COMMENTARY. We need not enter further into the literary history of this interesting subject, which we have given at some length in the Appendix, already so often referred to, than to mention that the Lotus, called also Trifolium, is referable to the _Melilotus officinalis_, and probably some of its congeners, and the Lotus Arbor to the _Zizyphus Lotus_, with perhaps some other trees of the same tribe. Dr. Lindley says of it, “The Lote-bush, which gave its name to the ancient Lotophagi, is to this day collected for food by the Arabs of Barbary, who call it sadar, and its berries nabk.” (Veg. Kingd. 582.) The wild lotus of Dioscorides and the other authorities has never been satisfactorily determined. Perhaps it was the species of _melilotus_ named _cærulea_. The Egyptian lotus, there can be no doubt, was the _Nymphæa Lotus_, L. Dioscorides gives a striking description of this last, which, he says, the inhabitants of Egypt use for making bread; and it is deserving of remark that the rhizomes of the nymphæa are still roasted and eaten by the Negroes of Senegal. See further under _Nymphæa_ in this section. Our author’s characters of the other loti are copied from Dioscorides or Galen, who agree, in the main, under this head. See, in like manner, Aëtius and Oribasius. The Arabians treat at great length of the different loti, and more especially of the L. Arbor, with which they must have been familiarly acquainted. See Avicenna (ii, 2, 298, 513); Serapion (c. 120); Rhases (Cont. l. ult. i, 487); Ebn Baithar (ii, 539.) They all recommend it as a powerful astringent in looseness of the bowels, bloody flux, menorrhagia, ulcers of the bowels, and in asthma and affections of the chest. One of Serapion’s authorities calls it stomachic and a whetter of the appetite. The lotus occurs in the Hippocratic treatises; indeed, from the fable of the Lotophagi, contained in the Odyssey of Homer, there can be no doubt that the lotus had been known and used as an article of food long before the time of Hippocrates. Μάκερ, Macer is a bark brought from India, being desiccative in the third order, and intermediate as to heating and cooling properties. It consists of subtile particles, and is astringent; hence it agrees with cæliac and dysenteric complaints. * * * * *