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CHAP. 12. (5.)—SCROFULA.

For the cure of scrofula1 plantago is employed, chelidonia2 mixed with honey and axle-grease, cinquefoil, and root of per- solata3—this last being applied topically, and covered with the leaf of the plant—artemisia,4 also, and an infusion of the root of mandragora5 in water. The large-leaved sideritis,6 cleft by the left hand with a nail, is worn attached as an amulet: but after the cure has been effected, due care must be taken to preserve the plant, in order that it may not be set again, to promote the wicked designs of the herbalists and so cause the disease to break out afresh; as sometimes happens in the cases already mentioned,7 and others which I find stated, in reference to persons cured by the agency of artemisia or plantago.

Damasonion,8 also known as alcea, is gathered at the summer solstice, and applied with rain-water, the leaves being beaten up, or the root pounded, with axle-grease, so as to admit, when applied, of being covered with a leaf of the plant. The same plan is adopted also for the cure of all pains in the neck, and tumours on all parts of the body.

1 Fée remarks that none of the plants here mentioned are of any utility for the cure of scrofula.

2 See B. xxv. c. 50.

3 See B. xxv. c. 66.

4 See B. xxv. c. 36.

5 See B. xxv. c. 94.

6 See B. xxv. c. 19, where our author has confused the Achillea with the Sideritis; also c. 15, where he describes the Heraclion siderion. Fée identifies the Sideritis mentioned in B. xxv. c. 19, as having a square stem and leaves like those of the quercus, with the Stachys heraclea of modern botany. That mentioned in the same Chapter, as having a fetid smell, he identifies with the Phellandrium mutellina of Linnæus. The large-leaved Sideritis is, no doubt, the one mentioned as having leaves like those of the quercus. See the Note to B. xxv. c. 19.

7 In B. xxi. c. 83, and B. xxv. c. 119.

8 See B. xxv. c. 77.

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