206 
PLINT S KATUEAL HISTOET. 
[Book XIII. 
• treatment of some diseases. It is employed also for the cure 
of scald-head, and for the removal of black and blue spots 
upon the skin, as if, indeed, we were really at a loss for reme- 
dies in such cases, without having recourse to things of so 
deadly a nature. These plants, however, act their part in 
serving as a pretext for the introduction of noxious agents ; 
and so great is the effrontery now displayed, that people would 
absolute^ persuade one that poisons are a requisite adjunct to 
the practice of the medical art. 
The thapsia of Africa^"^ is the most powerful of all. Some 
persons make an incision in the stalk at harvest-time, and bore 
holes in the root, too, to let the juice flow ; after it has be- 
come quite dry, they take it away. Others, again, pound the 
leaves, stalk, and root in a mortar, and after drying the juice 
in the sun, divide it into lozenges. I^ero Caesar, at the be- 
ginning of his reign, conferred considerable celebrity on this 
plant. In his nocturnal skirmishes^^ it so happened that he 
received several contusions on the face, upon which he 
anointed it with a mixture composed of thapsia, frankincense, 
and wax, and so contrived the next day effectually to give the 
lie to all rumours, by appearing with a whole skin.^^ It is a 
well-known fact, that fire^^ is kept alight remarkably well in 
the hollow stalk of the ferula, and that for this purpose those 
of Egypt are the best. 
CHAP. 44, (23.) THE CAPPAEIS OE CYNOSEATON, OTHEEWISE 
OPHIOSTAPHYLE. 
In Egypt, too, the capparis^^ is found, a shrub with a wood 
'^'^ Either the Thapsia garganica of Willdenow, or the Thapsia villosa, 
found in Africa and the south of Europe, though, as PHny says, the 
thapsia of Europe is mild in its effects compared with that of Africa. It 
is common on the coast of Barbary. 
18 Pastillos. 1^ Nocturnis grassationihus. 
It is still used in Barbary for the cure of tetter and ringworm. 
21 The story was, that Prometheus, when he stole the heavenly fire from 
Jupiter, concealed it in a stalk of narthex. 
22 The " caper-tree," the Capparis spinosa of Linnaeus. Fee suggests 
that Pliny may possibly allude, in some of the features which he describes, 
to kinds less known ; such, for instance, as the Capparis inermis of Forsk- 
hal, found in Arabia ; the Capparis ovata of Desfontaines, found in Bar- 
bary ; the Capparis Sinaica, found on Mount Sinai, and remarkable for 
the size of its fruit ; and the Capparis -^gyptiaca of Lamarck, commonly 
found in Egypt. 
