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 diminutive [Note] 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 larger [Note] kind has leaves
enclosed with ribs at the sides, to all appearance, from the
fact of which being seven [Note] in number, the plant has been
called "heptapleuron" [Note] 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."
