COMMENTARY. Apuleius says, “Græci pterin, Latini filicem nominant.” (De Herbis.) We need not hesitate to refer it to the _Aspidium Filix Mas_, which has been long celebrated as a vermifuge medicine. See Book IV, 67, of this work, and Rutty (Mat. Med. 201.) Dioscorides recommends it merely as an anthelminthic medicine, and as one which is calculated to promote convalescence in diseases of the spleen. For the former purpose he directs it to be given with scammony or white hellebore, along with a diet consisting principally of garlic. (iv, 183.) Galen acutely remarks, that there is no wonder that it should be anthelminthic, seeing it is possessed of a bitter taste with some astringency. None of the other Greek or Arabian authorities supply any additional information respecting it. See in particular Avicenna (ii, 2, 620); Serapion (De Simpl. 56.) The “filicula” of Celsus (ii, 12) would appear to us to have been rather the Polypodium than the Filix Mas. In the modern Greek Pharmacopœia it is marked as being the _Aspidium Filix Mas_. Πυκνόκομον, Pycnocomon, is possessed of discutient, attractive, and acrid powers. The leaves of it, therefore, discuss phyma and furunculus. The fruit, in addition to these properties, also extracts sharp-pointed weapons. Its root purges yellow bile. * * * * * COMMENTARY. Although Dioscorides has given a pretty minute description of it, there are few articles in the ancient Mat. Med. about which there is so much uncertainty. See the Index Latinus to Parkinson’s ‘Theatre of Plants,’ and Sprengel (in Dioscor. iv, 173.) The latter decides that it is neither the _Leonurus Marrubiastrum_ nor the _Succisa pratensis_ as had been supposed. Whether it may be the _Cephalaria Pycnocomon_ we are unable to determine, as we have no acquaintance with this plant. Our author borrows his medicinal characters of it from Dioscorides (l. c.) Galen does the same. The Arabians have not noticed it, as far as we can discover. Πύρεθρον, Pyrethrum, _Pellitory_; the root has caustic powers, and allays the pain of teeth affected with cold; and before the occurrence of periodical rigors it is rubbed in with oil, and relieves those who are affected with torpor and paralysis. * * * * *