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Book II
PROOEMIUM
[p. 213] certainly many things can be used, but as they are mostly composed of foreign medicaments and are more useful in other affections than in those relieved by the dietetic regimen, I will defer their consideration for the present (V. Proem., 1, 2): but I will mention here those which are at hand, and are suitable to the diseases of which I am about to speak (III, IV), since they blister the body and thus extract from it the material of disease. Now those which have this faculty are the seeds of rocket, cress, radish, and most of all mustard. The same faculty exists in salt and figs.
Those which gently both repress and mollify at the same time are greasy wool to which has been added oil with vinegar or wine, crushed dates, bran boiled in salt water or vinegar.
But those which simultaneously repress and cool are pellitory, which the Greeks call parthenion or perdeikion, thyme, pennyroyal, basil, the blood-herb which the Greeks call polygonon, purslane, poppy-leaf, vine-tendril, coriander, hyocyamus-leaves, moss, skirret, parsley, solanum, which the Greeks call strychnos, cabbage-leaves, endive, plantain, fennel-seed; crushed pears and apples and especially quinces, lentils; cold water, especially rain water, wine and vinegar, and everything soaked in these, whether bread or meal or sponge or ashes, or greasy wool or even lint; Cimolian chalk, gypsum; oil perfumed with quince, myrtle, rose; unripe olive oil; vervains, the leaves crushed along with their young twigs, of which sort are the olive, cypress, myrtle, mastic, tamarisk, privet, rose, bramble, laurel, ivy, and pomegranate.
