BOOK XXXV. Lii. 187-190 



clean hot coals till it is reduced to ash. The hesf^ 

 of all kinds is that called Melos alum, after the 

 island of that name, as \ve said ; no other kind has a § 184. 

 greater power of acting as an astringent, giving a 

 black stain and hardening, and none other has a closer 

 consistency. It removes granulations of the eyes, 

 and is still more efficacious in arresting defluxions 

 when calcined, and in that state also it is applied to 

 itchings on the body. Taken as a draft or applied 

 externally it also arrests haemorrhage. It is applied 

 in vinegar to parts from which the hair has been 

 removed and changes into soft down the hair that 

 grows in its place. The chief property of ali kinds 

 of alum is their astringent effect, which gives it its 

 name ^ in Greek. This makes them extremely 

 suitable for eye troubles, and effective in arresting 

 haemorrhage. Mixed with lard it checks the spread 

 of putrid ulcers — so applied it also dries ulcers in 

 infants and eruptions in cases of dropsy — and, mixed 

 with pomegranate juice, it checks ear troubles and 

 malformations of the nails and hardening of scars, 

 and flesh growing over the nails, and chilblains. 

 Calcined with vinegar or gallnuts to an equal weight 

 it heals gangrenous ulcers, and, if mixed with cabbage 

 juice, pruritus, or if with twice the quantity of salt, 

 serpiginous eruptions, and if thoroughly mixed with 

 water, it kills eggs of lice and other insects that 

 infest the hair. Used in the same way it is also 

 good for burns, and mixed with watery fluid from 

 vegetable pitch for scurf on the body. It is also 

 used as an injection for dysentery, and taken in the 

 mouth it reduces sweUings of the uvula and tonsils. 

 It must be understood that for all the purposes 

 which we have mentioned in the case of the other 



401 

 VOL. IX. O 



