BOOK XXIII. Lxviii. 133-LXX. 135 



LXVIII. As for vvild plums, their fruit or the skin wudpiums. 

 of their root, boiled down in dry wine from one 

 hemina to one third, checks looseness of the bowels 

 and colic. A cyathus of the decoction at a tinie 

 makes a sufficient dose. 



LXIX. Both on wild and on cultivated plum trees 

 there forms a gummy substance called Uchen by the 

 Greeks and wonderfulh beneficial for chaps and 

 condylomata. 



LXX. In Egypt and in Cyprus are mulberries of a Muiberries 

 unique sort. as I have already said.'' If the outer ^^^^' 

 rind be peeled off they stream with copious juice; a 

 deeper cut (so wonderful is their nature) finds them 

 dry.** The juice counteracts the poison of snakes, is 

 good for dysentery, disperses superficial abscesses 

 and all kinds of gatherings, heals wounds, and allays 

 headache and ear-ache. For diseases of the spleen 

 it is taken by the mouth and used as a Hniment, as 

 also for violent chills. It very quickly breeds 

 worms. We Romans use the juice quite as much. 

 Taken in wine it neutrahzes aconite and the poison 

 of spiders ; it opens the bowels, expelling phlegm, 

 tapeworm and similar intestinal parasites. The 

 same effect also is produced by the pounded bai*k. 

 The leaves boiled in rain water together with the 

 bark of the dark fig and of the vine dye the hair. 

 The juice of the fruit itself moves the bowels 

 immediately ; the fruit itself is for the time being 

 good for the stomach, being cooUng, though thirst- 

 producing, and if no other food is taken afterwards, 

 it swells up. The juice of unripe mulberries is 

 constipating ; there are marvels to be noticed about 

 this tree, mentioned by me in my description <^ of it, 

 which suggest that it has some sort of soul. 



505 



