48 PLINY'S NATURAL HISTOET. [Book XXIV. 



uterus, diseases of the rectum, and cceliac affections. The leaves, 

 chewed, are good for diseases of the mouth, and a topical ap- 

 plication is made of them for running ulcers and other maladies 

 of the head. In the cardiac disease they are similarly applied 

 to the left breast by themselves. They are applied topically 

 also for pains in the stomach and for procidence of the eyes. 

 The juice of them is used as an injection for the ears, and, in 

 combination with cerate of roses, it heals condylomata. 



A decoction of the young shoots in wine is an instantaneous 

 remedy for diseases of the uvula ; and eaten by themselves 

 like cymse, 90 or boiled in astringent wine, they strengthen 

 loose teeth. They arrest fluxes of the bowels also, and dis- 

 charges of blood, and are very useful for dysentery. Dried in 

 the shade and then burnt, the ashes of them are curative of 

 procidence of the uvula. The leaves too, dried and pounded, 

 are very useful, it is said, for ulcers upon beasts of burden. The 

 berries produced by this plant would seem to furnish a stomatice 91 

 superior even to that prepared from the cultivated mulberry. 

 Under this form, or else only with hypocisthis 91 * and honey, 

 the berries are administered for cholera, the cardiac disease, 

 and wounds inflicted by spiders. 92 



Among the medicaments known as " styptics," 92 * there is 

 none that is more efficacious than a decoction of the root of the 

 bramble in wine, boiled down to one third. Ulcerations of the 

 mouth and rectum are bathed with it, and fomentations of it 

 are used for a similar purpose ; indeed, it is so remarkably 

 powerful in its effects, that the very sponges which are used 

 become as hard as a stone. 93 



CHAP. 74. THE CYNOSBATOS: THBEE REMEDIES. 



There is another kind of bramble also, 94 which bears a rose. 

 It produces a round excrescence, 95 similar to a chesnut in 



90 Cabbage-sprouts. See B. xix. c. 41. 



91 Or " mouth-medicine." See B. xxiii. c. 71. 

 91 * See B. xxvi. cc. 31, 49, 87, and 90. 



92 Tfce spider called " phalangium " is meant, Fee says. See B.-xi. c. 28, 

 92 * Astringents. 93 "Lapidescunt." 



94 The eglantine. See B. xvi. c. 71. 



95 He alludes to " bedeguar," a fungous excrescence found on the wild 

 rose-tree, and produced by the insect known as the Cynips rosse. It is 

 somewhat rough on the exterior, like the outer coat of the chesnut. 



