COMMENTARY. It appears pretty certain that it is the Charlock, that is to say, either the _Raphanus Raphanistrum_ or _Sinapi Arvense_. Both are known by the English name of _Charlock_. It is rather a potherb than a medicine. Λάπαθον, Lapathum, _Dock_, is possessed of moderately discutient powers; but the oxylapathum is also somewhat repellent. The seed, particularly of the oxylapathum, being astringent, cures diarrhœas and dysenteries. The leaves, in so far, have opposite qualities to the seed; for they, when eaten, loosen the belly, whereas it, when drunk, proves astringent. * * * * * COMMENTARY. Of the _Rumices_, the Oxylapathum, or _Rumex acutus_, was the species most used in medicine, and is the only one particularized by our author, with the exception of the hippolopathum already described. Of the four other species described by Dioscorides, the ὀξαλὶς is pretty generally acknowledged as the _Rumex acetosa_. The others cannot be determined with any degree of accuracy. See Sprengel, Sibthorp, Matthiolus, Parkinson, Gerard, and Rutty. Dioscorides gives the first of his species much the same characters as our author, recommending it most especially as a discutient application to leprosies and scrofulous tumours. He also speaks favorably of it as applied on a pessary in the fluor albus. The roots, he adds, boiled in wine, cure jaundice, and act as lithontriptics, emmenagogues, and alexipharmics. He further speaks of the dock as being appended in the form of an amulet for scrofulous swellings. (ii, 140, 141.) Galen and the other Greek authorities treat cursorily of the lapatha, like our author. They occur in the works of Hippocrates and of Celsus; the latter ranks the _lapathum_ among the articles of food which contain bad juices (ii, 21), are bad for the stomach (ii, 25), and are laxative of the bowels (ii, 29.) Pliny’s account of the lapatha is mostly taken from Dioscorides. (H. N. xx, 85.) The term rumex, now generally applied to the genus dock, is taken from Pliny (xix, 60.) The dock is recommended by Africanus in jaundice, dropsy, and for the cure of leprosy, lichen, and alphos. (Geopon. xii, 38.) Macer, in the tenth century, describes it under the name of _paratella_, and, like the more ancient authorities, commends it externally for the cure of cutaneous diseases, and internally as an astringent. The Arabians, in like manner, prescribe it in these cases, and in general copy from Dioscorides in treating of the different species of dock. See in particular Avicenna (ii, 2, 53); Serapion (c. 3); Ebn Baithar (i, 324.) The last of these treats fully of the rumices, but does not seem to describe any species not noticed by the Greeks. Λειμώνιον, Limonium, _Sea Lavender_; its fruit being austere, is given to the amount of an acetabulum, with wine, in cæliac and dysenteric affections, in hæmoptysis, and for the uterine discharge. * * * * *