De Medicina

Celsus, Aulus Cornelius

Celsus, Aulus Cornelius. De Medicina. Spencer, Walter George, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University; London, England: W. Heinemann Ltd, 1935-1938.

23 Now the following make phlegm thicker: raw eggs, spelt, rice, starch, pearl barley gruel, milk, bulbs, and generally all glutinous substances. Phlegm is rendered thinner by: all salted and acrid and acid materials.

24 But best suited to the stomach are: whatever is harsh, even what is sour, and that which has been sprinkled moderately with salt; so also unleavened bread, and spelt or rice or pearl barley which has been soaked; birds and game of all kinds, and both of these whether roasted or boiled; among domesticated animals, beef; of other meat the lean rather than the fat; the trotters, chaps,

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ears, and the sterile womb of a pig; among pot-herbs, endive, lettuce, parsnip, cooked gourd, skirret; among orchard fruit, the cherry, mulberry, service fruit, the mealy pear from Crustumeria, or the Mevian; also keeping-pears, Tarentine or Signian, the round or Scandian apple or that of Ameria or the quince or pomegranate, raisins preserved in jars; soft egg, dates, pine kernels, white olives preserved in strong brine, or the same steeped in vinegar, or black olives which have been well ripened on the tree, or which have been preserved in raisin wine, or in boiled-down must; dry wine is allowable even although it may have become harsh, also that doctored with resin; hard-fibred fish of the intermediate class, oysters, scallops, the shellfish murex and purpura, snails; food and drink either very cold or very hot; wormwood.