BOOK XXIII. Lxiv. 128-LXV. 131 



fresh dog bites, with wine corrodiiig sores, and 

 vvith poppy leaves they extract splinters of bone. 

 VVild figs when green disperse flatulence by 

 fumigation " — taken in drink they are an antidote to 

 bulls' blood that has been swallowed, to vvhite lead 

 and to curdled milk — and boiled dovvn in vvater they 

 disperse vvhen used as a liniment sores of the parotid 

 glands. The young stalks or green fruit of tlie vvild 

 fig, plucked when as small as possible, are taken in 

 vvine to counteract scorpion stings. The milk, too, is 

 poured into a wound and the leaves are applied to it, 

 and the same treatment is employed for the bite of 

 the shrew-mouse. The ash of the young shoots 

 soothes a sore uvula ; the ash of the tree itself applied 

 in honey cures chaps, and the root boiled dovvn in 

 vvine cures toothache. The vvinter wikl fig, boiled 

 in vincgar and beaten up, clears up eczema. The 

 branches vvith the bark removed are scraped to pro- 

 duce particles as fine as sawdust, which are used as 

 an appUcation. The wild fig too * has one miraculous 

 medicinal property attributed to it ; if a boy not yet 

 adolescent break off a branch and tears off with his 

 teeth its bark swollen vvith sap, the mere pith tied 

 on as an amulet before sunrise keeps away, it is said, 

 scrofulous sores. The wild fig, if a bi*anch be put 

 round the neck of a bull, however fierce, by its 

 miraculous nature so subdues the animal as to make 

 him incapable of movement. 



LXV. A plant too, called erinos by the Greeks, Ennos. 

 must be described here because of the kinship <^ of 

 its name. It is a span high, and generally has five 

 «mall stalks ; it resembles basil, vvith a vvhite flower 



'^ That is, to the name of the wild fig (eptvedy, epivos, wild 

 5g-tree, and epivos, a kind of basil). 



