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

The whitest barley is the best. Boiled2780 in rain-water, the pulp of it is divided into lozenges, which are used in injections for ulcerations of the intestines and the uterus. The ashes of barley are applied to burns, to bones denuded of the flesh, to purulent eruptions, and to the bite of the shrew-mouse: sprinkled with salt and honey they impart whiteness to the teeth, and sweetness to the breath. It is alleged that persons who are in the habit of eating barley-bread are never troubled with gout in the feet: they say, too, that if a person takes nine grains of barley, and traces three times round a boil, with each of them in the left hand, and then throws them all into the fire, he will experience an immediate cure. There is another plant, too, known as “phœnice” by the Greeks, and as “mouse-barley”2781 by us: pounded and taken in wine, it acts remarkably well as an emmenagogue.