It is in tendencies of this description that the medical art first took its rise; though it was originally intended, no doubt, by Nature, that our only medicaments should be those which universally exist, are everywhere to be found, and are to be procured at no great outlay, the various substances, in fact, from which we derive our sustenance. But at a later period the fraudulent disposition of mankind, combined with an ingenuity prompted by lucre, invented those various laboratories,[16] in which each one of us is promised an extension of his life—that is, if he will pay for it. Compositions and mixtures of an inexplicable nature forthwith have their praises sung, and the productions of Arabia and India are held in unbounded admiration in the very midst[17] of us. For some trifling sore or other, a medicament is prescribed from the shores of the Red Sea; while not a day passes but what the real remedies are to be found upon the tables of the very poorest man among us.[18] But if the remedies for diseases were derived from our own gardens, if the plants or shrubs were employed which grow there, there would be no art, forsooth, that would rank lower than that of medicine. Yes, avow it we must—the Roman people, in extending its empire, has lost sight of its ancient manners, and in that we have conquered we are the conquered:[19] for now we obey the natives of foreign[20] lands, who by the agency of a single art have even out-generalled our generals.[21] More, however, on this topic hereafter. CHAP. 2. (2.)—THE LOTUS OF ITALY: SIX REMEDIES We have already[22] spoken in their appropriate places of the herb called lotus, and of the plant of Egypt known by the same name and as the “tree of the Syrtes.” The berries of the lotus, which is known among us as the “Grecian bean,”[23] act astringently upon the bowels; and the shavings of the wood, boiled in wine, are useful in cases of dysentery, excessive menstruation, vertigo, and epilepsy: they also prevent the hair from falling off. It is a marvellous thing—but there is no substance known that is more bitter than the shavings of this wood, or sweeter than the fruit. The sawdust also of the wood is boiled in myrtle-water, and then kneaded and divided into lozenges, which form a medicament for dysentery of remarkable utility, being taken in doses of one victoriatus,[24] in three cyathi of water. CHAP. 3. (3.)—ACORNS: THIRTEEN REMEDIES