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

Chapter 336: CHAP. 79. (20.)—EIGHT REMEDIES DERIVED FROM GALLIC NARD.

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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. 79. (20.)—EIGHT REMEDIES DERIVED FROM GALLIC NARD.

Some authors, as we have already 2310 stated, having given the name of “field nard” to the root of the bacchar, we will here mention the medicinal properties of Gallic nard, of which we have 2311 already spoken, when treating of the foreign trees, deferring further notice of it till the present occasion. In doses of two drachmæ, taken in wine, it is good for the stings of serpents; and taken in water or in wine it is employed for inflations of the colon, maladies of the liver or kidneys, and suffusions of the gall. Employed by itself or in combination with wormwood it is good for dropsy. It has the property, also, of arresting excessive discharges of the catamenia.