posited in the urine. "Lentils," says Gerard,
"are singular good to stay the menses." They are traditionally
regarded as funeral plants, and formerly they were forbidden at
sacrifices and feasts.
[306] Parkinson said, "The country people sow it in the fields as
food for their cattle, and call it 'tills', leaving out the 'lent', as
thinking that word agreeth not with the matter." "_Ita sus
Minervam_." In Hampshire the plant is known as "tils," and in
Oxfordshire as "dills." The Romans supposed it made people
indolent and torpid, therefore they named the plant from _lentus_,
slow.
Allied to the Lentil as likewise a leguminous plant is the LUPINE,
grown now only as an ornament to our flower beds, but formerly
cultivated by the Romans as an article of food, and still capable of
usefulness in this capacity for the invalid. Pliny said, "No kind of
fodder is more wholesome and light of digestion than the white
Lupine when eaten dry." If taken commonly at meals it will
contribute a fresh colour and a cheerful countenance. When thus
formerly used neither trouble nor expense was needed in sowing the
seed, since it had merely to be scattered over the ground without
ploughing or digging. But Virgil designated it _tristis Lupinus_, "the
sad Lupine," probably because when the pulse of this plant was
eaten without being first cooked in any way so as to modify its bitter
taste, it had a tendency to contract the muscles of the face, and to
give a sorrowful appearance to the countenance. It was said the
Lupine was cursed by the Virgin Mary, because when she fled with
the child Christ from the assassins of Herod, plants of this species
by the noise they made attracted the attention of the soldiers.
The Lupine was originally named from _lupus_, a wolf, because of
its voracious nature. The seeds were used as pieces of money by
Roman actors in their plays and comedies, whence came the saying,
"_nummus lupinus_," "a spurious bit of money."
[307] LETTUCE.
Our garden Lettuce is a cultivated variety of the wild, or
strong-scented Lettuce (_Lactuca virosa_), which grows, with prickly
leaves, on banks and waysides in chalky districts throughout
England and Wales. It belongs to the Composite order of plants, and
contains the medicinal properties of the plant more actively than
does the Lettuce produced for the kitchen. An older form of the
name is _Lettouce_, which is still retained in Scotland.
Chemically the wild Lettuce contai
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