infallibly die within the year.[1225] ----- Footnote 1220: Dioscor. iii. 53. Footnote 1221: King Attalus, desirous not to have far to reach in the matter of poisons, cultivated a great variety of them with his own hands in the royal gardens, such as hyoscyamus, hellebore, hemlock, aconite, and dorycnion, of whose virtue and qualities he obtained a thorough knowledge by experiments. Plut. Demet. § 20. Footnote 1222: Παιωνία. Theoph. Hist. Plant. ix. 8. 6. Footnote 1223: Μανδράγορας. Theoph. Hist. Plant. ix. 8. 8. Footnote 1224: Dioscor. iv. 151. Footnote 1225: Theoph. Hist. Plant. ix. 8. 5, sqq. The spleen-wort, (ἀσπλήνον) when designed to produce sterility was collected on a dark night: ἀσελήνου δὲ νύκτος φασι δεῖν αὐτὴν ὀρύσσειν εἰς ἀτόκιον. Dioscor. iii. 151. ----- After all these toilsome and dangerous enterprises it was natural that the rizotomists should desire to enjoy some advantages,[1226] which, accordingly, they procured themselves by selling dear their hard-won prizes to their equally superstitious countrymen. Making no pretension as I have said to describe the regular medical practice among the Greeks, I shall here, nevertheless, introduce some few particulars more or less connected with it, which may be regarded as characteristic of the age and people.[1227] Great were the virtues which they ascribed to the herb alysson, (biscutella didyma,) which, being pounded and eaten with meat, cured hydrophobia. Nay, more, being suspended in a house, it promoted the health of its inhabitants;[1228] it protected likewise both man and cattle from enchantment; and, bound in a piece of scarlet flannel round the necks of the latter, it preserved them from all diseases. ----- Footnote 1226: Cf. Poll. iv. 177. Footnote 1227: See a witty disquisition on charms in Luc. Philopseud. § 7, and a list of medicinal plants introduced into remedies for the gout. Tragopodag. 138, seq. Footnote 1228: Dioscor. iii. 105. Another mode of repelling contagious disorders was to cause verses to be written by soothsayers on the door. Luc. Alexand. § 36. Fevers were also cured in some places by touching miraculous statues, as that of the wrestler Polydamas at Olympia, or that of Theagenes, at Thasos. Deor. Concil. § 12. A sea-onion was planted before dwelling houses as a charm. Theoph. Hist. Plant. vii. 13. 4. -----