COMMENTARY. Stackhouse marks it simply as the _Cistus_, L., called by Miller the _Rock-rose_ (Index to Theophrastus.) Woodville calls it the _C. Creticus_ (Medical Botany.) Dioscorides describes two species of it, which probably are the _C. salvifolius_ and _C. villosus_. Galen particularly commends the former in uterine diseases. He also treats under this name of a much more celebrated species of the cistus, namely, the _Ladaniferus_, of which we will have to give some account under Λάδανον. Aëtius and Oribasius are the copyists of Galen. The Arabians treat separately of the _Cistus_ and _Ladanum_, recommending the former as a powerful astringent, both in external ulcers and in those of the intestines and womb. Avicenna speaks favorably of it in deafness and other affections of the ear. (ii, 2, 111.) Serapion would appear to have confounded it with the κισσὸς (ivy); or at least he has given a very confused account of it in his chapter on the Ivy. (De Simpl. 41, 42.) Rhases does not appear to notice it separately from the _Landanum_ (Ladanum) (Cont. l. ult. iii, 67.) The two species of cistus treated of under this head have long ceased to hold a place in our modern Dispensatories. Κισσὸς, Hedera, _Ivy_, is composed of opposite powers, for it is astringent and cooling, and acrid and hot; consisting of a watery and tepid ingredient when green. Its leaves, when boiled with wine, are agglutinative of wounds and relieve burns and splenic affections. Its juice is an errhine, and cures chronic defluxions from the ear. Its tears, being more acrid, kill lice and act as a depilatory. * * * * * COMMENTARY. We need have no hesitation in referring it with the best authorities to the _Hedera Helix_, L. Dioscorides describes three varieties of it, the white, the black, and the helix; but it is easy to see that they are all varieties of the same species. His distinctions, however, occasioned great trouble and confusion both to his Arabian copyists and to the modern herbalists. See Serapion (De Simpl. 41), and Parkinson (Theatre of Plants, 680), and Gerard (History of Plants, 857.) Our author’s account of its medicinal properties is taken from Galen. The tears of it, mentioned by Dioscorides and our author, were evidently its resin, now generally known by the name of gum ivy. All the ancient writers recommend it for thinning the hair and killing lice. Κίτριον, Citrium, _Citron_, called also Malum Medicum; its middle part is acid or devoid of qualities; but the part in which the seed is contained belongs to the third rank of cooling and desiccative medicines. The bark is desiccative in the second degree, but not cooling, for it is acrid. Its flesh engenders thick chyme, is phlegmatic and cold. Its seed is discutient and desiccative in the second degree; and the leaves of the tree are possessed of desiccative and discutient powers. * * * * *