CHAP. 12. (5.)—SCROFULA.
For the cure of scrofula[1] plantago is employed, chelidonia[2]
mixed with honey and axle-grease, cinquefoil, and root of per-
solata[3]—this last being applied topically, and covered with the
leaf of the plant—artemisia,[4] also, and an infusion of the
root of mandragora[5] in water. The large-leaved sideritis,[6]
cleft by the left hand with a nail, is worn attached as an
amulet: but after the cure has been effected, due care must be
taken to preserve the plant, in order that it may not be set
again, to promote the wicked designs of the herbalists and so
cause the disease to break out afresh; as sometimes happens in
the cases already mentioned,[7] and others which I find stated,
in reference to persons cured by the agency of artemisia or
plantago.
Damasonion,[8] also known as alcea, is gathered at the summer
solstice, and applied with rain-water, the leaves being beaten
up, or the root pounded, with axle-grease, so as to admit, when
applied, of being covered with a leaf of the plant. The same
plan is adopted also for the cure of all pains in the neck, and
tumours on all parts of the body.
1. Fée remarks that none of the plants here mentioned are of any utility
for the cure of scrofula.
2. See B. xxv. c. 50.
3. See B. xxv. c. 66.
4. See B. xxv. c. 36.
5. See B. xxv. c. 94.
6. See B. xxv. c. 19, where our author has confused the Achillea with the Sideritis; also c. 15, where he describes the Heraclion siderion. Fée
identifies the Sideritis mentioned in B. xxv. c. 19, as having a square stem
and leaves like those of the quercus, with the Stachys heraclea of modern
botany. That mentioned in the same Chapter, as having a fetid smell, he
identifies with the Phellandrium mutellina of Linnæus. The large-leaved
Sideritis is, no doubt, the one mentioned as having leaves like those of
the quercus. See the Note to B. xxv. c. 19.
7. In B. xxi. c. 83, and B. xxv. c. 119.
8. See B. xxv. c. 77.