On the other hand, the flower of the white violet opens suppurations, and the plant itself disperses them. Both the white and the yellow violet check the menstrual discharge, and act as diuretics. When fresh gathered, they have less virtue, and hence it is that they are mostly used dry, after being kept a year. The yellow violet, taken in doses of half a cyathus to three cyathi of water, promotes the catamenia; and the roots of it, applied with vinegar, assuage affections of the spleen, as also the gout. Mixed with myrrh and saffron, they are good for inflammation of the eyes. The leaves, applied with honey, cleanse ulcerous sores of the head, and, combined with cerate,[2304] they are good for chaps of the fundament and other moist parts of the body. Employed with vinegar, they effect the cure of abscesses. CHAP. 77.—SEVENTEEN REMEDIES DERIVED FROM THE BACCHAR. ONE REMEDY DERIVED FROM THE COMBRETUM. The bacchar that is used in medicine is by some of our writers called the “perpressa.” It is very useful for the stings of serpents, head-ache and burning heats in the head, and for defluxions of the eyes. It is applied topically for swellings of the mamillæ after delivery, as also incipient fistulas[2305] of the eyes, and erysipelas; the smell of it induces sleep. It is found very beneficial to administer a decoction of the root for spasms, falls with violence, convulsions, and asthma. For an inveterate cough, three or four roots of this plant are boiled down to one-third; this decoction acting also as a purgative for women after miscarriage, and removing stitch in the side, and calculi of the bladder. Drying powders[2306] for perspiration are prepared also from this plant; and it is laid among garments for the smell.[2307] The combretum which we have spoken[2308] of as resembling the bacchar, beaten up with axle-grease, is a marvellous cure for wounds. CHAP. 78.—EIGHT REMEDIES DERIVED FROM ASARUM. It is generally stated that asarum[2309] is good for affections of the liver, taken in doses of one ounce to a semisextarius of honied wine mixed with water. It purges the bowels like hellebore, and is good for dropsy and affections of the thoracic organs and uterus, as also for jaundice. When mixed with must, it makes a wine with strongly diuretic qualities. It is taken up as soon as it begins to put forth its leaves, and is dried in the shade. It is apt however to turn mouldy very speedily. CHAP. 79. (20.)—EIGHT REMEDIES DERIVED FROM GALLIC NARD.