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The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 4 (of 6) cover

The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 4 (of 6)

Chapter 181: CHAP. 25.—CÆSAPON: ONE REMEDY. ISATIS: ONE REMEDY. THE WILD LETTUCE: SEVEN REMEDIES.
By the Elder Pliny
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History - AncientScience - Earth/Agricultural/Farming

About This Book

The text compiles practical and encyclopedic guidance on crop cultivation and plant uses, beginning with cereals and farm management — types of grain, sowing and harvesting schedules, ploughing, seed selection, storage, and maladies — plus weather and stellar prognostics for agricultural timing. It proceeds to flax and garden plants, detailing varieties, planting and processing methods, garden layout, and pest and disease remedies. The final section assembles medicinal preparations and numerous remedies derived from vegetables and herbs, listing applications and recipes for treating ailments using garden-grown plants.

CHAP. 25.—CÆSAPON: ONE REMEDY. ISATIS: ONE REMEDY. THE WILD LETTUCE: SEVEN REMEDIES.

There is a second kind of wild lettuce, known by the Greeks is “cæsapon.”1431 The leaves of this lettuce, applied as a liniment with polenta,1432 are used for the cure of ulcerous sores. This plant is found growing in the fields. A third kind, again, grows in the woods; the name given to it is “isatis.”1433 The leaves of this last, beaten up and applied with polenta, are very useful for the cure of wounds. A fourth kind is used by dyers of wool; in the leaves it would resemble wild lapathum, were it not that they are more numerous and darker. This lettuce has the property of stanching blood, and of healing phagedænic sores and putrid spreading ulcers, as well as tumours before suppuration. Both the root as well as the leaves are good, too, for erysipelas; and a decoction of it is drunk for affections of the spleen. Such are the properties peculiar to each of these varieties.