BOOK XXIII. Lxiii. 123-125 



pleurisy and pneumonia. Boiled with rue figs are 

 good for colic ; with red copper oxide for sores on the 

 shins and for pai'otid swellings ; with pomegranate 

 for hangnails ; with wax for burns and chilblains ; 

 for dropsy they are boiled in wine with wormwood 

 and barley meal. If they are chewed with soda 

 added they relax the bowels ; beaten up with salt 

 they make a Hniment for scorpion stings. Boiled in 

 wine and appHed they bring carbuncles to a head. 

 In cases of carcinoma, if there be no ulceration, it is 

 almost specific to apply the richest fig possible, and 

 the same is true of corroding ulcers. The ash from 

 no other wood is more active as a cleanser, healer of 

 wounds, former of new flesh, and as an astringent. 

 It is also taken in drink to disperse blood that has 

 coagulated, and Ukewise for bruises, violent falls, 

 ruptures, and cramps, the dose being a cyathus to a 

 cyathus of oil and water respectively. It is given to 

 sufferers from tetanus and convulsions : in drink also 

 or in an injection for coeliac trouble and for dysentery. 

 With oil it makes an ointment which has warming 

 properties. Kneaded into a paste with wax and 

 rose oil it forms over burns the sHghtest of scars." 

 Made into a paste with oil it cures short sight, and 

 aihiients of the teeth if used frequently as a dentifrice. 

 It is said that, if anyone with upturned face draws 

 a fig tree down, and a knot of it be bitten otf with- 

 out anybody seeing, to tie this round the neck by 

 a string with a bag of fine leather and wear it as an 

 amulet disperses scrofulous sores and parotid 

 swellings. The crushed bark with oil heals ulcera- 

 tions of the belly. Raw green ^ figs with soda and 



' Grossi, in Greek oXvv9oi, were late figs that never 

 ripened. The word is both masculine and feminine. 



497 



