previous next

CHAP. 42.—THE CYNOSORCHIS OR ORCHIS: FOUR REMEDIES.

The cynosorchis,1 by some called "orchis," has leaves like2 those of the olive, soft, three in number, half a foot in length, and lying upon the ground. The root is bulbous, oblong, and divided into two portions,3 the upper one hard, and the lower one soft. These roots are eaten boiled, like bulbs,4 and are mostly found growing in vineyards. If males eat the upper part, they will be parents of male issue, they say; and females, if they eat the lower part, of female. In Thessaly, the men take the soft portion in goats' milk as an aphrodisiac, and the hard part as an antaphrodisiac. Of these parts, the one effectually neutralizes the action of the other.5

1 "Dog's testicle." Considered to be a synonym merely of the Orchis, mentioned in B. xxvi. c. 62.

2 This comparison is totally incorrect.

3 See B. xxvi. c. 62.

4 Or onions.

5 A tissue of groundless superstitions.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

hide Places (automatically extracted)

View a map of the most frequently mentioned places in this document.

hide References (3 total)
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: