CHAP. 58.—THE RADICULT OR STRUTHION: THIRTEEN REMEDIES. THE APOCYNUMI: TWO OBSERVATIONS UPON IT.
The adicula, which we have already1 mentioned as being called "struthion" by the Greeks, is used by dyers for preparing Wool. A decoction of it, taken internally, is curative of jaunoce and diseases of the chest. It is diuretic also, and laxative and acts as a detergent upon the uterus, for which reasons medical men have given it the name of the "golden beverage."2 Taken with honey, it is a sovereign remedy for cough; and it is used for hardness of breathing, in doses of a spoonful. Applied with polenta and vinegar to the pats affected, it removes leprous sores. Used with panax and not of the caper-plant, it breaks and expels calculi, and a decoction of it in wine with barley-meal disperses inflamed tumours. It is used as an ingredient in emollient plasters and eye-sakes for the sight, and is found to be one of the most useful stenutories known; it is good too for the liver and the spleen. Taken in hydrormel, in doses of one denarius, it effects the cure of asthma, as also of pleurisy and all pains in the sides.The apocynum3 is a shrub with leaves like those of ivy, hit softer, and not so long in the stalk, and the seed of it is pointed and downy, with a division running down it, and a very powerful smell. Given in their food with water, the eed is poisonous4 to dogs and all other quadrupeds.
