"[Plin. Nat. 25.33.] - CLYMENUS: TWO REMEDIES.
Clymenus is a plant so called, after a certain king. It has leaves like those of ivy, numerous branches, and a hollow, jointed stem. The smell of it is powerful, and the seed like that of ivy: it grows in wild and mountainous localities. We shall have to state hereafter, of what maladies it is curative, taken in drink, but it is as well to take the present opportunity of remarking that, while effecting a cure, in the male sex it neutralizes the generative powers.
The Greeks speak of this plant as being similar to the plantago in appearance, with a square stem, and a seed in capsules, interlaced like the arms of the polypus. The juice of this plant, too, is used, being possessed of refreshing properties in a very high degree.”
(The Natural History. Pliny the Elder. John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S. H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A. London. Taylor and Francis, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street. 1855.)
"[Plin. Nat. 27.94.] - THE PERICLYMENOS: FIVE REMEDIES.
The periclymenos is also a shrub-like plant, with two whitish, soft, leaves, arranged at intervals. At the extremity, among the leaves, is the seed, hard, and very difficult to pluck. It grows in ploughed fields and hedges, entwining around every object from which it can gain support. The seed is dried in the shade, pounded, and divided into lozenges. These lozenges are left to dissolve, in three cyathi of white wine, for a period of thirty days, and are given for diseases of the spleen; the volume of which is gradually diminished either by discharges of bloody urine, or else by alvine evacuation, the effects of the medicament being perceptible at the end of ten days. The leaves, boiled, act as a diuretic, and are useful for hardness of breathing. Taken in drink, in manner above- mentioned, they facilitate delivery, and bring away the afterbirth. ”
(The Natural History. Pliny the Elder. John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S. H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A. London. Taylor and Francis, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street. 1855.)