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

Chapter 444: CHAP. 77.—DARNEL: FIVE REMEDIES.

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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. 77.—DARNEL: FIVE REMEDIES.

Even more than this—the very plants which are the bane of the corn-field are not without their medicinal uses. Darnel 2820 has received from Virgil 2821 the epithet of “unhappy;” and yet, ground and boiled with vinegar, it is used as an application for the cure of impetigo, which is the more speedily effected the oftener the application is renewed. It is employed, also, with oxymel, for the cure of gout and other painful diseases. The following is the mode of treatment: for one sextarius of vinegar, two ounces of honey is the right proportion; three sextarii having been thus prepared, two sextarii of darnel meal are boiled down in it to a proper consistency, the mixture being applied warm to the part affected. This meal, too, is used for the extraction of splinters of broken bones.