Chap. 47.] THE IVY. 33 



head, and the mouth is fomented with a decoction of them, -with 

 which the head is rubbed as well. They are useful also for 

 the spleen, the leaves being applied topically, or an infusion 

 of them taken in drink. A decoction of them is used for 

 cold shiverings in fevers, and for pituitous eruptions ; or else 

 they are beaten up in wine for the purpose. The umbels too, 

 taken in drink or applied externally, are good for affections of 

 the spleen, and an application of them is useful for the liver ; 

 employed as a pessary, they act as an emmenagogue. 



The juice of the ivy, the white cultivated kind more par- 

 ticularly, cures diseases of the nostrils and removes habitually 

 offensive smells. Injected into the nostrils it purges the head, 

 and with the addition of nitre it is still more efficacious for that 

 purpose. In combination with oil, the juice is injected for 

 suppurations or pains in the ears. It is a corrective also of the 

 deformities of scars. The juice of white ivy, heated with the 

 aid of iron, is still more efficacious for affections of the spleen; 

 it will be found sufficient, however, to take six of the berries in 

 two cyathi of wine. Three berries of the white ivy, taken in 

 4 oxymel, expel tape-worm, and in the treatment of such cases 

 it is a good plan to apply them to the abdomen as well. 

 Erasistratus prescribes twenty of the golden-coloured berries of 

 the ivy which we have-mentioned as the " chrysocarpos," 98 to be 

 beaten up in one sextarius of wine, and he says that if three 

 cyathi of this preparation are taken for dropsy, it will carry off 

 by urine the water that has been secreted beneath the skin. 

 For cases of tooth-ache he recommends five berries of the 

 chrysocarpos to be beaten up in oil of roses, and warmed in a 

 pomegranate-rind, and then injected into the ear opposite the 

 side affected. The berries which yield a juice of a saffron 

 colour, taken beforehand in drink, are a preservative against 

 crapulence ; they are curative also of spitting of blood and of 

 griping pains in the bowels. The whiter umbels of the black 

 ivy, taken in drink, are productive of sterility, in males even. 

 A decoction in wine of any kind of ivy is useful as a liniment 

 for all sorts of ulcers, those even of the malignant kind known 

 as " cacoethes." The tears" which distil from the ivy are used 



98 " Golden fruit." See B. xvi. c. 62. 



99 The same substance which he speaks of at the end of this Chapter as 

 the gum of ivy, called " hederine," Fee says, in modern chemistry. It 

 is a gum resin, mixed with ligneous particles. 



VOL. V. 7) 



