Part 7

AMARANTH, AMBROSIA, AND ATHANASIA.

Amaranth is the name which has been given to the genus of plants of which Prince’s Feather and Love-Lies-Bleeding are species. This means immortal and is the word used in the Epistle of St. Peter (v, 4), the amaranthine crown of glory, or as translated in our version “the crown of glory that fadeth not away.” Milton refers to the “immortal amaranth, a flower which once in Paradise, fast by the Tree of Life began to bloom.”

Ambrosia, the food of the gods, sometimes alluded to as drink, and sometimes as a sweet-smelling ointment, was also referred to by Dioscorides and Pliny as a herb, but it is not known what particular plant they meant. It was reputed to be nine times sweeter than honey. The herb Ambrose of the old herbalists was the Chenopodium Botrys, but C. Ambroisioides (the oak of Jerusalem), the wild sage, and the field parsley have also borne the name. The Ambroisia of modern botanists is a plant of the wormwood kind.

Athanasia was abbreviated by the old herbalists into Tansy, and this herb acquired the fame due to its distinguished designation. In Lucian’s Dialogues of the Gods, Jupiter tells Hercules to take with him the beautiful Ganymede, whom he has stolen from earth, “and when he has drunk of Athanasia (immortality) bring him back, and he shall be our cupbearer.” Naturally the ancients sought for that herb, Athanasia, which would yield immortality.

MYRRH.

Myrrha, the daughter of Cinyrus, King of Cyprus, having become pregnant, was driven from home by her father, and fled to Arabia. The story told by Ovid is that she had conceived a criminal passion for her father, and that by deception she had taken her mother’s place by his side one night. Lost in the desert and overcome by remorse, she had prayed the gods to grant that she should no longer remain among the living, nor be counted with the dead. Touched with pity for her, they changed her into the tree which yields the gum which to this day bears her name.

NEPENTHE.

Nepenthe, or more correctly Nepenthes, is described by Homer in the Odyssey as an Egyptian plant which Helen, the wife of Menelaus, had received from Polydamna, wife of Thonis, King of Egypt. The word is compounded of ne, negation, and penthos, pain or affliction. Helen mixed it for Telemachus in “a mirth inspiring bowl” which would

Clear the cloudy front of wrinkled care, And dry the tearful sluices of despair.

Its effects would last all through one day. No matter what horrors surrounded,

From morn to eve, impassive and serene The man entranced would view the dreadful scene.

Much discussion of Homer’s drug has of course resulted from his description of these effects. Was it a mere poetic fancy of Homer’s and was the name his invention, or was there an Egyptian drug known in his time to which the properties he describes were attributed? Plutarch, Philostratus, and some other ancient commentators suppose that the poet is only representing in a materialistic form the charm of Helen’s conversation and manner. The difficulty about that interpretation is that he explicitly states that the remedy came from Egypt. Theophrastus credits the opopanax with similar properties to those which Homer claims, and Dioscorides is believed to allude to the same gum under the name of Nectarion, which he indicates to have been of Egyptian origin. This has been adopted by some old critics as the true nepenthes. Pliny asserts that Helenium was the plant which yielded the mirth-inspiring drug, but it is not clear that he means our elecampane. Borage and bugloss have also had their advocates, Galen supporting the latter. Rhazes voted for saffron. Cleopatra is assumed to have meant mandragora when she asked for some nepenthe to make her forget her sorrow while she was separated from Antony. Opium has of course been selected by many commentators, but it could hardly have furnished a mirth-inspiring bowl. Indian hemp or haschish seems to meet the requirements of the verse better than any other drug. There are also reasons for choosing hyoscyamus or stramonium. The Indian pitcher plants to which Linnaeus gave the name of nepenthes are out of the question. A learned contribution to this study may be found in the Bulletin de Pharmacie, Vol. V. (1813), by M. J. J. Virey.

BELLADONNA.

Atropa Belladonna is the subject of several legends. How it came by its several names it would be interesting to know. Atropa, from the eldest sister of the Fates, she who carried the scissors with which she cut the thread of life, is appropriate enough but not more to this than to any other poison plant. Belladonna--so-called because Italian ladies made a cosmetic from the berries with which to whiten their complexions; so-called because the Spanish ladies made use of the plant to dilate the pupils of their brilliant black eyes; so-called because Leucota, an Italian poisoner, used it to destroy beautiful women. These are among the explanations of the name which the old herbalists gave without troubling themselves about historical evidence. Belladonna is supposed to have been described by Dioscorides under the name of Morella furiosum lethale, and by Pliny as Strychnos manikon. It was used by Galen in cancerous affections, and its employment for this purpose was revived in the 17th century, infusions of leaves being administered both internally and externally. That it figured among the philtres of the sorcerers cannot be doubted. Like mandragora, it did not act by exciting amorous passions, but by rendering the victim helpless.

CENTAURY.

The lesser Centaury (Erythraea Centaurium) is alleged to owe its name to Chiron the Centaur, who is supposed to have taught medicine to Æsculapius. The story which associates Chiron with the plant has been given already.

MINT.

Mentha was a nymph of the infernal regions beloved of Pinto. Prosperine out of jealousy caused her to be metamorphosed into the plant which thus acquired her name.

DITTANY.

Dittany, the origanum Dictamnus, was reputed to possess wonderful virtues for healing wounds. Æneas, wounded in a combat, was treated by Iapyx, who had been specially taught by Apollo, but his simples had no effect. Venus, touched by the sufferings of her son, thereupon descended from heaven in a cloud, gathered some dittany on Mount Ida, and secretly added it to the infusion with which Iapyx was vainly trying to relieve the hero. She added some ambrosial elixir, and suddenly the pain ceased, the flow of blood was arrested, the dart was easily drawn from the wound, and Æneas recovered his strength.

MYTHICAL ANIMALS.

THE PHŒNIX.

The Phœnix was largely adopted by the alchemists as their emblem, and afterwards was a frequent sign used by pharmacists. According to Herodotus this bird, which was worshipped by the Egyptians, was of about the size of an eagle, with purple and gold plumage, and a purple crest. Its eyes sparkled like stars; it lived a solitary life in the Arabian desert, and either came to Heliopolis, the city of the sun, to die and be burned in the temple of that city, or its ashes were brought there by its successor. There was only one phœnix at the same time, and it lived for 500 years. The legends vary as to its longevity, but 500 years is the period usually assigned. When the phœnix knew that its time had come, it made its own funeral pyre out of spiced woods, and the sun provided the fire. Out of the marrow of its bones came a worm, which quickly grew into a new phœnix, who, after burying its parent in Egypt, returned to Arabia.

The Talmud relates some curious legends of the phœnix, which the Jews believed to be immortal. One story is that when Eve had eaten the forbidden fruit she gave some to all the animals in the Garden of Eden, and that the phœnix was the only one which refused. Hence it escaped the curse of death which overtook the rest of the animal creation. Another legend is that when it was in the ark, and when all the other animals were clamouring to be fed, the phœnix was quiet. Noah, observing it, asked if it was not hungry, to which the phœnix replied, “I saw you were busy, so would not trouble you,” an answer which so pleased Noah that he blessed it with eternal life. In the book of Job, xxix, 18, recalling his earlier glory, the patriarch says, “Then I said I shall die in my nest, and I shall multiply my days as the sand.” Many Jewish scholars believe that the word translated sand should be phœnix, and our Revised Version gives “phœnix” as an alternative rendering. It is easy to appreciate how aptly this would express Job’s idea. Some of the Hebrew commentators translate the verse in Ps. ciii, 5, “So that thy youth is renewed like the eagle,” by substituting phœnix for eagle.

THE UNICORN

had not quite passed into the region of fable when Pomet wrote his History of Drugs very early in the 18th century, for though he does not believe in the animal himself, he quotes from other authors not so very long antecedent to him who did. He states, however, that what was then sold as unicorn’s horn was in fact the horn or tusk of the narwhal, a tooth which extends to the length of six to ten feet. The unicorn, or monoceros was referred to by Aristotle, Pliny, Aelian, and other ancient writers, and in later times it was described by various travellers who, if they had not seen it themselves, had met with persons who had.

The details given by Aristotle are supposed to have been derived from Ctesias, whose description of the Indian wild ass is what was adopted with many embellishments for the fabulous unicorn. It is this author who first notices the marvellous alexipharmic properties so long attributed to the unicorn’s horn. Drinking vessels, he says, were made of the horn, and those who used them were protected against poison, convulsions, and epilepsy, provided that either just before or just after taking the poison they drank wine or water from the cup made from the horn. In the middle ages the horn of the unicorn was esteemed a certain cure for the plague, malignant fevers, bites of serpents or of mad dogs. It was to be made into a jelly to which a little saffron and cochineal were to be added. Some writers allege that poisoned wounds could be cured by merely holding the horn of a unicorn opposite the wound. These horns are said, however, to have cost about ten times the price of gold, so that not many sufferers could avail themselves of them as a remedy.

The unicorn is mentioned several times in the Old Testament, the translators of the Authorised Version having followed the Septuagint in which the Hebrew word Re’em was rendered by the Greek term Monokeros, which corresponds with our unicorn. It is agreed that the word in the original had no reference to the fabulous animal, but that the wild ox, or ox antelope, a strong untameable beast, known in Palestine, was intended. In the Revised Version wild ox is uniformly substituted for unicorn. This animal is believed to have been the Urus mentioned by Julius Cæsar as existing in his time in the forests of Central Europe, and not entirely extinct until some 500 or 600 years ago.