Pliny the Elder, The Natural History, BOOK XXII. THE PROPERTIES OF PLANTS AND FRUITS., CHAP. 71.—THE ELELISPHACOS, SPHACOS, OR SALVIA: THIRTEEN REMEDIES.

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CHAP. 71.—THE ELELISPHACOS, SPHACOS, OR SALVIA: THIRTEEN REMEDIES.

The plant called by the Greeks "elelisphacos,"¹ or "sphacos," is a species of wild lentil, lighter than the cultivated one, and with a leaf, smaller, drier, and more odoriferous. There is also another² kind of it, of a wilder nature, and possessed of a powerful smell, the other one being milder. It³ has leaves the shape of a quince, but white and smaller: they are generally boiled with the branches. This plant acts as an emmenagogue and a diuretic: and it affords a remedy for wounds inflicted by the sting-ray,⁴ having the property of benumbing the part affected. It is taken in drink with wormwood for dysentery: employed with wine it accelerates the catamenia when retarded, a decoction of it having the effect of arresting them when in excess: the plant, applied by itself, stanches the blood of wounds. It is a cure, too, for the stings of serpents, and a decoction of it in wine allays prurigo of the testes.

Our herbalists of the present day take for the "elelisphacos" of the Greeks the "salvia"⁵ of the Latins, a plant similar in appearance to mint, white and aromatic. Applied externally, it expels the dead fœtus, as also worms which breed in ulcers and in the ears.

1 Fée remarks, that Pliny is clearly speaking of two essentially different plants under this name; the first, he thinks, may very probably be the Ervum tetraspermum of Linnæus.

2 This, Fée thinks, is the Salvia officinalis of Linnæus, our common sage, which has no affinity whatever with the lentil.

3 Sprengel thinks that he is speaking here of the Salvia triloba of Linnæus.

4 The Trygon pastinaca of Linnæus.

5 "Sage," the plant, no doubt, that he has been describing.

The Natural History. Pliny the Elder. John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S. H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A. London. Taylor and Francis, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street. 1855.

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Pliny the Elder, The Natural History
John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S., H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A., Ed.

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CHAP. 71.—THE ELELISPHACOS, SPHACOS, OR SALVIA: THIRTEEN REMEDIES.

Pliny the Elder, The Natural History John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S., H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A., Ed.

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CHAP. 71.—THE ELELISPHACOS, SPHACOS, OR SALVIA: THIRTEEN REMEDIES.

Pliny the Elder, The Natural History
John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S., H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A., Ed.