46 PLINY'S NATURAL HISTORY. [Book XXIV. 



CHAP. 70. THE THORN CALLED APPENDIX : TWO REMEDIES. 



THE PTRACANTHA : ONE !RKMEDY. 



There is a thorn also known as the appendix ;"* that name 

 being given to the red berries which hang from its branches. 

 These berries eaten by themselves, raw, or else dried and 

 boiled in wine, arrest looseness of the bowels and dispel 

 griping pains in the stomach. The berries of the pyracantha 77 

 are taken in drink for wounds inflicted by serpents. 



CHAP. 71. THE PALITJRUS ! TEN REMEDIES. 



The paliurus, 78 too, is a kind of thorn. The seed of it, known 

 by the people of Africa as " zura," is extremely efficacious for 

 the sting of the scorpion, as also for urinary calculi and cough. 

 The leaves are of an astringent nature, and the root disperses 

 inflamed tumours, gatherings, and abscesses; taken in drink 

 it is diuretic in its effects. A decoction of it in wine arrests 

 diarrhoea, and neutralizes the venom of serpents : the root 

 more particularly is administered in wine. 



CHAP. 72. THE AGRIFOLIA. THE AQUIFOLIA I ONE EEMEDY. 



THE YEW I ONE PBOPERTY BELONGING TO IT. 



The agrifolia, 79 pounded, with the addition of salt, is good 

 for diseases of the joints, and the berries are used in cases of 

 excessive menstruation, coeliac affections, dysentery, and 

 cholera ; taken in wine, they act astringently upon the bowels. 

 A decoction of the root, applied externally, extracts foreign 

 bodies from the flesh, and is remarkably useful for sprains and 

 tumours. 



The tree called " aquifolia," planted 80 in a town or country- 



7 ? The Berberis vulgaris of Linnaeus, or barberry, Fee thinks. 



77 Identified by Fee with the Mespilus pyraeantha of Linnaeus, the 

 evergreen thorn. It receives its name probably from the redness of its 

 berries, which are the colour of fire. 



78 Fee considers this to be the Paliurus aculeatus of Decandolle, and not 

 identical with the Paliurus mentioned in B. xiii. c. 33. 



79 Fee thinks that the copyists have made a mistake in this passage, and 

 that the reading should be " aquifolia," the same plant that is mentioned 

 afterwards under that name. He identifies them with the Ilex aquifolium, 

 or holly. See B. xvi. cc. 8, 12, where Pliny evidently confounds the holm 

 oak with the holly. 



fl Dioscorides says, B, i. c. 119, "the branches of the rlmmnus^ it is 

 said, placed at the doors and windows, will avert the spells of sorcerers." 



