered, with honey. It increases the milk in nursing women, and is a sovereign remedy for diseases of the mamillæ.

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  CHAP. 116.

  THE TRAGOS OR SCORPION: FOUR REMEDIES.

  There is another plant also, called “tragos,” or “scorpion” by some, half a foot in height, branchy, destitute of leaves, and bearing diminutive red clusters, with a seed like that of wheat, but pointed at the extremity: this too grows in maritime localities. Ten or twelve tops of the branches, bruised and taken in wine, are remedial in cases of cœliac affections, dysentery, spitting of blood, and excessive menstruation.

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  CHAP. 117.

  THE TRAGOPOGON OR COME.

  There is the tragopogon, also, by some called “come;” a plant with a small stem, leaves like those of saffron, an elongated, sweet, root, and a large, swarthy calyx at the extremity of the stem. It grows in rugged soils, and is never used.

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  CHAP. 118.

  THE AGES OF PLANTS.

  Such, then, is all that I have hitherto been enabled to learn or discover, worthy of mention, relative to plants. At the close of this subject, it seems to me that it will not be out of place to remind the reader, that the properties of plants vary according to their age. It is elaterium, as already stated, that preserves its properties the longest of all. The black chamæleon retains its virtues forty years, centaury not more than twelve, peucedanum and aristolochia six, and the wild vine one year — that is to say, if they are kept in the shade. I would remark, also, that beyond those animals which breed within the plants, there are none that attack the roots of any of those which have been mentioned by me; with the exception, indeed, of the sphondyle, a kind of creeping insect, which infests them all.

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  CHAP. 119.

  HOW THE GREATEST EFFICACY IN PLANTS MAY BE ENSURED.

  It is also an undoubted truth, that the virtues and properties of all roots are more feebly developed, when the fruit has been allowed to ripen; and that it is the same with the seed, when incisions have been previously made in the root, for the extraction of the juice. The efficacy, too, of all plants is impaired by making habitual use of them; and these substances, if employed daily, lose equally their good or bad properties, when required to be effectual. All plants, too, have more powerful properties, when grown in soils that are cold and exposed to the north-eastern blasts, or in dry localities.

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  CHAP. 120.

  MALADIES PECULIAR TO VARIOUS NATIONS.

  There are certain differences, also, by no means inconsiderable, in the predispositions of the various nations of the earth. I have been informed, for instance, that the people of Egypt, Arabia, Syria, and Cilicia, are subject to tapeworm and mawworm, while those of Thracia and Phrygia, on the other hand, are totally exempt from them. This, however, is less surprising than the fact that, although Attica and Bœotia are adjoining territories, the Thebans are troubled with these inflictions, while among the people of Athens they are unknown.

  Considerations of this description lead me now to turn my attention to the nature of the animated beings themselves, and the medicinal properties which are inborn in them, the most assured remedies, perhaps, for all diseases.

  For Nature, in fact, that parent of all things, has produced no animated being for the purpose solely of eating; she has willed that it should be born to satisfy the wants of others, and in its very vitals has implanted medicaments conducive to health. While she has implanted them in mute and inanimate objects even, she has equally willed that these, the most in- valuable aids of life, should be also derived from the life of another — a subject for contemplation, marvellous in the highest degree!

  SUMMARY. — Remedies, narratives, and observations, six hundred and two.

  ROMAN AUTHORS QUOTED. — Caius Valgius, Pompeius Lenæus, Sextius Niger who wrote in Greek, Julius Bassus who wrote in Greek, Antonius Castor, Cornelius Celsus.

  FOREIGN AUTHORS QUOTED. — Theophrastus, Apollodorus, Democritus, Aristogiton, Orpheus, Pythagoras, Mago, Menander who wrote the “Biochresta,” Nicander.

  MEDICAL AUTHORS QUOTED. — Mnesitheus, Timaristus, Simus, Hippocrates, Chrysippus, Diocles, Ophelion, Hera- clides, Hicesius, Dionysius, Apollodorus of Citium, Apol- lodorus of Tarentum, Praxagoras, Plistonicus, Medius, Dieuches, Cleophantus, Philistion, Asclepiades, Crateuas, Petronius Diodotus, Iollas, Erasistratus, Diagoras, Andreas, Mnesides, Epicharmus, Damion, Tlepolemus, Me- trodorus, Solo, Lycus, Olympias of Thebes, Philinus, Petrichus, Micton, Glaucias, Xenocrates.

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  BOOK XXVIII. REMEDIES DERIVED FROM LIVING CREATURES.

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  CHAP. 1. (1.)

  INTRODUCTION.

  WE should have now concluded our description of the various things that are produced between the heavens and the earth, and it would have only remained for us to speak of the substances that are dug out of the ground itself; did not our exposition of the remedies derived from plants and shrubs necessarily lead us into a digression upon the medicinal properties which have been discovered, to a still greater extent, in those living creatures themselves which are thus indebted [to other objects] for the cure of their respective maladies. For ought we, after describing the plants, the forms of the various flowers, and so many objects rare and difficult to be found — ought we to pass in silence the resources which exist in man himself for the benefit of man, and the other remedies to be derived from the creatures that live among us — and this more particularly, seeing that life itself is nothing short of a punishment, unless it is exempt from pains and maladies? Assuredly not; and even though I may incur the risk of being tedious, I shall exert all my energies on the subject, it being my fixed determination to pay less regard to what may be amusing, than to what may prove practically useful to mankind.

  Nay, even more than this, my researches will extend to the usages of foreign
countries, and to the customs of barbarous nations, subjects upon which I shall have to appeal to the good faith of other authors; though at the same time I have made it my object to select no facts but such as are established by pretty nearly uniform testimony, and to pay more attention to scrupulous exactness than to copiousness of diction.

  It is highly necessary, however, to advertise the reader, that whereas I have already described the natures of the various animals, and the discoveries due to them respectively — for, in fact, they have been no less serviceable in former times in dis- covering remedies, than they are at the present day in providing us with them — it is my present intention to confine myself to the remedial properties which are found in the animal world, a subject which has not been altogether lost sight of in the former portion of this work. These additional details therefore, though of a different nature, must still be read in connexion with those which precede.

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  CHAP. 2.

  REMEDIES DERIVED FROM MAN.

  We will begin then with man, and our first enquires will be into the resources which he provides for himself-a subject replete with boundless difficulties at the very outset.

  Epileptic patients are in the habit of drinking the blood even of gladiators, draughts teeming with life, as it were; a thing that, when we see it done by the wild beasts even, upon the same arena, inspires us with horror at the spectacle! And yet these persons, forsooth, consider it a most effectual cure for their disease, to quaff the warm, breathing, blood from man himself, and, as they apply their mouth to the wound, to draw forth his very life; and this, though it is regarded as an act of impiety to apply the human lips to the wound even of a wild beast! Others there are, again, who make the marrow of the leg-bones, and the brains of infants, the objects of their research!

  Among the Greek writers, too, there are not a few who have enlarged upon the distinctive flavours of each one of the viscera and members of the human body, pursuing their researches to the very parings of the nails! as though, forsooth, it could possibly be accounted the pursuit of health for man to make himself a wild beast, and so deserve to contract disease from the very remedies he adopts for avoiding it. Most righteously, by Hercules! if such attempts are all in vain, is he disappointed of his cure! To examine human entrails is deemed an act of impiety; what then must it be to devour them?

  Say, Osthanes, who was it that first devised these practices; for it is thee that I accuse, thou uprooter of all human laws, thou inventor of these monstrosities; devised, no doubt, with the view that mankind might not forget thy name! Who was it that first thought of devouring each member of the human body? By what conjectural motives was he induced? What can possibly have been the origin of such a system of medicine as this? Who was it that thus made the very poisons less baneful than the antidotes prescribed for them? Granted that barbarous and outlandish tribes first devised such practices, must the men of Greece, too, adopt these as arts of their own?

  We read, for instance, in the memoirs of Democritus, still extant, that for some diseases, the skull of a malefactor is most efficacious, while for the treatment of others, that of one who has been a friend or guest is required. Apollonius, again, informs us in his writings, that the most effectual remedy for tooth-ache is to scarify the gums with the tooth of a man who has died a violent death; and, according to Miletus, human gall is a cure for cataract. For epilepsy, Artemon has prescribed water drawn from a spring in the night, and drunk from the skull of a man who has been slain, and whose body remains unburnt. From the skull, too, of a man who had been hanged, Antæus made pills that were to be an antidote to. the bite of; mad dog. Even more than this, man has resorted to similar remedies for the cure of four-footed beasts even — for tympanitis in oxen, for instance, the horns have been perforated, and human bones inserted; and when swine have been found to be diseased, fine wheat has been given them which has lain for a night in the spot where a human being has been slain or burnt!

  Far from us, far too from our writings, be such prescriptions as these! It will be for us to describe remedies only, and not abominations; cases, for instance, in which the milk of a nursing woman may have a curative effect, cases where the human spittle may be useful, or the contact of the human body, and other instances of a similar nature. We do not look upon life as so essentially desirable that it must be prolonged at any cost, be it what it may — and you, who are of that opinion, be assured, whoever you may be, that you will die none the less, even though you shall have lived in the midst of obscenities or abominations!

  Let each then reckon this as one great solace to his mind, that of all the blessings which Nature has bestowed on man, there is none greater than the death which comes at a seasonable hour; and that the very best feature in connexion with it is, that every person has it in his own power to procure it for himself.

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  CHAP. 3. (2.)

  WHETHER WORDS ARE POSSESSED OF ANY HEALING EFFICACY.

  In reference to the remedies derived from man, there arises first of all one question, of the greatest importance and always attended with the same uncertainty, whether words, charms, and incantations, are of any efficacy or not? For if such is the case, it will be only proper to ascribe this efficacy to man himself; though the wisest of our fellow-men, I should remark, taken individually, refuse to place the slightest faith in these opinions. And yet, in our every-day life, we practically show, each passing hour, that we do entertain this belief, though at the moment we are not sensible of it. Thus, for instance, it is a general belief that without a certain form of prayer it would be useless to immolate a victim, and that, with such an informality, the gods would be consulted to little purpose. And then besides, there are different forms of address to the deities, one form for entreating, another form for averting their ire, and another for commendation.

  We see too, how that our supreme magistrates use certain formulæ for their prayers: that not a single word may be omitted or pronounced out of its place, it is the duty of one person to precede the dignitary by reading the formula before him from a written ritual, of another, to keep watch upon every word, and of a third to see that silence is not ominously broken; while a musician, in the meantime, is performing on the flute to prevent any other words being heard. Indeed, there are memorable instances recorded in our Annals, of cases where either the sacrifice has been interrupted, and so blemished, by imprecations, or a mistake has been made in the utterance of the prayer; the result being that the lobe of the liver or the heart has disappeared in a moment, or has been doubled, while the victim stood before the altar. There is still in existence a most remarkable testimony, in the formula which the Decii, father and son, pronounced on the occasions when they devoted themselves. There is also preserved the prayer uttered by the Vestal Tuccia, when, upon being accused of incest, she carried water in a sieve — an event which took place in the year of the City 609. Our own age even has seen a man and a woman buried alive in the Ox Market, Greeks by birth, or else natives of some other country with which we were at war at the time. The prayer used upon the occasion of this ceremonial, and which is usually pronounced first by the Master of the College of the Quindecimviri, if read by a person, must assuredly force him to admit the potency of formulæ; when it is recollected that it has been proved to be effectual by the experience of eight hundred and thirty years.

  At the present day, too, it is a general belief, that our Vestal virgins have the power, by uttering a certain prayer, to arrest the flight of runaway slaves, and to rivet them to the spot, provided they have not gone beyond the precincts of the City. If then these opinions be once received as truth, and if it be admitted that the gods do listen to certain prayers, or are influenced by set forms of words, we are bound to conclude in the affirmative upon the whole question. Our ancestors, no doubt, always entertained such a belief, and have even assured us, a thing by far the most difficult of all, that it is possible by such means to bring down lightning
from heaven, as already mentioned on a more appropriate occasion.

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  CHAP. 4.

  THAT PRODIGIES AND PORTENTS MAY BE CONFIRMED, OR MADE OF NO EFFECT.

  L. Piso informs us, in the first Book of his Annals, that King Tullus Hostilius, while attempting, in accordance with the books of Numa, to summon Jupiter from heaven by means of a sacrifice similar to that employed by him, was struck by lightning in consequence of his omission to follow certain forms with due exactness. Many other authors, too, have attested, that by the power of words a change has been effected in destinies and portents of the greatest importance. While they were digging on the Tarpeian Hill for the foundations of a temple, a human head was found; upon which deputies were sent to Olenus Calenus, the most celebrated diviner of Etruria. He, foreseeing the glory and success which attached to such a presage as this, attempted, by putting a question to them, to transfer the benefit of it to his own nation. First describing, on the ground before him, the outline of a temple with his staff— “Is it so, Romans, as you say?” said he; “here then must be the temple of Jupiter, all good and all powerful; it is here that we have found the head” — and the constant asseveration of the Annals is, that the destiny of the Roman empire would have been assuredly transferred to Etruria, had not the deputies, forewarned by the son of the diviner, made answer— “No, not here exactly, but at Rome, we say, the head was found.”