COMMENTARY. It is the plant which our English herbalists describe by the name of Bears-breech, now called the _Acanthus mollis_ by botanists. Dioscorides recommends it as being diuretic, and astringent of the bowels (iii, 17.) Our author follows Galen. Whether “gummi acanthinum” of Celsus (v, 2) belong to this place, or not rather to the acacia, as Milligan suggests, we cannot determine for certain. Modern authorities have confirmed the characters which the ancients ascribed to it. (See Rutty, M. M. p. 70); Gray (Suppl. to Pharmacop. p. 45.) Ακάνθιον, Acanthium, is composed of fine particles, and has heating powers, therefore it is a remedy for convulsions. * * * * * COMMENTARY. Gerarde and our other herbalists delineate and describe this plant under the name of the cotton-thistle, meaning either the _Onopordon acanthium_ or _O. Illyricum_, cotton-thistle. Dioscorides affirms that it is of service to persons affected with tetanus, and upon his authority all the others, both ancient and modern, ascribe virtues to it in this case. The reader may be amused by comparing what Gerarde and Culpeper have written of it with the ancient descriptions of Dioscorides and Pliny. The cotton-thistle was long used as a potherb. See Beckmann (History of Inventions, under ARTICHOKE); and Loudon (Encycl. of Garden, p. 736.) Ἄκανθα λευκή, Spina alba, _the White-thorn_. Its root is desiccative and moderately astringent, therefore it relieves stomachic complaints, hæmoptysis, and toothache; but its seed, consisting of fine particles, and being of a hot nature, when drunk relieves convulsions. Acantha Ægyptia, or Arabica, _the Egyptian or Arabic thorn_, is possessed of very astringent and desiccative powers. Whence it restrains a flow of blood and other discharges. * * * * * COMMENTARY. Respecting the two thistles here described, we may refer the former, with Sibthorp, to the _Cirsium Acarna_, and the latter, or Arabian, to the _Onopordon acanthium_. All the authorities follow Dioscorides in giving its characters. (iii, 12.) See Avicenna (ii, 2, 671-3); Serapion (c. 130); Averrhoes (Collig. v, 42); Rhases (Cont. l. ult. i, 670.) Ἄκινος, Acinus; it resembles basil, and is moderately astringent, therefore it restrains alvine and uterine discharges, when taken in a draught; and when applied as a cataplasm, is of use for erysipelas and phygethlon. * * * * * COMMENTARY. Our old herbalists describe it under the name of wild basil, meaning perhaps the _Ocimum pilosum_, and there seems little reason to question their authority in this instance. Neither Galen nor Serapion has described it. Indeed we are not aware that any of the Arabians has described it except Ebn Baithar (ii, 254); neither have we found it in the Hippocratic collection, nor in the works of Celsus. Ακόνιτον or Παρδαλιαγχὲς,