This plant is found in Italy, no doubt, but that of Crete is the most esteemed. Among all the plants, there is none that I ever contemplated with greater admiration than this; so beauteous is the conformation, that it might be fancied that the hand of an artist[1922] had arranged a row of lustrous pearls alternately among the leaves; so exquisite too the nicety in thus making a stone to grow upon a plant! The authorities say that this is a creeping plant, and that it lies upon the ground; but for my own part, I have only seen it when plucked, and not while growing. It is well known that these small stones, taken in doses of one drachma, in white wine, break and expel urinary calculi,[1923] and are curative of strangury. Indeed, there is no plant that so instantaneously proclaims, at the mere sight of it, the medicinal purposes for which it was originally intended; the appearance of it, too, is such, that it can be immediately recognized, without the necessity of having recourse to any botanical authority. CHAP. 75.—LAPIDIS MUSCUS, OR STONE MOSS: ONE REMEDY. There grows near running streams, a dry, white moss,[1924] upon ordinary stones. One of these stones, with the addition of human saliva, is rubbed against another; after which the first stone is used for touching impetigo,[1925] the party so doing uttering these words:— Φεύγετε κανθαρίδες, λύκος ἄγριος αἷμα διώκει “Cantharides[1926] begone, a wild wolf seeks your blood.”[1927] CHAP. 76.—THE LIMEUM: ONE REMEDY. Limeum[1928] is the name given by the Gauls to a plant, in a preparation of which, known to them as “deer’s[1929] poison,” they dip their arrows[1930] when hunting. To three modii of salivating mixture[1931] they put as much of the plant as is used for poisoning a single arrow; and a mess of it is passed down the throat, in cases where oxen are suffering from disease, due care being taken to keep them fastened to the manger till they have been purged, as they are generally rendered frantic by the dose. In case perspiration supervenes, they are drenched all over with cold water. CHAP. 77.—THE LEUCE, MESOLEUCON, OR LEUCAS: THREE REMEDIES. Leuce,[1932] a plant resembling mercurialis,[1933] has received its name[1934] from the circumstance that a white line runs through the middle of the leaf; for which reason also, some give it the name of “mesoleucon.”[1935] The juice of this plant is curative of fistula, and the plant itself, bruised, is good for carcinomata. It is probably the same plant as that called “leucas,” so remarkably efficacious for the venom of all kinds of marine animals. Authors have not given a description of it, beyond telling us that the wild leucas has larger leaves than the other, and has properties more strongly developed: they state also that the seed of the cultivated kind is the more acrid of the two. CHAP. 78.—THE LEUCOGRAPHIS: FIVE REMEDIES.