Mandagoras has a root that seems to be
a maker of love medicines. There is one sort that is female, black, called thridacias, with
narrower, longer leaves than lettuce, with a poisonous, heavy scent,
scattered on the ground. Among them are apples similar to service
berries — pale, with a sweet scent — in which is seed like a
pear. The two or three roots are a good size, wrapped within one
another, black according to outward appearance, white within, and
with a thick bark; but it has no stalk.
The male is white, and some have called
it norion. The leaves are bigger, white, broad, smooth like beet but
the apples are twice as big — almost saffron in colour,
sweetsmelling, with a certain strength — which the shepherds eat to
fall asleep. The root is similar to that above, yet bigger and paler,
and it is also without a stalk. The bark of the root is pounded and
juiced while it is fresh, and placed under a press. After it is
stirred the beaters should bottle it in a ceramic jar. The apples are
also juiced in a similar way, but the juice from them becomes
weakened.
The bark from the root is peeled off,
pierced with a thread, and hanged up in storage. Some boil the roots
in wine until a third remains, strain it, and put it in jars. They
use a wine cupful of it for those who cannot sleep, or are seriously
injured, and whom they wish to anaesthetise to cut or cauterize.
Twenty grains of the juice (taken as a drink with honey and water)
expel phlegm and black bile upward like hellebore, but when too much
is taken as a drink it kills. It is mixed with eye medicines,
medications to ease pain, and softening suppositories. As much as
five grains (applied alone) expels the menstrual flow and is an
abortifacient, and put up into the perineum as a suppository it
causes sleep. The root is said to soften ivory, boiled
together with it for six hours, and to make it ready to be formed
into whatever shape a man wants. Applied with polenta, the new leaves
are good both for inflammations of the eyes and ulcers.
They dissolve all hardnesses,
abscesses, glandular tumours [possibly goitre], and tumours. Rubbed on gently for five or six days it defaces
scars without ulcerating. The leaves (preserved in brine) are stored
for the same uses. The root (pounded into small pieces with vinegar)
heals erysipela [streptococcal skin infection], and is used with
honey or oil for the strikes of snakes. With water it disperses
scrofulous tumours [glandular swelling], goitres and tumours; and
with polenta it soothes the pains of the joints. Wine from the bark
of the root is prepared without boiling. You must put three pounds
(of the bark of the root) into thirteen gallons of sweet wine, and
three cupfuls of it is given to those who shall be cut or cauterized
(as previously mentioned). For they do not notice the pain because
they are overcome with dead sleep; and the apples (inhaled or eaten)
are sleep inducing, as is the apple juice. Used too much they make
men speechless. A decoction of the seed of the apples (taken as a
drink) purges the womb, and given as a pessary with sulphur that
never felt the fire it stops the red excessive discharge [menstrual
flow]. It is juiced — the root first incised or cut around various
ways — and that which runs out is then gathered into a bowl; and
the juice is more effective than the liquid. The roots do not bear
liquid in every place; experience shows as much. They give out also
that there is another sort called morion growing in shady places and
around hollows, having leaves similar to the white mandrake but
smaller (as it were), twenty centimetres long, white, lying round
around the root. This is tender and white, a little longer than
twenty centimetres, the thickness of the great finger. They say as
much as a teaspoon of a decoction of this (taken as a drink or eaten
with polenta in placetum, or food that is eaten with bread), will
infatuate [cause unconsciousness]. For a man sleeps in the same
fashion as when he ate it (sensible of nothing for three or four
hours) from the time that it is brought him. And physicians also use
this when they are about to cut or cauterize [anaesthetic]. They say
also that a decoction of the root (taken as a drink with
strychnos manicum) is an antidote.
It is also called antimelon,
dircaea, circea, circaeum, xeranthe,
antimnion, bombochylon, or minon; the Egyptians
call it apemum, Pythagoras, anthropomorphon, some,
aloitin, thridacian, or cammaron; Zoroastres
calls it diamonon, or archinen, the Magi, hemionous,
some, gonogeonas, the Romans, mala canina, and some,
mala terrestria.
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