Pliny the Elder, The Natural History, BOOK XXI. AN ACCOUNT OF FLOWERS. AND THOSE USED FOR CHAPLETS MORE PARTICULARLY., CHAP. 73.—REMEDIES DERIVED FROM THE FLOWERS BEFORE MEN- TIONED: THIRTY-TWO REMEDIES DERIVED FROM THE ROSE.

The rose is of an astringent and refreshing nature. For medicinal purposes the petals, the flowers, and the heads are used. Those portions of the petals which are quite white are known as the unglets.¹ In the flower there is the seed, as distinguished from the filaments, and in the head there is the bud,² as well as the calyx. The petals are dried, or else the juice is extracted from them, by one of the three following methods: Either the leaves are employed whole for the purpose, the unglets not being removed—for these are the parts, in fact, that contain the most juice—or else the unglets are first taken off and the residue is then macerated with oil or wine, in glass vessels placed in the sun. Some persons add salt as well, and others alkanet,³ or else aspalathus or sweetscented rush; as it is, when thus prepared, a very valuable remedy for diseases of the uterus and for dysentery. According to the third process, the unglets are removed from the petals, and pounded, after which they are subjected to pressure in a coarse linen cloth, the juice being received in a copper vessel; it is then boiled on a slow fire, until it has acquired the consistence of honey; for this purpose, however, the most odoriferous of the petals should be selected.

(19.) We have already stated,⁴ when speaking of the various kinds of wines, how rose wine is made. Rose juice is much used in injections for the ears, and as a gargle for ulcerations of the mouth, and for the gums and tonsils; it is employed also for the stomach, maladies of the uterus, diseases of the rectum, and for head-ache. In fevers, it is used, either by itself or in combination with vinegar, as a remedy for sleeplessness and nausea. The petals, charred, are used as a cosmetic for the eyebrows;⁵ and the thighs, when chafed, are rubbed with them dried; reduced to powder, too, they are soothing for defluxions of the eyes. The flower of the rose is soporific, and taken in oxycrate it arrests fluxes in females, the white flux in particular; also spitting of blood, and pains in the stomach, if taken in three cyathi of wine, in sufficient quantity to flavour it.

As to the seed of the rose, the best is that which is of a saffron colour, and not more than a year old; it should be dried, too, in the shade. The black seed is worthless. In cases of tooth-ache, the seed is employed in the form of a liniment; it acts also as a diuretic, and is used as a topical application for the stomach, as also in cases of erysipelas which are not inveterate: inhaled at the nostrils, it has the effect of clearing, the brain. The heads of roses, taken in drink, arrest looseness of the bowels and hæmorrhage. The unglets of the rose are wholesome in cases of defluxion of the eyes; but the rose is very apt to taint all ulcerous sores of the eyes, if it is not applied at the very beginning of the defluxion, dried, and in combination with bread. The petals, too, taken internally, aro extremely wholesome for gnawing pains of the stomach, and for maladies of the abdomen or intestines; as also for the thoracic organs, if applied externally even: they are preserved, too, for eating, in a similar manner to apathum. Great care must be taken in drying rose-leaves, as they are apt to turn mouldy very quickly.

The petals, too, from which the juice has been extracted, may be put to some use when dried: powders,⁶ for instance, may be made from them, for the purpose of checking the perspiration. These powders are sprinkled on the body, upon leaving the bath, and are left to dry on it, after which they are washed off with cold water. The little excrescences⁷ of the wild rose, mixed with bears'-grease,⁸ are a good remedy for alopecy.

1 "Ungues," "nails;" in allusion to the white part of the fingernails.

2 "Cortex."

3 "Anchusam."

4 In B. xiv. c. 19.

5 "In calliblepharum."

6 "Diapasmata."

7 "Pilulæ." He alludes to the galls produced by an insect of the Cynips kind, and known as "bedcguar." They are astringent, but no longer employed in medicine.

8 The efficacy of bears'-grease for promoting the growth of the hair was believed in, we find, so early as Pliny's time.

The Natural History. Pliny the Elder. John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S. H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A. London. Taylor and Francis, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street. 1855.

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Pliny the Elder, The Natural History
John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S., H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A., Ed.

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CHAP. 73.—REMEDIES DERIVED FROM THE FLOWERS BEFORE MEN- TIONED: THIRTY-TWO REMEDIES DERIVED FROM THE ROSE.

Pliny the Elder, The Natural History John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S., H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A., Ed.