Both plants grow in the woods, and they should always be taken up at night,[1892] it is said; as it would be dangerous to do so in the day-time, the woodpecker of Mars being sure to attack the eyes[1893] of the person so engaged. It is stated also that the person, while taking up the root, runs great risk of being attacked with procidence of the anus: all this, however, I take to be so much fiction, most frivolously invented to puff off their supposed marvellous properties. Both plants are used[1894] for various purposes: the red seed, taken in red wine, about fifteen in number, arrest menstruation; while the black seed, taken in the same proportion, in either raisin or other wine, are curative of diseases of the uterus. The root, taken in wine, allays all kinds of pains in the bowels, and acts as a purgative; it cures opisthotony also, jaundice, nephritic diseases, and affections of the bladder. Boiled in wine, it is used for diseases of the trachea and stomach, and acts astringently upon the bowels. It is eaten also by beasts of burden, but when wanted for remedial purposes, four drachmæ are sufficient. The black seed is useful as a preventive of night-mare,[1895] being taken in wine, in number above stated: it is very good, too, to eat this seed, and to apply it externally, for gnawing pains of the stomach. Suppurations are also dispersed, when recent, with the black seed, and when of long standing, with the red: both kinds are very useful, too, for wounds inflicted by serpents, and in cases where children are troubled with calculi, being employed at the crisis when strangury first makes its appearance. CHAP. 61.—GNAPHALIUM OR CHAMÆZELON: SIX REMEDIES. Gnaphalium[1896] is called “chamæzelon” by some: its white, soft, leaves are used as flock, and, indeed, there is no perceptible difference. This plant is administered in astringent wine, for dysentery: it arrests looseness of the bowels and the catamenia, and is used as an injection for tenesmus. It is employed topically for putrid sores. CHAP. 62.—THE GALLIDRAGA: ONE REMEDY. Xenocrates gives the name of “gallidraga”[1897] to a plant which resembles the leucacanthus,[1898] and grows in the marshes. It is a prickly plant, with a tall, ferulaceous stem, surmounted with a head somewhat similar to an egg in appearance. When this head is growing, in summer, small worms,[1899] he says, are generated, which are put away in a box for keeping, and are attached as an amulet, with bread, to the arm on the side on which tooth-ache is felt; indeed it is quite wonderful, he says, how soon the pain is removed. These worms, however, are of no use after the end of a year, or in cases where they have been allowed to touch the ground. CHAP. 63.—HOLCUS OR ARISTIS.