Chap. .53.] THE PALM. 495 



nourishing to the body. The ancients used to give a decoction 

 of them to patients, as a substitute for hydromel, with the view 

 of recruiting the strength and allaying thirst, the Thebaicdate 

 being held in preference for the purpose. Dates are very use- 

 ful, too, for persons troubled with spitting of blood, when taken 

 in the food more particularly. The dates called caryotse, 22 in 

 combination with quinces, wax, and saffron, are applied topi- 

 cally for affections of the stomach, bladder, abdomen, and in- 

 testines : they are good for bruises also. Date- stones, 23 burnt 

 in a new earthen vessel, produce an ash which, when rinsed, 

 is employed as a substitute for spodium, 24 and is used as an in- 

 gredient in eye-salves, and, with the addition of nard, in washes 

 for the eye-brows. 25 



CHAP. 52. (5.) THE PALM WHICH PRODUCES MYROBALANUM : 

 THKEE REMEDIES. 



Of the palm which produces myrobalanum, 26 the most 

 esteemed kind is that grown in Egypt ; 27 the dates of which, 

 unlike those of the other kinds, are without stones. Used with 

 astringent wine, they arrest 28 diarrhoea and the catamenia, and 

 promote the cicatrization of wounds. 



CIIAP. 53. THE PALM CALLED ELATE I SIXTEEN REMEDIES. 



The palm called " elate," 29 or " spathe," furnishes its buds, 

 leaves, and bark for medicinal purposes. The leaves are ap- 

 plied to the thoracic regions, stomach, and liver, and to spreading 

 ulcers, but they are adverse to cicatrization. The bark 30 of the 

 tree, while tender, mixed with wax and resin, heals itch-scab 

 in the course of twenty days : a decoction, also, is made of it 



22 See B. vi. c. 37, and B. xiii. c. 9. 



23 They have no properties, when burnt, to distinguish them from the 

 ashes of other vegetables. 



24 Impure metallic oxide. 25 " Calliblephara." 



26 See B. xii. cc. 46, 47. 



27 Fee is of opinion that this is not the " myrobalanum" of B. xii. c. 

 46, the behen or ben nut, but the phcenicobalanus of c. 47 in that Book ; 

 and, indeed, there can be little doubt that Pliny has committed an error 

 here in substituting one for the oiher. 



28 "Ciet," "promote," is the reading adopted by Sillig, but "sistit" 

 is supported by the parallel passage in Dioscorides. 



29 See B. xii. c. 62, and the Note, in reference to the mistake which 

 Pliny appears to have committed in reference to this term. 



30 In reality, it is quite inert. 



