CHAP. 58.—THE VARIOUS KINDS OF MEAL: TWENTY-EIGHT REMEDIES.
Barley
1-meal, raw or boiled, disperses, softens, or ripens gatherings and inflammatory tumours; and for other purposes
a decoction of it is made in hydromel, or with dried figs. If
required for pains in the liver, it must be boiled with oxycrate
in wine. When it is a matter of doubt whether an abscess
should be made to suppurate or be dispersed, it is a better
plan to boil the meal in vinegar, or lees of vinegar, or else
with a decoction of quinces or pears. For the bite of the
millepede,
2 it is employed with honey, and for the stings of
serpents, and to prevent suppurations, with vinegar. To promote suppuration, it should be used with oxycrate, with the
addition of Gallic resin. For gatherings, also, that have come
to a head, and ulcers of long standing, it must be employed
in combination with resin, and for indurations, with pigeons'
dung, dried figs, or ashes. For inflammation of the tendons,
or of the intestines and sides, or for pains in the male organs and
denudations of the bones, it is used with poppies, or melilote;
and for scrofulous sores, it is used with pitch and oil, mixed
with the urine of a youth who has not reached the years of puberty. It is employed also with fenugreek for tumours of
the thoracic organs, and in fevers, with honey, or stale grease.
For suppurations, however, wheat-meal is much more sooth-
ing;
3 it is applied topically also for affections of the sinews,
mixed with the juice of henbane, and for the cure of freckles,
with vinegar and honey. The meal of zea,
4 from which, as
already
5 stated, an alica is made, appears to be more efficacious
than that of barley even: but that of the three month
6 kind
is the most emollient. It is applied warm, in red wine, to
the stings of scorpions, as also for affections of the trachea,
and spitting of blood: for coughs, it is employed in combination with goat suet or butter.
The meal of fenugreek,
7 however, is the most soothing of
them all: boiled with wine and nitre, it heals running ulcers,
eruptions on the body, and diseases of the feet and mamillæ.
The meal of æra
8 is more detergent than the other kinds, for
inveterate ulcers and gangrenes: in combination with radishes, salt, and vinegar, it heals lichens, and with virgin sulphur, leprosy: for head-ache, it is applied to the forehead
with goose-grease. Boiled in wine, with pigeons' dung and
linseed, it ripens inflamed tumours and scrofulous sores.