BOOK XXIV. xLix. 82-84 



XLIX. The plant called cissos erythranos by the Piants lUe 

 Greeks is Uke ivy. Taken in wine it is good for '^' 

 sciatica and lumbago ; so strong is the property 

 of the berry that it brings away blood in the urine. 

 Chamaecissos again is the name they give to an ivy 

 that never rises from the ground. This too crushed 

 in wine and taken in doses of an acetabulum cures 

 splenic trouble ; the leaves with axle-grease are 

 applied to bm-ns. The milax also, which has the 

 further name of anthophoros (flower-bearer), has a 

 Ukeness to the ivy, though the leaves are more slender. 

 A chaplet of it made with an odd number of leaves is 

 said to be a cure for headache. Some authorities have 

 declared that there are two kinds of milax. One is 

 very nearly everlasting, grows in shaded valleys, is a 

 cUmberof treesjbearsberriesin luxuriant clusters,and 

 is most efficacious against all poisonous things to such 

 a degree that, if the juice of the berries is repeatedly 

 administered " in drops to babies, no poison will here- 

 after do them anv harm. The other kind is said to be 

 fond of cultivated ground and to grow there, having 

 no medicinal value. The former milax they state to 

 be the one the wood of which, we said,** gives out a 

 sound when placed close to the ear. Like it is the 

 plant that some have called clematis,'^ which cUmbs 

 along trees and is itself jointed. Its leaves cleanse 

 leprous sores ; its seed loosens the bowels if an 

 acetabulum of it is taken in a hemina of water or in 

 hydromel. A decoction of it is administered for the 

 same purpose. 



" Instillato is difficult. The verb is often used of dropping 

 into the ears, and that may be the meaning here, but aurihus 

 would be expeeted. Perhaps Pliny wrote infantium auribus, 

 which might easily be " telescoped " into injantibus. 



* See XVI. § 155. "" See Index of Plants. 



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