Mallow seed is attached to the arms of patients suffering from spermatorrhœa; and, so naturally adapted is this plant for the promotion of lustfulness, that the seed of the kind with a single stem, sprinkled upon the genitals, will increase the sexual desire in males to an infinite degree, according to Xenocrates; who says, too, that if three roots are attached to the person, in the vicinity of those parts, they will be productive of a similar result. The same writer informs us also, that injections of mallows are good for tenesmus and dysentery, and for maladies of the rectum even, if used as a fomentation only. The juice is given warm to patients afflicted with melancholy, in doses of three cyathi, and to insane persons[1699] in doses of four. One hemina of the decoction is prescribed, also, for epilepsy.[1700] A warm decoction of the juice is employed, too, as a fomentation for calculus, flatulency, gripings of the stomach, and opisthotony. The leaves are boiled, and applied with oil, as a poultice for erysipelas and burns, and raw, with bread, to arrest inflammation in wounds. A decoction of mallows is beneficial for affections of the sinews and bladder, and for gnawing pains of the intestines; taken, too, as an aliment, or an injection, they are relaxing to the uterus, and the decoction, taken with oil, facilitates the passage of the urine.[1701] The root of the althæa[1702] is even more efficacious for all the purposes above enumerated, and for convulsions and ruptures more particularly. Boiled in water, it arrests looseness of the bowels; and taken in white wine, it is a cure for scrofulous sores, imposthumes of the parotid glands, and inflammations of the mamillæ. A decoction of the leaves in wine, applied as a liniment, disperses inflammatory tumours; and the leaves, first dried, and then boiled in milk, are a speedy cure for a cough, however inveterate. Hippocrates prescribes a decoction of the root to be drunk by persons wounded or thirsty from loss of blood, and the plant itself as an application to wounds, with honey and resin. He also recommends it to be employed in a similar manner for contusions, sprains, and tumours of the muscles, sinews, and joints, and prescribes it to be taken in wine for asthma and dysentery. It is a singular thing, that water in which this root has been put, thickens when exposed in the open air, and congeals[1703] like ice. The more recently, however, it has been taken up, the greater are the virtues of the root.[1704] CHAP. 85.—WILD LAPATHUM OR OXALIS, OTHERWISE CALLED LAPATHUM CANTHERINUM, OR RUMEX: ONE REMEDY. HYDROLAPATHUM: TWO REMEDIES. HIPPOLAPATHUM: SIX REMEDIES. OXYLAPATHUM: FOUR REMEDIES.