418 MERGE TO GYRENE.

camels which were sent to us from Bengazi, when we were about to leave Grenna, were kept muzzled during the whole time of their stay in those parts where the plant was known to be produced.

With regard to the effects of the silphium upon bipeds, (we mean those of the human race,) a few extracts from PHny will fully suffice to convince us that it does not yield in omnipotence even to the famed balm of Gilead ; or to that well known specific, and sovereign remedy for all complaints, distinguished by the humble title of Eau de Cologne. Certes, (observes this author, in concluding the remarks which we have quoted below upon the wonderful efficacy of his specific,) “ if I should take in hand to particularize of the vertues that laser hath, being mingled with other matter in confections, I should never make an end and the reader will probably be somewhat of his opinion, before he has waded through half the wondrous qualities attributed to the omnipotent silphium. We give them in the good old Enghsh version of Holland*.

* The leaves of the plant, steeped in white wine, were, it seems, a most extraordinary specific*; and “ the root is singular” (it is Pliny who speaks) “for to cleare the windpipes, and to take away all the asperitie and roughness in these parts ; and being applied in the form of a liniment it helpeth imposthumat inflamations proceeding from the ranknesse and ebullition of blood. A liniment thereof made with wine and oile is a most familiar and agreeable medecine for the black and blue marks remaining after stripes ; but if the same with some adition of wax be reduced into a cerot it helpeth the kings evill. As for the liquor laser (continues our naturalist) issuing from Silphium, in that manner as I have shewed, it is holden for one of the most singular gifts that nature hath bestowed upon the world, and entereth into many excellent confections and compositions.

Of itselfe alone, it reduceth those to their natural health who are starven and benumbed » Nam folia ad expurgandas vulvas pellendosque eraortuos partus decoquuntur in vino albo odorato, ut bibatur mensura acetabuli a balineis. — Adde — Laser, e silphio profluens fseminis datur in vivo. Et lanis mollibus admovetur vulvse ad menses ciendos.— (Hist. Nat. Lib. xxii. c. xxiii.)