COMMENTARY. It comprehended the _R. lutea_, Derlech, _R. arvensis_, and probably other species of the _Rosa_, L. Dioscorides gives a careful exposition of the particular uses of Roses in medicine. He says they are cooling and astringent. In preparing the flowers for use, he directs the nails or white portions to be clipped off with a pair of scissors, and the remainder compressed and pounded in a shade in a mortar, until they form into a ball. He recommends them in diseases of the eyes, headache, affections of the ears, gums, anus, and womb, &c., also when sprinkled in powder on intertrigo, and as an ingredient in the ointments called _calliblephara_. (i, 130.) We need not devote time to the exposition of what the other authorities have written on this subject. See Celsus (pluries); Galen (De Simpl. viii, et alibi); Avicenna (ii, 2, 568); Rhases (Cont. l. ult. i, 585); Serapion (De Simpl. 108). The Arabians say of rose-water that it is stomachic and hepatic; and of rose-oil, that it relieves inflammation of the stomach and loss of its tone. They recommend rose-water further both in syncope and in hæmoptysis. Like the Greeks, they make it an ingredient in their collyria to the eyes and eyelids. Rhases and Avicenna give particular directions for preparing an ablution with roses to remove fetid perspiration. Ῥοδία ῥίζα, Rosea radix, is heating in the second degree, and is attenuating and discutient. * * * * * COMMENTARY. The older commentators and herbalists are by no means satisfied that it was the _Rhodiola Rosea_, or rosewood; but the later authorities are pretty much agreed upon this point. See Sprengel (in Dioscor. iv, 45) and Lindley (Veg. Kingd. 631). Dioscorides merely recommends it along with valerian as an application to the forehead and temple in cephalalgia. The other authorities, like Paulus, are content with barely stating its general characters. Ῥοιὰι, Mala Punica, _Pomegranates_; the prevailing quality of all the species of them is an astringent power, by which they act as refrigerants and desiccants. But the sweet have this property in a less degree than the others. The austere are more refrigerant, but are of a drier nature and stomachic. Those which are acid are cooling in a greater degree, but have also something incisive in their nature. The kernels are more astringent and desiccative than the juice, but still more so the outer membrane or rind called _Malicorium_. The flowers called _Cytini_ have similar powers. * * * * *