,

"[Plin. Nat. 21.81.] - TWENTY REMEDIES DERIVED FROM SAFFRON.
Saffron does not blend well with honey, or, indeed, with any sweet substance, though very readily with wine or water: it is extremely useful in medicine, and is generally kept in horn boxes. Applied with egg it disperses all kinds of inflammation, those of the eyes in particular: it is employed also for hysterical suffocations, and for ulcerations of the stomach, chest, kidneys, liver, lungs, and bladder. It is particularly useful also in cases of inflammation of those parts, and for cough and pleurisy. It likewise removes itching sensations, and acts as a diuretic. Persons who have used the precaution of first taking saffron in drink will never experience surfeit or head-ache, and will be proof against inebriation. Chaplets too, made of saffron, and worn on the head, tend to dispel the fumes of wine. The flower of it is employed topically with Cimolian chalk for erysipelas. It is used also in the composition of numerous other medicaments."

"[Plin. Nat. 21.82.] - SYRIAN CROCOMAGNA: TWO REMEDIES.
There is also an eye-salve which is indebted to this plant for its name. The lees of the extract of saffron, employed in the saffron unguent known as “crocomagma,” have their own peculiar utility in cases of cataract and strangury. These lees are of a more warming nature than saffron itself; the best kind is that which, when put into the mouth, stains the teeth and saliva the colour of saffron."
(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.)