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Headword: *(elle/boron
Adler number: epsilon,771
Translated headword: hellebore
Vetting Status: high
Translation:
A kind of plant remedy,[1] that which amongst doctors is called karpin.[2]
Greek Original:
*(elle/boron: ei)=dos bota/nhs farma/kou, to\ para\ toi=s i)atroi=s karpi\n lego/menon.
Notes:
The headword is in the accusative case, evidently quoted from somewhere.
cf. epsilon 770; both entries derive from the scholia to Demosthenes 18.121.
[1] This probably refers to the black hellebore, Helleborus niger L (see web address 1), or its other form H. officinalis (setter-wort, Christmas herb/flower, melampode, in Greek also melanorizon). Spread all over Italy, in Greece probably H. orientalis and H. cyclophyllum. The hellebore is a well-known abortifacient used by Greek and Roman doctors: see e.g. Theophrastus, Enquiry into Plants 9.10.1; Hippocrates, Diseases of Women 2.126; Dioscorides 4.148 and 4. 162; see also Riddle 1992, p. 34. The plant has a complicated chemical composition of various glycosides and is of course poisonous -- indeed one of the four classic poisons. There are also a green and a white hellebore (Veratrum album, - in North America V.viride, Indian poke: web address 2).
[2] Perhaps to be read as karpion, a diminutive of karpos, which is also (LSJ s.v.) a vulgar name for hellebore; however, the form karpin is attested (in ps.-Herodian and elsewhere).
Reference:
John Riddle, Contraception and abortion from the ancient world to the middle ages. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard U.P. 1992
Associated internet addresses:
Web address 1,
Web address 2
Keywords: botany; children; definition; dialects, grammar, and etymology; gender and sexuality; medicine; women
Translated by: Carl Widstrand on 6 February 2000@15:04:17.
Vetted by:
Catharine Roth (cosmetics, keywords) on 30 January 2002@21:38:39.
David Whitehead (added note) on 31 January 2002@03:12:40.
Catharine Roth (substituted web addresses) on 4 September 2002@00:57:15.
David Whitehead (another note and keyword; tweaks and cosmetics) on 18 September 2009@08:52:53.
David Whitehead (tweaking) on 12 August 2012@08:24:44.
Catharine Roth (tweaked note, deleted a link) on 16 November 2013@00:01:33.
Catharine Roth (tweaks) on 25 November 2014@23:36:45.
David Whitehead (typo) on 16 December 2015@03:01:26.
Catharine Roth (coding) on 17 March 2022@00:43:56.

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