36 pliny's natural history. [Book XXIV. 



mighty power of Nature/^ which in our successive Books we 

 have described, is more fully displayed than in this. The 

 root of the reed; pounded and applied to the part affected, 

 extracts the prickles of fern from the body, the root of the 

 fern having a similar effect upon splinters of the refed. Among 

 the numerous varieties which we have described, the scented 

 reed^* which is grown in Judaea and Syria as an ingredient in 

 our unguents, boiled with hay-grass or parsley-seed, has a 

 diuretic effect : employed as a pessary, it acts as an emmena- 

 gogue. Taken in drink, in doses of two oboli, it is curative 

 of convulsions, diseases of the liver and kidneys, and dropsy. 

 Used as a fumigation, and with resin more particularly, it is 

 good for coughs, and a decoction of it with myrrh is useful for 

 scaly eruptions and running ulcers. A juice, too, is collected 

 from it which has similar properties to those of elaterium.^^ 



In every kind of reed the part that is the most efficacious is 

 that which lies nearest the root ; the joints also are efficacious 

 in a high degree. The ashes of the Cyprian reed known as 

 the *'donax,'*^' are curative of alopecy and putrid ulcers. 

 The leaves of it are also used for the extractions^ of pointed 

 bodies from the flesh, and for erysipelas and all kinds of 

 gatherings. The common reed, beaten up quite fresh, has 

 also considerable extractive powers, and not in the root only, 

 for the stem, it is said, has a similar property. The root is 

 used also in vinegar as a topical application for sprains and 

 for pains in the spine ; and beaten up fresh and taken in wine it 

 acts as an aphrodisiac. The down that grows on reeds, put 

 into the ears, deadens the hearing. ^^ 



CHAP. 51. THE PAPYRUS, AND THE PAPER MADE FROM IT: 



THREE REMEDIES. 



Of a kindred nature with the reed is the papyrus ^^ of 

 Egypt; a plant that is remarkably useful, in a dried state, for 



^2 Sympathies and antipathies existing in plants. Seec. 1 of this Book. 



'^ Not a reed, Fee thinks, but some other monocotyledon that has not 

 been identified. See B, xii. c 48. 



^* See B. XX. c. 3. is gge B. xvi. c. 66. 



IS Celsus also speaks of the root of the reed as being eflBcacious for this 

 purpose, B. v. c. 26. 



" Fee says that neither of these last assertions is true. 



s^ See B. xiii. c. 21. It is no longer used in medicine. 



