BOOK XXIV. cviii. 170-CX111. 174 



fat— they add that the pig should be black and 

 barren — cures mange if the patients use it as embro- 

 cation in the sunshine. 



CIX. If the plants that sprout up inside a sieve 

 thrown away on a cross-path are plucked and used as 

 an amulet, they hasten the deHvery of lying-in women. 



CX. A plant growing on the top of country dung- 

 heaps is, if taken in water, a very efficacious remedy 

 for quinsies. 



CXI. A plant near which dogs make water, if 

 uprooted without the touch of iron, is a very quick 

 remedy for dislocations. 



CXII. In my account of vine-supporting trees 

 the tree called rumpotinus received a notice.* When 

 it does not support a vine there gi-ows near it a plant 

 called by the Gauls rodarum. It has a stem with 

 knots, hke a twig of a fig-tree ; the leaves are those 

 of a nettle, whitish in the centre, but in course of time 

 becoming red all over ; the blossom is silvery. If the 

 leaves are beaten up with old axle-grease, without 

 being touched by iron, they are a sovereign remedy 

 for tumours, inflammations and gatherings. After 

 being rubbed with it the patient spits to his right 

 three times. They say that the remedy is more 

 efficacious if three persons of difFerent nationahties 

 do the rubbing from left to right. 



CXIII. What is called the unfihal plant is of a ^^V'"' 

 hoary white, in appearance hke rosemary, clothed 

 with leaves hke a thyrsus and terminating in a head, 

 from which sprout up httle branches that also ter- 

 minate each in a httle head of its own. This is why 

 the plant has been called unfihal, because the 

 children out-top their parent. Others have thought 

 that it has been so named rather because no animal 



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