BOOK XXIII. Lxiii. i25-L.\iv. 128 



meal added remove warts and warty excrescences." 

 The ash of the bushy shoots from the root is a 

 suhstitute for zinc oxide.^ After two washings, with 

 white lead added it is worked into lozenges for the 

 treatment of ulcers and scabs on the eyes. 



LXIV. The wild fig is even niuch more efficacious ^^''''^^'gs- 

 than the fig ; a sprig of it also curdles milk into 

 cheese.<^ It has less milk in it than the cultivated fig. 

 This milk is collected and hardened by pressure, 

 when it is rubbed on meat to keep it sweet. Diluted 

 with vinegar it forms an ingredient of bHstering 

 preparations. It relaxes the bowels ; with starch it 

 opens the uterus ; with the yolk of egg it promotes 

 menstruation. With fenugreek meal it is applied to 

 gouty limbs. It clears up leprous sores, itch, lichen 

 and freckles, and similarly cures wounds made by 

 venomous creatures and dog bites. Applied on wool 

 this juice is also good for toothache, or hollow teeth 

 may be plugged. The tender stalks and leaves 

 mixed with vetches are a remedy for the poison of 

 marine animals ; wine also is added. Beef can be 

 boiled soft with a great saving of fuel if the stalks be 

 added to the water. An application of the unripe 

 figs soften and disperse scrofulous sores and every 

 kind of gathering ; to a certain degree the leaves 

 too do the same. The softest leaves with vinegar 

 heal running sores, epinyctis** and scurfy eruptions. 

 With honey the leaves cure honey-comb sores *■ and 



' Whatever the correct reading in this passage, this seems 

 to be the meaning of it. Mayhoffs transposition is almost 

 certainly right, but iji caseo can scarcely stand, unless " in 

 cheese maklng " be a possible rendering. 



^ For epinyctis see XX. § 44 and pp. viii-ix. 



« See § 119 note. 



499 



