24 PLINY'S NATURAL HISTORY. [Book XXIV. 



tender leaves, mixed with polenta, for bites inflicted by dogs. 

 The juice of the elder, used as a fomentation, reduces abscesses 

 of the brain, and more particularly of the membrane which 

 envelopes that organ. The berries, which have not so power- 

 ful an action as the other parts of the tree, stain the hair. 

 Taken in doses of one acetabulum, in drink, they are diuretic. 

 The softer leaves are eaten with oil and salt, to carry off 

 pituitous and bilious secretions. 



The smaller kind is for all these purposes the more efficacious 

 of the two. A decoction of the root in wine, taken in doses 

 of two cyathi, brings away the water in dropsy, and acts 

 emolliently upon the uterus : the same effects are produced 

 also by a sitting-bath made of a decoction of the leaves. 

 The tender shoots of the cultivated kind, boiled in a saucepan 

 and eaten as food, have a purgative effect : the leaves taken in 

 wine, neutralize the venom of serpents. An application of 

 the young shoots, mixed with he-goat suet, is remarkably good 

 for gout ; and if they are macerated in water, the infusion will 

 destroy fleas. If a decoction of the leaves is sprinkled about 

 a place, it will exterminate flies. " Boa " 61 is the name given 

 to a malady which appears in the form of red pimples upon 

 the body ; for its cure the patient is scourged with a branch of 

 elder. The inner bark, 62 pounded and taken with white wine, 

 relaxes the bowels. 



CHAP. 36. THE JUNIPEK I TWEXTY-ONE REMEDIES. 



The juniper is of a warming and resolvent nature beyond 

 all other plants : in other respects, it resembles the cedar. 53 

 There are two species of this tree, also, one of which is larger 54 

 than the other : 55 the odour of either, burnt, repels the ap- 



61 According to Hardouin, this would appear to be the measles ; but ac- 

 cording to Festus, swellings on the legs were so called. The shingles is 

 probably the malady meant. 



62 Fee speaks of a decoction of the inner bark as having been recently 

 in vogue for the cure of dropsy. 



53 This so-called cedar, Fee says, is in reality itself a juniper. The medici- 

 nal properties of all the varieties of the juniper are not identical. Theessen- 

 tial oil of the leaves acts with a formidable energy upon the human system. 



54 This is identified by Fee with the Juniperus communis of Lamarck, 

 variety a, the Juniperus communis of Linnaeus. 



55 Identified by Fee with the Juniperus nana of Willdenow, the Juni- 

 perus communis of Lamarck, variety /3. The Spanish juniper, mentioned 

 in H. xvi. c. 76, he identifies with the Juniperus thurifera of Linnaeus. 



