716 GRD: XLI. Scabride. FICUS CARICA: 
er by means of an oven: the latter way is preferred, especially 
when the fruit has been caprified, as the larva of the cynips is 
destroyed by the heat. The best figs are imported from the 
southern parts of Europe in small chests, and are compressed into 
a circular form, of a yellowish colour, and filled with a viscid sweet 
pulp, in which are lodged numerous small yellow lenticular seeds, 
The surface of the Figs is commonly covered with a saccharine 
matter, which exudes from the fruit, and hence they have been 
named Carice pingues, or fat Figs. | 
| The recent fruit, completely ripe, is soft, succulent, and easily 
digested, unless eaten in immoderate quantities; when it is apt to 
occasion flatulency, pain of the bowels, and diarrhoea.< The dried 
fruit is pleasanter to the taste, and is more wholesome and nutri- 
tive. Figs are supposed to be more nutritious, by having their 
sugar united with a large portion of mucilaginous matter, which, 
from being thought to be of an oily nature, has been long 
esteemed an-useful demulcent and pectoral ; and it is chiefly with 
a view to these effects that they have been médicinally employed. 
Figs are directed by the London Pharm. in the decoctum hordei 
compositum, and in the electuarium lenitivum., Externally ap- 
plied they are supposed to promote the suppuration of tumours, 
and hence have a place in maturating cataplasms; with this inten- 
tion they are also sometimes used by themselves, as warm as they 
can easily be borne, to phlegmons of the gums, and othér parts 
where a poultice cannot conveniently be applied. 
© Murray, App. Med. vol. iv. p. 585. 
