Hippocrates (5th century B.C.) regarded nigella sativa which he referred to as as a valuable remedy in hepatic and digestive disorders. In the first century it was used extensively by Pliny the elder in his “NaturalisHistoria” (Natural History) who referred to it as “Git”.
His list of remedies include the treatment of snakebites and scorpion stings, calosites, old tumours, abscesses, and skin rashes. A series of remedies against colds and inflammations in the area of the head are recommended (which appeared almost unchanged in the large German medicinal plant encyclopedias of the 16th to 18th centuries).
A short time later it was used by the Greek physician Dioscoredes, who described the plant clearly under the name of melanthion in his 5-volume pharmacology “De MateriaMedica” which was used as a reference for healing with herbs into the Middle Ages, he used black cumin seed to treat headaches, nasal congestion, toothache and intestinal parasites.