114 
pliny's natueal bistort. 
[Book XII. 
Mount Pelion ; this last kind is much used for the purpose 
of adulterating the medicament above mentioned. The root 
of the asphodel, ox-gall, wormwood, sumach, and the amurca 
of olive oil, are also employed for a similar purpose. The best 
lycion for medicinal purposes, is that which has a froth on its 
surface ; the Indians send it to us in leather bottles, made of 
the skin of the camel or the rhinoceros. The shrub itself is 
known by some persons in Greece under the name of the 
Chironian pyxacanthus.^^ 
CHAP. 16. (8.) — MACm. 
Macir,'^"^ too, is a vegetable substance that is brought from 
India, being a red bark that grows upon a large root, and bears 
the name of the tree that produces it ; what the nature of this 
tree is, I have not been able to ascertain. A decoction of this 
bark, mixed with honey, is greatly employed in medicine, as a 
specific for dysentery. 
CHAP. 17. STJGAK. 
Arabia, too, produces sugar ; ^® but that of India is the most 
esteemed. This substance is a kind of honey, which collects 
Fee suggests that tliis may possibly be the Lycium Europseum of 
Linngeus, a shrub not uncommonly found in the south of Europe. 
56 The Ehamnus Lycioides of Linnseus, known to us as buckthorn. The 
berries of many varieties of the Ehamnus are violent purgatives. 
"What he means under this head is not known. Fee speaks of a tree 
which the Brahmins call macro, and which the Portuguese called arvore 
de las camaras, arvore sancto, arvore de sancto Thome, but of which they 
have given no further particulars. Acosta, Clusius, and Bauhin have also 
professed to give accounts of it, but they do not lead to its identification. 
De Jussieu thinks that either the Soulamea, the Bex amaroris of Bumphius, 
or else the Polycardia of Commerson is meant. It seems by no means im- 
possible that mace, the covering of the nutmeg, is the substance alluded to, 
an opinion that is supported by Gerard and Desfontaines. 
Saccharon." Fee suggests that Pliny alludes to a peculiar kind 
of crystallized sugar, that is found in the bamboo cane, though, at 
tlio same time, he thinks it not improbable that he may have heard of 
tiie genuine sugar-cane ; as Strabo, B. xv., speaks of a honey found in 
India, prepared without the aid of bees, and Lucan has the line — • 
" Quique bibunt tenera dulces ab arundine succos," 
evidently referring to a sugar in the form of a syrup, and not of crystal, 
like that of the Bambos arundinacea. It is by no means improbable, that 
Pliny, or rather Dioscorides, from whom he copies, confuses the two kinds 
of sugar; as it is well known that the Saccharum officinarum, or sugar- 
cane, has been cultivated from a very early period in Arabia Felix. 
