CHAP. 28. (8.)—REMEDIES FOR DISEASES OF THE BELLY.
But it is the belly, for the gratification of which the greater
part of mankind exist, that causes the most suffering to man.
Thus, for instance, at one time it will not allow the aliments
to pass, while at another it is unable to retain them. Sometimes, again, it either cannot receive the food, or, if it can,
cannot digest it; indeed, such are the excesses practised at
the present day, that it is through his aliment, more than anything else, that man hastens his end. This receptacle,
1 more
troublesome to us than any other part of the body, is ever craving,
like some importunate creditor, and makes its calls repeatedly
in the day. It is for its sake, more particularly, that avarice
is so insatiate, for its sake that luxury is so refined,
2 for its sake
that men voyage to the shores even of the Phasis, for its sake
that the very depths of the ocean are ransacked. And yet,
with all this, no one ever gives a thought how abject is the
condition of this part of our body, how disgusting the results
of its action upon what it has received! No wonder then,
that the belly should have to be indebted to the aid of medicine
in the very highest degree
Scordotis,
3 fresh-gathered and beaten up, in doses of one
drachma, with wine, arrests flux of the bowels; an effect
equally produced by a decoction of it taken in drink. Polemonia,
4 too, is given in wine for dysentery, or two fingers'
length of root of verbascum,
5 in water; seed of nymlphæa
heraclia,
6 in wine; the upper root of xiphion,
7 in (loses of one
drachma, in vinegar; seed of plantago, beaten up in wine ;
plantago itself boiled in vinegar, or else a pottage of alica
8
mixed with the juice of the plant; plantago boiled with
lentils ; plantago dried and powdered, and sprinkled in drink,
with parched poppies pounded; juice of plantago, used as an
injection, or taken in drink ; or betony taken in wine heated
with a red-hot iron. For cœliac affections, betony is taken in
astringent wine, or iberis is applied topically, as alrealdy
9
stated. For tenesmus, root of nymphæa heraclia is taken in
wine, or else psyllion
10 in water, or a decoction of root of
acoron.
11 Juice of aizoüm
12 arrests diarrhœa and dysentery, and
expels round tape-worm. Root of symphytum,
13 taken in wine,
arrests diarrhœa and dysentery, and daucus
14 has a similar
effect. Leaves of aizoüm
15 beaten up in wine, and dried
alcea
16 powdered and taken in wine, are curative of griping
pains in the bowels.