“2 
539 ORD. XXVIII. Pomacee. = PRuNUS DOMESTICA, 
grew in the neighbourhood of Damascus,’ and hence a variety of 
this fruit is still known by the name of Prunadamascena. Accord- 
ing to Pliny,* the tree was brought from Syria into Greece, and 
from thence into Italy, where its fruit is repeatedly noticed by 
the Latin poet.‘ 
All our garden plums are eaten at table, and when sufficiently 
ripe, and taken in a moderate quantity, prove a pleasant and 
wholesome food. Butin an immature state, they are more liable. 
to produce colicky pains, diarrhea, or cholera, than any other 
fruit of this class; some attention to this circumstance is therefore 
_ always necessary. Considered medicinally, they are emollient, 
cooling, and laxative, especially the French prunes, which are 
imported here in their dried state from Marseilles; and though 
the laxative power of ihese is diminished by drying, yet it is 
observed by Dr. Cullen, that as they contain a great deal of the 
acid which they originally had, they have more effect in this way 
than the other dried fruits.* They are found to be peculiarly 
useful in costive habits, and are frequently ordered in decoction 
with senna or other purgatives. It is the pulp of this fruit which 
is directed in the Electuarium é Senna, or Lenitive electuary. 
4 See Dioscerides, (Lid. #. cap. 1. 174.) by whom the tree is called Seely, 
and the fruit Koxxyrra. 
* Hist. Nat. L. xv. cap. 13. 
* It is also thus mentioned by Ovid: 
Prunaque, non solum nigro liventia succo, 
Verum etiam generosa, noyasque imitantia ceras. 
Mer. Lid. xiii. v. 818. 
© Mat. Med. vol. i. p. 254. 
ey. srsesabonitemmnialgamns 
