previous next

CHAP. 40.—THE CAUCALIS: TWELVE REMEDIES.

The caucalis,1 too, is an edible plant. It resembles fennel in appearance, and has a short stem with a white flower;2 it is usually considered a good cordial.3 The juice, too, of this plant is taken as a potion, being particularly recommended as a stomachic, a diuretic, an expellent of calculi and gravel, and for the cure of irritations of the bladder. It has the effect, also, of attenuating morbid secretions4 of the spleen, liver, and kidneys. The seed of it acts as an emmenagogue, and dispels the bilious secretions after child-birth: it is prescribed also, for males, in cases of seminal weakness. Chrysippus is of opinion that this plant promotes conception; for which purpose it is taken by women in wine, fasting. It is employed in the form of a liniment, for wounds inflicted by marine animals of a venomous nature, at least we find it so stated by Petrichus in his poem.5

1 See B. xxi. c. 52.

2 This is the Caucalis grandiflora of Linnæus, Fée thinks.

3 "Medicine for the heart." All these statements as to its medicinal properties, are quite erroneous, Fée says.

4 "Pituitas."

5 On Antidotes for the stings of serpents. See end of B. xix.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

load focus Latin (Karl Friedrich Theodor Mayhoff, 1906)
hide Places (automatically extracted)

View a map of the most frequently mentioned places in this document.

hide References (7 total)
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: