"[Plin. Nat. 22.8.] - THE ERYNGE OR ERYNGIUM.
In the first rank of the plants armed with prickles, the erynge or eryngion stands pre-eminent, a vegetable production held in high esteem as an antidote formed for the poison of serpents and all venomous substances. For stings and bites of this nature, the root is taken in wine in doses of one drachma, or if, as generally is the case, the wound is attended with fever, in water. It is employed also, in the form of a liniment,397 for wounds, and is found to be particularly efficacious for those inflicted by water-snakes or frogs. The physician Heraclides states it as his opinion that, boiled in goose-broth, it is a more valuable remedy than any other known, for aconite and other poisons. Apollodorus recommends that, in cases of poisoning, it should be boiled with a frog, and other authorities, in water only. It is a hardy plant, having much the appearance of a shrub, with prickly leaves and a jointed stem; it grows a cubit or more in height. Sometimes it is found of a whitish colour, and sometimes black, the root of it being odoriferous. It is cultivated in gardens, but it is frequently to be found growing spontaneously in rugged and craggy localities. It grows, too, on the sea-shore, in which case it is tougher and darker than usual, the leaf resembling that of parsley.”
(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. 22.9.] - THE ERYNGIUM, CALLED CENTUM CAPITA: THIRTY REMEDIES.
The white variety of the eryngium is known in our language as the “centum capita.” It has all the properties above-mentioned, and the Greeks employ both the stalk and the root as an article of food, either boiled or raw. There are some marvellous facts related in connexion with this plant; the root of it, it is said, bears a strong resemblance to the organs of either sex; it is but rarely found, but if a root resembling the male organs should happen to fall in the way of a man, it will ensure him woman’s love; hence it is that Phaon the Lesbian was so passionately beloved by Sappho. Upon this subject, too, there have been numerous other reveries, not only on the part of the Magi, but of Pythagorean philosophers even as well.
So far as its medicinal properties are concerned, in addition to those already mentioned, this plant, taken in hydromel, is good for flatulency, gripings of the bowels, diseases of the heart, stomach, liver, and thoracic organs, and, taken in oxycrate, for affections of the spleen. Mixed with hydromel, it is recommended also for diseases of the kidneys, strangury, opisthotony, spasms, lumbago, dropsy, epilepsy, suppression or excess of the catamenia, and all maladies of the uterus. Applied with honey, it extracts foreign substances from the body, and, with salted axle-grease and cerate, it disperses scrofulous sores, imposthumes of the parotid glands, inflamed tumours, denudations of the bones, and fractures. Taken before drinking, it prevents the fumes of wine from rising to the head, and it arrests looseness of the bowels. Some of our authors have recommended that this plant should be gathered at the period of the summer solstice, and that it should be applied, in combination with rain water, for all kinds of maladies of the neck. They say too, that, attached as an amulet to the person, it is a cure for albugo.”
(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.)