BOOK XXVI. XXX. 47-.XXXI. 49 



toxicum. For they surround with pieces of wool strings 

 fastened across a bow,'' and drag it over the plant ; 

 to this wool adhere the dew-hke tufts of ladanum. 

 I have said more about the plant in my section on 

 unguents.^ This ladanum has a very strong smell 

 and is very hard to the touch. In fact a great deal 

 of earth sticks to it, while the most valucd kind is 

 clean, scented, soft, green and resinous. Its nature 

 is to soften, to diy, to mature abscesses, and to induce 

 sleep. It prevents the hair from falUng off, and 

 preserves its dark colour. It is poured into the 

 ears with hydromel or rose-oil. With the addition 

 of salt it cures scurf on the skin and running sores, 

 and chronic cough when taken with storax ; it is also 

 a very effective carminative. 



XXXI. Looseness of the bowels is checked too by ^/''^ <^'>'?- 

 chondris,also called pseudodictamnum. Hypocisthis, 

 called by some orobothron, which is like an unripe 

 pomegranate, grows as I have said «^ under the 

 cisthus, and from this fact derives its name.'' Either 

 kind of hypocisthis (there are two ; the white and the 

 red), dried in the shade and taken in dark-red, dry 

 wine, checks looseness of the bowels. The part used 

 is the juice, which braces and dries, and it is the red 

 kind that arrests better stomach catarrhs, spitting of 

 blood when three oboli are taken with starch in 

 drink, and dysentery when taken in drink or« 

 injected; similarly vervain given in water, or in ] 



Aminnean wine if there is no fever, the dose I 



being five spoonfuls added to three cyathi of 

 wine. 



between the two languages being idiomatic; at other times 

 (as here) there is a real ambiguity, and nobody can decide 

 whether et is equivalent to " and " or " or." 



