BOOK XXIII. Lxxxi. 160-163 



juice and wax salve, and this is also used for tlie 

 vvounds of venomous spiders. The juice also darkens 

 the hair. The oil frora the same myrtle is milder 

 than the juice, and so aiso is myrtle wine, which 

 never intoxicates. When fully matured the wine 

 settles the bowels and the stomach, cures colic and 

 dispels squeamishness. The dried leaves, powdered 

 and dusted over the body, check perspiration even 

 in fever ; it is useful also for coeliac trouble, prolapse 

 of the uterus, affections of the anus, running sores, 

 as a fomentation for erysipelas, for loss of hair, scaly 

 eruptions, other eruptions also, and burns. The 

 powder forms an ingredient in the plasters called 

 liparae (emollient), for the same reason as the oil also 

 is which is made from the leaves, for it is a very 

 efficient appHcation to the moist parts of the body, 

 the mouth for instance and the uterus. The 

 pounded leaves themselves are taken in wine as an 

 antidote to the poison of tree-fungi, and moreover 

 mixed with wax are used for diseases of the joints 

 and for gatherings. A decoction of them in wine is 

 prescribed to be taken by sufFerers from dysentery 

 and dropsy. They are dried to a powder which is 

 dusted on sores and haemorrhages. They clear 

 awav freckles also, hangnails, whitlows, sores on the 

 eyelid," condyloniata, affections of the testicles, 

 otfensive sores, and also, with wax salve, burns. For 

 pus in the ears they use both the burnt leaves and the 

 juice as well as the decoction. The leaves are also 

 burnt to atford material for antidotes ; stalks too, 

 plucked when in flower, are burnt in a fvn^nace in a 

 newly-made clay pot with the lid on and then pounded 

 in wine.** The ashes too of the leaves cure burns. 

 If from a sore there be a swelling in the groin, it is a 



525 



