Chap. 36.] OLIVES. 485 



perties. The young branches are burnt when just beginning 

 to blossom, and of the ashes a substitute for spodium*^ 13 

 made, upon which wine is poured, and it is then burnt afresh. 

 To suppurations and inflamed tumours these ashes are applied, or 

 else the leaves, beaten up with honey ; for the eyes, they are 

 used with polenta. The juice which exudes" from the wood, 

 when burnt in a green state, heals lichens, scaly eruptions, and 

 running ulcers. 



As to the juice ^ which exudes naturally from the olive- 

 tree, and more particularly that of Ethiopia, we cannot be 

 sufficiently surpiised that authors should have been found to 

 recommend it as an application for tooth- ache, and to tell us 

 at the same time that it is a poison, and even that we must 

 have recourse to the wild olive for it. The bark of tlie roots 

 of the olive, as young and tender a tree as possible being 

 selected, scraped and taken every now and then in honey, is 

 good ^ for patients suffering from spitting of blood and puru- 

 lent expectorations. The ashes of the tree itself, mixed with 

 axl^-grease, are useful for the cure of tumours, and heal 

 fistulas by the extraction of the vicious humours which they 

 contain. 



CHAP. 36. — WHITE OLIVES : FOUR ee:u:edies. black olives : 



THKEE EEMEDIES. 



"WTiite olives are wholesome for the upper regions of the 

 stomach, but not so good for the bowels. Eaten by themselves, 

 habitually as a diet, quite fresh and before they are pre- 

 served, they are remarkably serviceable, having the effect of 

 curing gravel, ^^ and of strengthening the teeth when worn or 

 loosened by the use of meat. 



51 Impure metallic oxide. See B. xix. c. 4, and B. xxxiv. c. 52. The 

 ashes of the branches would be an impure sub-carbonate of potass, which 

 would act, Fee says, as a powerful irritant. 



52 A sort of pyroligneous acid, which would have the noxious eflFect of 

 throwing inward the eruptions. 



53 This juice or tear (lacrima) Fee thinks to be the same with tbe En- 

 hsemon, mentioned in B, xii. c. 38 ; the properties of which are quite in- 

 active, though Dioscorides, B. i. c. 139, speaks of it as a poison. 



5i Probably in consequence of the tannin and galHc acid, which it con- 

 tains in great abundance. 



55 Fee says that all these statements as to the medicinal properties of 

 olives are false. 



