Latin Texts & Translations

We have spoken more than once ^[Note] of the marvels of the heliotropium, which turns ^[Note] with the sun, in cloudy weather even, so great is its sympathy with that luminary. At night, as though in regret, it closes its blue flower.

There are two species of heliotropium, the tricoccum ^[Note] and the helioscopium, ^[Note] the latter being the taller of the two, though they neither of them exceed half ^[Note] a foot in height. The helioscopium throws out branches from the root, and the seed of it, enclosed in follicules, ^[Note] is gathered at harvest-time. It grows nowhere but in a rich soil, a highly-cultivated one more particularly; the tricoccum, on the other hand, is to be found growing everywhere. I find it stated, that the helioscopium, boiled, is considered an agreeable food, and that taken in milk, it is gently laxative ^[Note] to the bowels; while, again, a decoction of it, taken as a potion, acts as a most effectual purgative. The

juice of this plant is collected in summer, at the sixth ^[Note] hour of the day; it is usually mixed with wine, which makes ^[Note] it keep all the better. Combined with rose-oil, it alleviates head-ache. The juice extracted from the leaves, combined with salt, removes warts; from which circumstance our people have given this plant the name of "verrucaria," ^[Note] although, from its various properties, it fully merits a better name. For, taken in wine or hydromel, it is an antidote to the venom of serpents and scorpions, ^[Note] as Apollophanes and Apollodorus state. The leaves, too, employed topically, are a cure for the cerebral affections of infants, known as "siriasis," ^[Note] as also for convulsions, even when they are epileptic. It is very wholesome, too, to gargle the mouth with a decoction of this plant. Taken in drink, it expels tapeworm and gravel, and, with the addition of cummin, it will disperse calculi. A decoction of the plant with the root, mixed with the leaves and some suet of a he-goat, is applied topically for the cure of gout.

The other kind, which we have spoken ^[Note] of as being called the "tricoccum," and which also bears the name of "scorpiuron," ^[Note] has leaves that are not only smaller than those of the other kind, but droop downwards towards the ground: the seed of it resembles a scorpion's tail, to which, in fact, it owes its latter appellation. It is of great efficacy for injuries received from all kinds of venomous insects and the spider known as the "phalangium," but more particularly for the stings of scorpions, if applied topically. ^[Note] Those who carry it about their person are never stung by a scorpion, and it is said that if a circle is traced on the ground around a scorpion with a sprig of this plant, the animal will never move out of it, and that if a scorpion is covered with it, or even sprinkled with tile water in which it has been steeped, it will die that instant. Four

grains of the seed, taken in drink, are said to be a cure for the quartan fever, and three for the tertian; a similar effect being produced by carrying the plant three times round the patient, and then laying it under his head. The seed, too, acts as an aphrodisiac, and, applied with honey, it disperses inflamed tumours. This kind of heliotropium, as well as the other, extracts warts radically, ^[Note] and excrescences of the anus. Applied topically, the seed draws off corrupt blood from the vertebre and loins; and a similar effect is produced by taking a decoction of it in chicken broth, or with beet and lentils. The husks ^[Note] of the seed restore the natural colour to lividities of the skin. According to the Magi, the patient himself should make four knots in the heliotropium for a quartan, and three for a tertian fever, at the same time offering a prayer that he may recover to untie them, the plant being left in the ground meanwhile.