COMMENTARY. Dr. Alston says, “There is a Libellus (De Betonica) attributed commonly to Augustus’s physician, Antonius Musa, by some to L. Apuleius, of which there are said to be very ancient MSS.” We have seen the work mentioned by Alston. It is published _Tiguri_, A.D. 1537, with notes by Humelbergius. It is a small work, occupying scarcely four leaves in octavo. The author commences with a dedication to Augustus, in which he informs the emperor that the betony is useful for forty-seven complaints, which he proceeds to enumerate, after giving a short description of the herb. He says of it, “Cestron vocatur, etiam psychotrophon, siquidem frigidis reperitur in locis, radicibus tenuibus, thyrso tenui ultra cubitum quadrangulo, foliis quercui similibus, boni odoris, semine in summitate thyrsi spicato, modo thymbræ.” The following are some of the cases in which he recommends it: For fractures of the head, as an external application; for pains of the eyes in a fomentation; for pains in the teeth, boiled in old wine or vinegar; for consumption and difficulty of breathing; for complaints of the liver, spleen, and kidneys; as a purgative when given to the amount of four drachms in eight cyathi of hydromel; for calculus; for dropsy; to prevent intoxication; as an antidote to poisons and the bites of venomous reptiles and mad dogs; for gout, &c. Many different opinions, as stated by Sprengel, have been entertained respecting this herb. Perhaps, as he suggests, it may have been the _Rumex Hydrolapathum_ or _Aquaticus_. The κεστρεὺς of Dioscorides he thinks is the _B. alopecurus_. But for the general literature of this subject, we must refer to our discussion on it in the Appendix to Dunbar’s Greek Lexicon. The betony held a place in the Materia Medica down to a very late period. Both Dioscorides and Pliny recommend it in hæmoptysis and purulent affections of the chest, and it enters as an ingredient into several of Myrepsus’s antidotes for dysentery and cæliac affection. Celsus mentions it only in one place, where he says of it, that it is an useful application to the stings of venomous snakes (v, 27, 10.) For the Arabians, see in particular Serapion (322), and Averrhoes (Coll. v, 42.) Our old herbalists and other modern authorities who treat of betony, praise it as a vulnerary herb, and as being possessed of diuretic and emmenagogue faculties. Βηχίον, Tussilago, _Coltsfoot_, it is also called Bechicon; it is so named from its proving useful for coughs, and orthopnœa in fumigations; and it is composed of a hot and watery substance. * * * * * COMMENTARY. It is the _Tussilago Farfara_, or _Coltsfoot_. Both Dioscorides and Galen recommend it in fumigations for the cure of coughs, and this reputation it has retained down to the present day. Though now expelled from our Dispensatories, a patent medicine, prepared from coltsfoot, is still in considerable celebrity. It is retained in the modern Greek Pharmacopœia (p. 67.)