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CHAP. 67.—ORIGANUM, ONITIS, OR PRASION: SIX REMEDIES.

Origanum,1 which, as we have already stated, rivals cunila in flavour, includes many varieties employed in medicine. Onitis,2 or prasion,3 is the name given to one of these, which is not unlike hyssop in appearance: it is employed more particularly, with warm water, for gnawing pains at the stomach, and for indigestion. Taken in white wine it is good for the stings of spiders and scorpions; and, applied with vinegar and oil, in wool, it is a cure for sprains and bruises.

1 Or Wild Marjoram. See B. xix. c. 50.

2 So called, Nicander says, from being sought with avidity by the ass, ὄνος. It is the Origanum onites of Linnæus.

3 The Prasion, or "green plant," mentioned by Hippocrates and Theophrastus, is not identical, Fée says, with the Origanum onitis, it being the Marrubium Creticum, or peregrinum of modern botanists. To add to the confusion of these names, we find Pliny stating, in c. 69, that the name of "prasion" was given also by the Greeks to his second species of Heraclium, and that of "onitis" to the Heraclium Heracleoticum.

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