Pliny Natural History, Vol. VII (Loeb Latin-English)

Fennel-giant is most pleasing as fodder for donkeys, but for other beasts of burden, it is a sudden poison. For this reason, this animal is assigned to Father Liber Another name for the god Bacchus., to whom the fennel-giant is also sacred. 3 Even lifeless things have their own specific poisons, even the most insignificant ones. Cooks use linden bark and flour to remove excess salt from food, and salt tempers the cloying nature of things that are too sweet. Nitrous or bitter waters are mitigated by the addition of pearl barley so that they can be drunk within two hours; this is why pearl barley is added to wine-strainers. The chalk of Rhodes Perhaps fuller’s earth. and our local clay possess a similar power. Affinities work through harmony, such as when pitch is extracted by oil, since both are of a greasy nature. Oil alone is mixed with lime, since both despise water. Gum is washed away more easily with vinegar, and ink with water, along with countless other things that will be discussed in their proper places.

4 From this, the art of medicine was born. Nature intended these to be the only remedies: available to everyone, easy to discover, and costing nothing—the very things by which we live. Later, the fraud of men and the greed of clever minds invented those shops where a person’s own life is promised for sale. Suddenly, incomprehensible formulas and mixtures are chanted, Arabia and India are esteemed as sources of remedies, and a small sore is blamed on the need for a medicine from the Red Sea, even though the true remedies are available daily to the poorest person.