Silver and Gold Magazine Fall 2014 | Page 31

Menthol: Nature’s Pain Reliever In Natural History, published 77-79 AD, Pliny the Elder identified over 60 medicinal applications for mint. Chewed and applied topically, he reported that mint leaves were useful as a remedy for elephantiasis, lumbago, gout, scrofula, headache, all eruptions of the head, and maladies of the rectum. He claimed that the smell alone reanimated the spirits and, if bound into a crown around the head, it stimulated the mind and soul. As a juice, it prevented the recurrence of lascivious drea