On Analgesic and Narcotic Plants: Pliny and His Greek Sources, the History of a Complex Graft

chapter 12 On Analgesic and Narcotic Plants: Pliny and His Greek Sources, the History of a Complex Graft

Valérie Bonet

Abstract

Grafting is an important concept in the study of Pliny the Elder, who is a compiler of written sources. We intend to examine how this grafting works in Pliny’s discussion of analgesic and narcotic plants, especially the most famous: opium poppy, henbane, mandrake, and hound’s berry. We will study Pliny’s use of Greek sources and ask how he took up his predecessors’ works while integrating the changes that took place dur- ing the centuries in the diagnosis and treatment of pain. This cultural graft remains elusive because we do not have access to all of Pliny’s Greek sources. When Pliny speaks about these plants, he sometimes copies out information, adding or removing details, and occasionally makes significant mistakes. The graft was particularly difficult in this case because these analgesic plants were considered so special and poisonous that they were sometimes rejected or even condemned. Nevertheless, we can say that this cultural graft succeeded, despite some obstacles, because Pliny assimilated and adapted these old Greek materials to his own time, society, and project.

In his Natural History, Pliny says of the plant graft:

Facillime coalescunt quibus eadem corticis natura quaeque pariter flo- rentia eiusdem horae cognationem sucorumque societatem habent; lenta res est, quotiens umidis repugnant sicca, mollibus corticum duri (Plin. Nat. 17.104).

Grafts and trunk grow together most easily when they have the same kind of bark and when they flower at the same time, so that they have the affinity of the same season and a partnership of juices; whereas it is a slow business when there is incompatibility between dry tissues and damp ones, and between hard and soft barks (trans. by Rackham).

※ Translated by Guillaume Goubier, subsequently revised by Jon Wilcox. Made possible through the generosity of the Centre Paul-Albert Février (CNRS-UMR 7297), Aix-Marseille University.

Specific conditions are thus necessary for the graft to take. What would the grafting process between Greek and Roman medicine be like when it comes to medical botany? At first glance, it seems that the Romans, most of whom were peasants, were better prepared for the introduction of Greek medical botany, or of more-or-less universal prescientific principles such as sympathy, antipathy, and signature, than to surgery, for example. This can also help to explain the diversity and contradictions in Pliny’s account of Greek medicine. In this study, we have tried to link the notion of grafting Greek and Roman medicine with research on analgesic and narcotic plants. We have decided to restrict ourselves to four plants whose significance has been proven in this medical field by a number of studies.1 These plants include one Papaveracea, viz. opium poppy, and three Solanaceae, viz. henbane, mandrake, and hound’s berry, which have filled witches’ baskets throughout history. The ancient opium poppy is our Papauer somniferum L. Pliny mentions this plant, describ- ing “two species of cultivated poppy,” which are the varieties we identify by the colour of their seeds (dark grey for black poppy; white for white poppy). The three other plants belong to the great family of the Solonaceae. Pliny also knows a female and a male mandrake which correspond to two species of the genus Mandragora L.—Mandragora autumnalis Spr. and Mandragora uernalis Bert. He describes four species of henbane, which have been identi- fied as various species of the genus Hyoscyamus L.,2 including white henbane (Hyoscyamus albus L.), black henbane (Hyoscyamus niger L.), and golden henbane (Hyoscyamus aureus L.). The case of the fourth plant is slightly more complex. The phytonym Strychnos actually designates hound’s berry (Solanum nigrum L.), which has been used, from Hippocrates onward, to soothe pain;3 but that name covers also other often toxic and sometimes soporific plants. Pliny identifies four species in the section devoted to Strychnos,4 and actually adds datura (Datura stramonium L.), bladder cherry (Physalis alkekengi L.) (the only one which is not actually toxic), and withania (Withania somnifera Dun.) to hound’s berry. According to Pliny, hound’s berry, opium poppy, henbane, and mandrake all have analgesic and/or narcotic properties. He explains that opium, a famous narcotic, is obtained from black poppy, while white poppy, drunk with wine, induces sleep.5 The sap of henbane cures ear pain and chewing its roots

1 E.g. Gourevitch (2001); Moisan (1990). 2 André (1985: 127) 3 Moisan (1990: 384–385). 4 Plin. Nat. 21.177–182. 5 Plin. Nat. 20.198–201.