508 ' pltnt's natural nisTORT. [Eook XXIir. 



"wholesome to the stomach, though its bad effects are little 

 more than momentary. 



CHAP. 67. PEACHES : TWO REMEDIES. 



Peaches, again, are more wholesome than plums ; and the 

 same is the case with the juice of the fruit, extracted, and 

 taken in either wine or vinegar. Indeed, what known fruit 

 is there that is more wholesome as an aliment than this ? 

 There is none, in fact, that has a less powerful smell, ^^ or a 

 greater abundance of juice, though it has a tendency to create 

 thirst. ^^ The leaves of it, beaten up and applied topically, 

 arrest haemorrhage : the kernels, mixed with oil and vinegar, 

 are used as a liniment for head-ache. ^^ 



CHAP. 68. WILD PLUMS : TWO REMEDIES. 



The fruit of the wild plum, or the bark of the root,^^ boiled 

 down to one-third in one hemina of astringent wine, arrests 

 looseness of the bowels and griping pains in the stomach : 

 the proper dose of the decoction is one cyathus. 



CHAP. 69. THE LICHEN ON PLUM-TREES : TWO REMEDIES. 



Upon the bark of the wild and cultivated plums we find an 

 excrescence' growing, known to the Greeks by the name of 

 *' lichen :" it is remarkably good for chaps and condjdomatous 

 swellings. 



CHAP. 70. MULBERRIES : THIRTY-NINE REMEDIES. 



In Egypt and in the Isle of Cyprus there are, as already 



^ A most singular assertion, as Fee says, and one that universal expe- 

 rience proves to be unfounded. 



^' On the contrary, it quenches thirst. 



98 Fee thinks that, owing to the hydro-cyanic acid which the kernels 

 contain, there may possibly be some foundation for this statement of their 

 curative effects. 



99 Both the root and the finiit are of an astringent nature. From this 

 fruit an extract is prepared, Fee says, rich in tannin, and called in Franco 

 Acacia nostras, from its resemblance to the juice of the Egyptian Acacia. 



^ " Limus." Fee thinks that this may possibly be the Evernia prunastri 

 of modern botany. It has been suggested, however, that Pliny has com- 

 mitted an error here, and tliat in copying from the Greek source he has 

 mistaken the author's mention of tlie cure of lichens by the gum of the 

 plum-tree, for an account of a lichen which grows on the tree. Such, in 

 fact, is the statement of Dioscorides in Jj. i. c. 174, though he does not 

 mention chaps and condylomata. 



