BOOK XXIII. V. 8-vi. lo 



V. Closely related to omphacium is oenanthe, a oenamhe. 

 product of the wild vine ; I have spoken about it in 



my account of unguents." The most popular is to be 

 found in Syria, in particular from the white vine 

 around the mountains of Antioch and Laodicea. 

 It is cooling and astringent. is sprinkled on wounds 

 and applied to the stomach, being also useful as a 

 diuretic, for pains in the liver or head, for dysentery, 

 coeliac affections and cholera ; for nausea a dose of 

 one obolus is taken in vinegar. It dries up running 

 eruptions on the head, and being very efficacious for 

 affections in moist parts of the body is used with 

 honey and saffron for sores in the mouth and for 

 complaints of the genitals and anus. It checks 

 looseness of the bowels, heals scabrous eyelids and 

 running eyes ; taken in wine it cures a disordered 

 stomach, and in cold water the spitting of blood. Its 

 ash is valued for eye-salves, and for cleansing sores, 

 also for whitlows and pterygia.'' It is burned in 

 an oven until a loaf would be thoroughly cooked. 

 Massaris is produced only for use in perfumes, and 

 all such preparations have been made famous by the 

 greed of the human spirit in its haste to seize them 

 before the proper season. 



VI. Of the grapes left to ripen, the dark have the oj grapts. 

 stronger properties, and so the wine made from them 



is less agreeable ; the white are the more pleasant, 

 because air passes more readily through what is trans- 

 parent. When fresh they disturb the stomach, and, 

 by causing flatulence, the bowels. Accordingly for 

 fever patients they are disapproved of, at any rate " 

 in large quantities ; for they cause heaviness in the 

 head and the disease called lethargus.'' Less 

 injurious are those which after being gathered have 



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