CHAP. 97. (26.)—EIGHT REMEDIES DERIVED FROM THE HYACINTH.
The hyacinth[1] grows in Gaul more particularly, where it
is employed for the dye called "hysginum."[2] The root of it
is bulbous, and is well known among the dealers in slaves:
applied to the body, with sweet wine, it retards the signs of
puberty,[3] and prevents them from developing themselves. It
is curative, also, of gripings of the stomach, and of the bites of
spiders, and it acts as a diuretic. The seed is administered,
with abrotonum, for the stings of serpents and scorpions, and
for jaundice.
1. See c. 38 of this Book; also B. xvi. c. 31.
2. From the herb "hysge," used for dyeing a deep red. See B. ix. c.
65, and B. xxi. c. 36. No such colour, Fée says, can be obtained from
the petals of either the Lilium Martagon or the Gladiolus communis, with
which it has been identified.
3. It has no such effect; and the slave-dealers certainly lost their pains
in cosmetizing their slaves with it, their object being to make them look
younger than they really were, and not older, as Hardouin seems to think.