Latin Texts & Translations

The wild ^[Note] skirret, too, is very similar to the cultivated kind, ^[Note] and is productive of similar effects. It sharpens ^[Note] the stomach, and, taken with vinegar flavoured with silphium, or with pepper and hydromel, or else with garum, it promotes the appetite. According to Opion, it is a diuretic, and acts as an aphrodisiac. ^[Note] Diocles is also of the same opinion; in addition to which, he says that it possesses cordial virtues for convalescents, and is extremely beneficial after frequent vomitings.

Heraclides has prescribed it against the effects of mercury, ^[Note] and for occasional impotence, as also generally for patients when convalescent. Hicesius says that skirrets would appear to be prejudicial ^[Note] to the stomach, because no one is able to eat three of them following; still, however, he looks upon them as beneficial to patients who are just resuming the use of wine. The juice of the cultivated skirret, taken in goats-milk, arrests looseness of the stomach.