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Beans

Fava or Faba

Quintus Serenus Samonicus, was the Roman author of a didactic medical poem in the 2^nd century containing a number of popular remedies that were much used in the Middle Ages. These included faba beans cooked in wine for tumors of the testes.

Similarly Scribonius Largus recommended faba beans boiled in vinegar for testicular tumors. Marcellus Empiricus referred to the beans with pods for tumors of the genitals.

Paulus Aegineta, the 7^th century Byzantine Greek physician, is best known for writing a medical encyclopedia in several books. He refers to faba beans for the treatment of tumors.

The Leechbook of Bald is an Anglo Saxon compendium written about 900 AD. It contains local folk remedies as well as citations from classical works and refers to faba beans for the treatment of hard tumors or swellings.

Odo, the bishop of Meung is an 11^th century physician who based his writings on classical authors. He mentions Faba beans for parotid tumors.

Lentils

Scribonius Largus suggested cooked lentils for intestinal cancer. Pliny the Elder mentions lentil beans for tumors and indurations. Similarly, Theodorus Priscianus refers to lentil beans for glandular tumors.

The lentil bean was cooked to treat tumors on the outer part of the ear according to Oribasius, the Greek encyclopaedist and healer and friend and doctor to the emperor Julian.

Ibn al-Baitar described the whole lentil plant being boiled in vinegar for indurated glands and hard tumors.

The Codex Sangallensis, a 9th century German manuscript on various subjects, discusses the whole lentil plant boiled in water to treat tumors of the genitals.

Similarly, Walafrid Strabo, the abbot of Reichenau in the 9^th century, is the earliest medical writer on German soil. He also describes the whole lentil plant being boiled in water for tumors of the mouth.

Lentil seeds boiled in vinegar was used for indurations and tumors of the eyes, according to the Herbal of Rufinus, a 14^th century Bolognese physican.

Dodoens, the Flemish physician and botanist mentions lentils being made into a poultice to treat cancer as does William Coles, (1626 – 1662) the writer of “Adam in Eden”, a book of practical information about “those more wholesome Herbs and Plants that he hath growing at his own doore which are more consonant and proper for his body.” He omits “those Outlandish Plants and Ingredients which are almost if not altogether impossible to be obtained.”

Nicholas Culpepper, the 17^th century English botanist, herbalist, physician and astrologer wrote the Complete Herbal in 1653 in London. He describes lentils boiled in water for cancers.

Lentils ingested in form of ghees or powders were used for abdominal tumors in India according to the Charaka-Samhita, published in Calcutta by Corinthian Press, 1888 – 1909.