Decisiones praecipuorum aliquot aporēmatōn iatrophilosophikōn

branches, just like a bellflower: to which succeed follicles swollen with gray seed. The leaves, (whose use is only in medicine, as is evident from the tobacco ointment of the very illustrious Doctor Joubert), heat the body, are of subtle parts, resolve blockages, cleanse, and are somewhat astringent. Hence, they assist with headaches cephalææ headaches and migraines hemicraniæ migraines, if the head is first anointed with the oil of bitter orange flowers: they help with tetanus, nasal polyps, toothache, earache, and ringing in the ears: with belching and indigestion of the stomach, after the oil of lamps has been applied: with obstructions of the spleen, and nephritis: with suffocation of the uterus, if they have first carried tacamahac or caranna resin, or oil of liquidambar: they help with arthritis, gout, chilblains, pestilential carbuncles, incipient carcinomas, scabies, impetigo, lichen, scrofula, swollen glands, wounds, burns, and various pains arising from a cold cause or from flatulence. Certain experience confirms that nothing is more effective than these for those ulcers called τηλέφια telephia, θηριώματα theriomata, and ῥυματικά rheumatic ulcers, which our local barbers call das Gliedwasser joint water: especially if mixed with those things which Angelus Bologninus lists in his book 2, On the Cure of External Ulcers, chapters 3 and 5. Chewed, the herb acts like an ἀποφλεγματισμῷ expectorant/phlegm-clearing agent and draws phlegm from the head. Serapio, furthermore, uses the Brazilian tobacco peto, in the manner of oxymel of hellebore or squills, for asthma, orthopnea, coughs, and related chest ailments, happily cutting through thick humors: and it expels ἕλμινθας στρογγύλας roundworms and πλατείας tapeworms from the belly. No one would credit these faculties to henbane, either the black variety, or the yellow-flowered nightshade-leaf of Matthiolus, or the Peruvian variety of Dodoens. Although the weary navigators of the West Indies and Ethiopia, sucking in the smoke of tobacco through small funnels with open mouths, may suddenly collapse, stirred by a horrifying frenzy and intoxicated, and claim that their brain is lulled by a pleasant drunkenness, and often fall into a stupor: this is not to be ascribed to a dementing coldness. Rather, it is because it imbues the ventricles of the brain with a certain vaporous aromaticity, as does the swilling of wine or beer: or it imitates hellebore, which, although it is quite hot, induces stupor while, by its sharp force permeating the nerves, it pours out whatever is in them.