CHAP. 17.—THE SKIRRET: ELEVEN REMEDIES.
The wild1380 skirret, too, is very similar to the cultivated kind,1381 and is productive of similar effects. It sharpens1382 the stomach, and, taken with vinegar flavoured with silphium, or with pepper and hydromel, or else with garum, it promotes the appetite. According to Opion, it is a diuretic, and acts as an aphrodisiac.1383 Diocles is also of the same opinion; in addition to which, he says that it possesses cordial virtues for convalescents, and is extremely beneficial after frequent vomitings.
Heraclides has prescribed it against the effects of mercury,1384 and for occasional impotence, as also generally for patients when convalescent. Hicesius says that skirrets would appear to be prejudicial1385 to the stomach, because no one is able to eat three of them following; still, however, he looks upon them as beneficial to patients who are just resuming the use of wine. The juice of the cultivated skirret, taken in goats’-milk, arrests looseness of the stomach.