CHAP. 53.—MINT: FORTY-ONE REMEDIES.
The very smell of mint
1 reanimates the spirits, and its
flavour gives a remarkable zest to food: hence it is that it is
so generally an ingredient in our sauces. It has the effect of
preventing milk from turning sour, or curdling and thickening;
hence it is that it is so generally put into milk used for drinking,
to prevent any danger of persons being choked
2 by it in a
curdled state. It is administered also for this purpose in
water or honied wine. It is generally thought, too, that it is
in consequence of this property that it impedes generation, by
preventing the seminal fluids from obtaining the requisite
consistency. In males as well as females it arrests bleeding, and
it has the property, with the latter, of suspending the menstrual
discharge. Taken in water, with amylum,
3 it prevents
looseness in cœliac complaints. Syriation employed this plant
for the cure of abscesses of the uterus, and, in doses of
three oboli, with honied wine, for diseases of the liver: he
prescribed it also, in pottage, for spitting of blood. It is an
admirable remedy for ulcerations of the head in children, and
has the effect equally of drying the trachea when too moist,
and of bracing it when too dry. Taken in honied wine and
water, it carries off purulent phlegm.
The juice of mint is good for the voice when a person is
about to engage in a contest of eloquence, but only when taken
just before. It is employed also with milk as a gargle for
swelling of the uvula, with the addition of rue and coriander.
With alum, too, it is good for the tonsils of the throat, and,
mixed with honey, for roughness of the tongue. Employed
by itself, it is a remedy for internal convulsions and affections
of the lungs. Taken with pomegranate juice, as Democrites
tells us, it arrests hiccup and vomiting. The juice of mint
fresh gathered, inhaled, is a ready for affections of the nostrils.
Beaten up and taken in vinegar, mint is a cure for
cholera, and for internal fluxes of blood: applied externally,
with polenta, it is remedial for the iliac passion and tension of
the mamillæ. It is applied, too, as a liniment to the temples
for head-ache; and it is taken internally, as an antidote for
the stings of scolopendræ, sea-scorpions, and serpents. As a
liniment it is applied also for defluxions of the eyes, and all
eruptions of the head, as well as maladies of the rectum.
Mint is an effectual preventive, too, of chafing of the skin,
even if held in the hand only. In combination with honied
wine, it is employed as an injection for the ears. It is said,
too, that this plant will cure affections of the spleen, if tasted
in the garden nine days consecutively, without plucking it, the
person who bites it saying at the same moment that he does
so for the benefit of the spleen: and that, if dried, and re-
duced to powder, a pinch of it with three fingers taken in
water, will cure stomach-ache.
4 Sprinkled in this form in
drink, it is said to have the effect of expelling intestinal
worms.