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Natural History of Pliny

Carrot References

Chapters in the history rooms:

History Page 1 - A Brief Timeline
History Page 2 - Neolithic to AD 200 - Origins and development
History Page 3 - AD 200 to 1500 - From Medicine to Food
History Page 4 - 1500 to date   - Evolution and Improvement  - the modern carrot evolves.
History Page 5 - Explores, in some detail the theories of the road to domestication and the origin of Orange Carrots
History Page 6 - Takes an in depth look of the role of carrots in World War Two, reviving its popularity

The Natural History of Pliny

Naturalis Historia (Latin for "Natural History") is an encyclopedia written circa AD 77 by Pliny the Elder. It is one of the largest single works to have survived from the Roman empire to the modern day, and was one of the first reference works developed in the Classical period to examine natural and man-made objects, both organic and mineral, as well as many natural phenomena. It became a model for all later encyclopedias in terms of the breadth of subject matter examined, the need to reference original authors, and a comprehensive index list of the contents. The work was dedicated to Titus. It is the only work by Pliny to have survived.

TRANSLATED in 1856,WITH COPIOUS NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE LATE JOHN BOSTOCK, M.D., F.R.S.,AND H. T. RILEY, Esq.,B.A.,LATE SCHOLAR OF CLARE HALL, CAMBRIDGE,

BOOK XIX - The nature and cultivation of Flax and an account of various garden plants.

Chapter 27 Parsnips -

Among these there is a kind of wild parsnip, which grows spontaneously, by the Greeks it is know as Staphylios (Authors footnote: There is some doubt as to the identity of this plant, but Fee, after examining the question, comes to the conclusion that it is the Daucus Carota, or else Mauritanicus of Linnaeus, the common carrot, or that of Mauritania. Sprengel takes it to be either this last or the Daucus guttatus,a plant commonly found in Greece.

There is a fourth kind (the Daucus Carota of Linnaeus), also, which bears a similar degree of resemblance to the parsnip; by our people it is called the gallica," while the Greeks, who have distinguished four varieties of it, give it the name of '' daucus." We shall have further occasion to mention it among the medicinal plants.

BOOK XX - Remedies derived from the garden plants

Chapter 15. (5.)—THE STAPHYLINOS, OR WILD PARSNIP: TWENTY TWO REMEDIES.

The staphylinos, or, as some persons call it, ''erratic parsnip," is another kind. The seed of this plant, pounded and taken in wine, reduces swelling of the abdomen, and alleviates hysterical suffocations and pains, to such a degree as to restore the uterus to its natural condition. Used as a liniment, also, with raisin wine, it is good for pains of the bowels in females ; for men, too, beaten up with an equal proportion of bread, and taken in wine, it may be found beneficial for similar pains. It is a diuretic also, and it will arrest the progress of phagedaenic ulcers, if applied fresh with honey, or else dried and sprinkled on them with meal. Dieiiches recommends the root of it to be given, with hydromel, for affections of the liver and spleen, as also the sides, loins, and kidneys; and Cleophantus prescribes it for dysentery of long standing. Philistio says that it should be boiled 'in milk, and for strangury he prescribes four ounces of the root.

Taken in water, he recommends it for dropsy, as well as in cases of opisthotony, pleurisy, and epilepsy. Persons, it is said, who carry this plant about them, will never be stung by serpents, and those who have just eaten of it will receive no hurt from them. Mixed with axle-grease, it is applied to parts of the body stung by reptiles ; and the leaves of it are eaten as a remedy for indigestion.

Orpheus has stated that the staphylinos acts as a philtre, most probably because, a very-well-established fact, when employed as a food, it is an aphrodisiac ; a circumstance which has led some persons to state that it promotes conception. In other respects the cultivated parsnip has similar properties;

Though the wild kind is more powerful in its operation, and that which grows in stony soils more particularly. The seed, too, of the cultivated parsnip, taken in wine, or vinegar and water, is salutary for stings inflicted by scorpions. By rubbing the teeth with the root of this plant, tooth-ache is removed.

Chapter 16 - GINGIDION : ONE REMEDY.

The Syrians devote themselves particularly to the cultivation of the garden, a circumstance to which we owe the Greek proverb, There is plenty of vegetables in Syria. “ Tetanus, or contraction of the muscles, in which the head is twisted round or stretched backwards.

Among other vegetables, that country produces one very similar to the staphylinos, and known to some persons as *'gingidion," (also known as the wild carrot or French carrot) only that it is smaller than the staphylinos and more bitter, though it has just the same properties. Eaten either raw or boiled, it is very beneficial to the stomach, as it entirely absorbs all humours with which it may happen to be surcharged.


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