40 plii^ty's NATTJEAL HISTOET. [Book XXXII. 



rock-fish in general, as they are destitute 6f all rankness and 

 are free from fat. The proper way of cooking them is with 

 dill, parsley, coriander, and leeks, with the addition of oil and 

 salt. Stale cybium,^^ too, acts as a purgative, and is particularly 

 useful for carrying off crudities, pituitous humours, and bile. 

 The myax^'^ is of a purgative nature, a shell-fish of which 

 we shall take this opportunity of giving the natural his- 

 tory at length. These fish collect together in masses, like the 

 murex,^^ and are found in spots covered with sea-weed. They 

 are the finest eating in autumn, and are found in the greatest 

 perfection in places where fresh-water streams discharge them- 

 selves into the sea ; for which reason it is that those of Egypt 

 are held in such high esteem. As the winter advances, they 

 contract a bitter flavour, and assume a reddish hue. The 

 liquor of these fish, it is said, acts as a purgative upon the 

 bowels and bladder, has a detergent efi'ect upon the intestines, 

 acts aperiently upon all the passages, purges the kidneys, and 

 diminishes the blood and adipose secretions. Hence it is that 

 these shell-fish are found of the greatest use for the treatment 

 of dropsy, for the regulation of the catamenia, and for the re- 

 moval of jaundice, all diseases of the joints, and flatulency. 

 They are very good, also, for the reduction of obesity, for 

 diseases of the bile and of the pituitous secretions, for affec- 

 tions of the lungs, liver, and spleen, and for rheumatic de- 

 fluxions. The only inconvenience resulting from them is, that 

 they irritate the throat and impede the articulation. They 

 have, also, a healing eff*ect upon ulcers of a serpiginous nature, 

 or which stand in need of detergents, as also upon carcinoma- 

 tous sores. Calcined, the same way as the murex, and em- 

 ployed with honey, they are curative of bites inflicted either 

 by dogs or human beings, and of leprous spots or freckles. The 

 ashes of them, rinsed, are good for the removal of films upon 

 the eyes, granulations of those organs and indurations of the 

 membrane, as also for diseases of the gums and teeth, and for 

 pituitous eruptions. They serve, also, as an antidote to doryc- 

 nium^^ and to opocarpathon.^^ 



56 Sliced tunny. See E. ix. c. 18. 



" A genus which comprises the " myes," mentioned in B. ix. c. 56, 

 according to Dalechamps. 



=3 See B. ix. c. 60. 59 See B. xxi. c. 105. 



«o See B. xxviii. c. 45, and Chapter 20 of the present Book. 



