178 PLINY's NATURAL niSTOET. [Book XXVI. 



As to the juice, the moment the down begins to appear 

 upon the fruit, the branches are broken off and the juice of 

 them is received upon either meal of fitches or else figs, and 

 left to dry therewith. Five drops are as much as each fig 

 ought to receive ; and the story is, that if a dropsical patient 

 eats one of these figs he will have as many motions as the fig 

 has received drops. While the juice is being collected, due 

 care must be taken not to let it touch the eyes. From the leaves, 

 pounded, a juice is also extracted, but not of so useful a 

 nature as the other kind : a decoction, too, is made from the 

 branches. 



The seed also is used, being boiled with honey and made up 

 into purgative ^^ pills. These seeds are sometimes inserted in 

 hollow teeth with wax : the teeth are rinsed too, with a de- 

 coction of the root in wine or oil. The juice is used externally 

 for lichens, and is taken internally both as an emetic and to 

 promote alvine evacuation : in. other respects, it is prejudicial to 

 the stomach. Taken in drink, with the addition of salt, it car- 

 ries off pituitous humours ; and in combination with saltpetre,^^ 

 removes bile. In cases where it is desirable that it should purge 

 by stool, it is taken with oxycrate, but where it is wanted 

 to act as an emetic, with raisin wine or hydromel ; three oboli 

 being a middling dose. The best method, however, of using it, 

 is to eat the prepared figs above-mentioned, just after taking 

 food. In taste, it is slightly burning to the throat ; indeed it 

 is of so heating a nature, that, applied externally by itself, it 

 raises blisters on the flesh, like those caused by the action of 

 fire. Hence it is that it is sometimes employed as a cautery. 



CHAP. 40. — THE TITHYMALOS MYRTITES, OE CAEYITES ; TWENTY- 

 ONE KEMEDIES. 



A second kind of tithymalos is called " myrtites "^' by some 

 persons, and '* caryites " by others. It has leaves like those 

 of myrtle, pointed and prickly, but with a softer surface, and 

 grows, like the one already mentioned, in rugged soils. The 

 tufted heads of it are gathered just as barley is beginning to 

 swell in the ear, and, after being left for nine days in the shade, 

 are thoroughly dried in the sun. The fruit does not ripen all at 



*s "Catapotia." ^^' "Aphronitrum." See B. xxx. c.46, 



^' The Euphorbia myrsiuites of Liim^us. 



