NOTES 341

186 Seris is the Greek name for a kind of endive or chicory. " Pliny
XX. 76 gives two kinds and says that, though one writer strongly
condemns its use, general opinion is against him. Dioscurides II.
132 recommends two kinds.

:ï5; Stratiolis, Water—soldier (Greek crparworz4s, soldier), is an
aquatic plant so ecalled from its lance—shaped leaves; Dioscurides
IV. 101. Pliny XXIV. 169 says that it grows only in Egypt where
the Nile inundates, and is good for $gnis sacer i. e. erysipelas, etc.

1858 Sabor (in edd. of 1555 and 1584 of Fracastorius, Opera Omnia,
spelt sapor), if meant for a plant, is a word not found in Pliny or in
classical Latin; not in Dioscurides.  Meunier translates 'Saponaire?',
i. e. Saponaria officinalis, soap—wort, but this plant does not occur
in Pliny etc. Fossel omits the whole passage. In Arabic, sabar
means aloe, and sabir the juice of bitter plants, myrrh, and the
former word is found in certain old herbals for aloe. But Fracas—
torius uses the word aloe in lists of purgatives, whereas this is &
list of digestives, remedies that disperse. Burton, on 'Compound
Alteratives', introduces a curious confusion by his statement that
€^syrup of borage is good, and the de pomis of King Sabor, now
obsolete"^. 'This shows that in Fracastorius, or a similar list else—
where, he took sabor (or sapor) for the name of King Sapor,
whom he elsewhere refers to as "an admired physician'!, along
with Mithridates. 'This interpretation ignores the word et before
pomis. Net Burton may be following a tradition, for Bar Hebraeus
in his Chronicle says: ""And Sapor (r., ^. p.240—273) built a city . . .
and settled his Greek wife therein. / And there came with her skilled
men from among the Greek physicians and they sowed the system
of medicine of Hippocrates in the East^.  (Quoted by Wallis Budge,
The Divine Origin of the Craft of the Herbalist, 1928, where he
speaks of the translation of Greek medical worksinto Syriaec.) — Dr.
George A. Barton, on this passage, refers me to the foundation by
Chosroes I (531—579 A. p.) of a sort of medical school at Gondi—
8apor near Susa, and says: "*The place Gondi—Sapor was named from
8Sapor, and Bar Hebraeus may later have inferred that Sapor was a
physician and founded the school'. Now Fracastorius, as Burton,
a century later, may have written under the influence of this tradi—
tion, in which case we should delete the word et before pomis. An—
other possibility is that he meant by sabor (sapor) the Latin word
sapa, i. e. a liquid made by boiling down must to a third of the quan—
tity, recommended by Pliny XIV. 80.  It therefore seems impossible
to give here a certain translation of sabor. Perhaps translate "and
juice (sapor) both of apples and the like". Or is sabor in Fracas—
torius the Latin equivalent of the English term sabraz or sabras, &
decoction or infusion, from Provencal saboras to season, ultimately
no doubt from Arabic sabir? " It should be noted that poma, which
I regularly translate 'apples', is a term that covers several fruits,
e. g. pears, cherries, etc.

:59 Ruffius (Rufus), Ruphos of Ephesus, 2nd cent. ^. p., wrote,
in Greek, many works covering the whole field of medicine, and
his Commentaries on Hippocrates were used by Galen; his treatise