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CHAP. 39. (8.)—TWO VARIETIES OF THE PLANTAGO: FORTY-SIX REMEDIES.

The physician Themiso, too, has conferred some celebrity upon the plantago, otherwise a very common plant; indeed he has written a treatise upon it, as though he had been the first to discover it. There are two varieties; one, more diminutive1 than the other, has a narrower and more swarthy leaf, strongly resembling a sheep's tongue in appearance: the stem of it is angular and bends downwards, and it is generally found growing in meadow lands. The larger2 kind has leaves enclosed with ribs at the sides, to all appearance, from the fact of which being seven3 in number, the plant has been called "heptapleuron"4 by some. The stem of it is a cubit in height, and strongly resembles that of the turnip. That which is grown in a moist soil is considered much the most efficacious: it is possessed of marvellous virtues as a desiccative and as an astringent, and has all the effect of a cautery. There is nothing that so effectually arrests the fluxes known by the Greeks as "rheumatismi."

1 The Plantago lagopus of Linnæus, according to Sibthorp; but Sprengel identifies it with the Plantago lanceolata of Linnæus, or else the P. maritima.

2 The Plantago altissima or major of modern botany.

3 I. e. the ribs, nerves, or sinews of the leaf.

4 "Seven-sided."

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