30 pltny's natural history. [Book XXIV. 



in maladies of the spleen victuals and drink are given to the 

 patient in vessels made of this wood. 



A medical author too, of high repute,®^ has asserted that a 

 sprig broken from off this tree, without being allowed to touch 

 the earth or iron, will allay pains in the bowels, if applied to 

 the body, and kept close to it by the clothes and girdle. The 

 common people, as already^^ stated, look upon this tree as ill- 

 omened, because it bears no fruit, and is never propagated 

 from seed. 



CHAP. 42. THE BETA *. TWENTY-NINE REMEDIES. 



At Corinth, and in the vicinity of that city, the Greeks give" 

 the name of " brya"^^ to a plant of which there are two 

 varieties ; the wild brya,^^ which is altogether barren, and the 

 cultivated one.^'' This last, when found in Syria and Egypt, 

 produces a ligneous fruit, somewhat larger than a gall-nut, in 

 great abundance, and of an acrid flavour ; medical men emploj* 

 it as a substitute for galls in the compositions known as 

 ** antherae."^'^ The wood also, with the blossoms, leaves, and 

 bark of the tree, is used for similar purposes, but their pro- 

 perties are not so strongly developed. The bark is pounded 

 also, and given for^^ discharges of blood from the mouth, irre- 

 gularities of the catamenia, and coeliac affections : beaten up 

 and applied to the part affected, it checks the increase of all 

 kinds of abscesses. 



The juice too is extracted from the leaves for similar pur- 

 poses, and a decoction is made of them in wine ; they are ap- 

 plied also to gangrenes, in combination with honey. A de- 

 coction of them taken in wine, or the leaves themselves ap- 

 plied with oil of roses and wax, has a sedative effect : it is in 

 this form that they are used for the cure of epinyctis. This 

 decoction is useful also for tooth-ache or ear-ache, and the root 



^ " Gravis." He does not, however, show his gravity in the present in- 

 stance. ^^ In B. xvi. c. 45. 



s* See B. xiii. c. 37. 



"5 Identified by Fee with the Tamarix Gallica. 



^ The " brya," spoken of in B. xiii. c. 37, as growing in Achaia also, 

 the Taraarix orientalis of Delille. But there he iiuplios that it does not 

 produce any fruit when it grows in Egypt. 



^■^ '' Flower compositions," 



3'' It may possibly be of some use for this purpose, being of an astrin- 

 geut nature. 



