458 PLINY'S NATURAL HISTORY. [Book XXIII. 



it is I that produce for him the flowing wine and the trickling 

 oil, it is I that ripen the date and other fruits in numbers so 

 varied ; and all this, riot insisting, like the earth, on their pur- 

 chase at the cost of fatigues arid labours. No necessity do I 

 create for ploughing with the aid of oxen, for heating out 

 upon the threshing-floor, or for bruising under the millstone, 

 and all in order that man may earn his food at some indefinite 

 time by this vast expenditure of toil. As for me, all my gifts 

 are presented to him ready prepared : for no anxieties or 

 fatigues do they call, but, on the contrary, they offer them- 

 selves spontaneously, and even fall to the ground, if man 

 should be too indolent to reach them as they hang." Vying 

 even with herself, Pomona has done still more for our prac- 

 tical advantage than for the mere gratification of our pleasures 

 and caprices. 



CHAP. 3. THE LEAYES AND SHOOTS OF THE YINE I SEVEN 

 REMEDIES. 



4 The leaves and shoots of the vine, employed with polenta, 

 allay head-ache and reduce inflammations : 5 the leaves, too, 

 applied by themselves with cold water, are good for burning 

 pains in the stomach ; and, used with barley- meal, are excel- 

 lent applications for diseases of the joints. The shoots, beaten 

 up and applied, have the property of drying up all kinds of 

 running tumours, and the juice extracted from them is used 

 as an injection for the cure of dysentery. The tears of the 

 vine, which would appear to be a sort of gum, will heal le- 

 prous sores, lichens, and itch-scabs, if treated first "with nitre : 

 used with oil, and applied frequently to superfluous hairs, they 

 act as a depilatory, those more particularly which exude from 

 the vine when burnt in a green state : this last liquid has the 

 effect, too, of removing warts. An infusion of the shoots in 

 water, taken in drink, is good for persons troubled with spitting 

 of blood, and for the fainting fits which sometimes ensue upon 

 conception. 



4 All this passage is found in Dioscorides, B. v. c. 1, who probably 

 borrowed it from the same sources as our author. 



5 Fee remarks, that all the statements here made as to the medicinal 

 properties of the vine are entirely unfounded, except that with reference 

 to the bark of the vine : as it contains a small quantity of tannin, it might 

 possibly, in certain cases, arrest haemorrhage. 



