previous next

CHAP. 8.—ALSINE, A PLANT USED FOR THE SAME PURPOSES AS HELXINE: FIVE REMEDIES.

Alsine,1 a plant known as "myosoton"2 to some, grows in the woods, to which fact it is indebted for its name of "alsine."3 It begins to make its appearance at mid-winter, and withers in the middle of summer. When it first puts forth, the leaves bear a strong resemblance to the ears of mice. We shall have occasion,4 however, to speak of another plant, which may, with much more justice, be called "myosotis." As for alsine, it would be the same thing as helxine,5 were it not that it is smaller and not so hairy. It grows in6 gardens, and upon walls more particularly: when rubbed, it emits a smell like that of cucumber. It is used for abscesses, inflammations, and all those purposes for which helxine is employed; its properties, however, are not so active. It is applied topically, also, to defluxions of the eyes, and to sores upon the generative organs, and ulcerations, with barley meal. The juice is used as an injection for the ears.

1 Identified by Sprengel with the Cerastium aquaticum, and by other authorities with the Alsine media of Linnæus, the Common chickweed. Desfontaines suggests the Stellaria nemorum, the Broadleaved stitchwort, but Fée prefers the Parietaria Cretica of Linnæus, Cretan pellitory, as its synonym.

2 "Mouse-ear."

3 From the Greek ἄλσος, a "grove."

4 In c. 80 of this Book.

5 The Parietaria officinalis; see B. xxii. c. 19.

6 He has previously stated that it grows in the woods. The fact is, M. Fraäs says, that it grows equally upon garden walls, heaps of rubbish, in plains, upon shady rocks, and upon mountains, below an elevation of 1500 feet.

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.

load focus Latin (Karl Friedrich Theodor Mayhoff, 1906)
hide Places (automatically extracted)

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

hide References (1 total)
  • Cross-references in general dictionaries to this page (1):
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: