elelisphacos in wine

Original passage

The plant called by the Greeks “elelisphacos¹,” or “sphacos,” is a species of wild lentil, lighter than the cultivated one, and with a leaf, smaller, drier, and more odoriferous. There is also another kind of it, of a wilder nature, and possessed of a powerful smell, the other one being milder. It has leaves the shape of a quince, but white and smaller: they are generally boiled with the branches. This plant acts as an emmenagogue and a diuretic: and it affords a remedy for wounds inflicted by the sting-ray, having the property of benumbing the part affected. It is taken in drink with wormwood for dysentery: employed with wine² it accelerates the catamenia when retarded, a decoction of it having the effect of arresting them when in excess: the plant, applied by itself, stanches the blood of wounds. It is a cure, too, for the stings of serpents, and a decoction of it in wine allays prurigo of the testes.

Pliny the Elder, The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 4 (of 6): Books XVIII–XXIII, translated by John Bostock; H. T. Riley (1856 edition) · Book 22, chapter 71 · THE ELELISPHACOS, SPHACOS, OR SALVIA: THIRTEEN REMEDIES. · lines 16568–16581 · passage pliny-nh:b22:c071:001