COMMENTARY. The predominance of authority has determined us, after a good deal of consideration, to set this down as the _Brassica Napo-brassica_, the navew, or French turnip. All the authorities, in a word, from Dioscorides downwards, held it to be aphrodisiacal. Dioscorides holds it to be a sovereign remedy for chilblains in fomentation, cataplasm, or prepared thus: a turnip is to be scooped out in the middle and filled with rose-cerate, which is to be melted by placing the turnip in hot ashes, when it forms an excellent application to ulcerated chilblains. (ii, 134.) Pliny likewise says of the turnip, “Est et rapo vis medica. Perniones fervens impositum sanat.” (H. N. xx, 9.) A roasted turnip is still a popular remedy in Scotland for chilblains. Galen, Aëtius, and Oribasius give brief descriptions of the _gongylis_, and from them our author copies. Celsus treats of the _napus_ and _rapum_ only as potherbs. The Arabians give a confused account of the matter; Avicenna under _brassica_, and Serapion under _rapa_. (De Simpl. 191.) Rhases, translating the 134th chapter of Dioscorides, renders _gongyle_ by _Rapa rotunda_. (Cont. l. ult. 557.) Altogether it appears to us strange that some of our late authorities should have referred the gongylis to the _Brassica oleracea_. See Dierbach (Mat. Med. Hippocrat.) The introduction of the different varieties of the latter into gardening is a very curious but difficult subject. See Beckmann (Hist. of Invent.), and Loudon (Encyc. of Garden. 674.) Γορδύλιον, Gordylium (called also by some Seseli), is hot, diuretic, and emmenagogue. The root of it, when taken in a linctus, with honey, promotes expectoration. * * * * * COMMENTARY. Most probably it is a species of Seseli. Either our author or some copyist of his works has evidently been guilty of the mistake of writing _gordylion_ for _tordylion_. See the chapter of Dioscorides on the tordylium (iii, 56.) Γύρις, Pollen, _Fine Flour_, resembles starch in its properties, but is weaker. * * * * * COMMENTARY. On the medicinal properties of _pollen_, see Pliny (H. N. xxii, 60), who, however, borrows all his information from Dioscorides (ii, 107.) Both recommend the pollen used for glueing books, in hæmoptysis. Γύψος, Gypsum, _Parget_, or Mineral White, in addition to its desiccant, is possessed of obstruent powers. Hence it agrees with hemorrhages, along with pollen and the white of an egg. When burnt it has no longer its obstruent powers, but it is more desiccant and repellent, especially with oxycrate. * * * * *