Cbap. 35.] 
THE ELDEE. 
23 
bring them to a head the same, too, is the effect produced by 
the inner bark. 
Many persons are of opinion that the bark of this tree, 
chewed, is a very useful application for wounds, and that the 
leaves, bruised and moistened with water, are good for gout. 
The moisture too that exudes from the pith of the tree, 
as already^^ stated, on an incision being made, applied 
to the head, causes the hair to grow and prevents it from 
falling off. 
CHAP. 34. THE LINDEN-TREE : FIVE EEMEDIES. 
The linden-tree^^ is useful, though in a less marked degree, 
for nearly all the same purposes as the wild olive. The leaves, 
however, are the only part that is made use of for ulcers upon 
infants ; chewed, too, or employed in the form of a decoction, 
they are diuretic. Used as a liniment they arrest menstruation 
when in excess, and an infusion of them, taken in drink, carries 
off superfluous blood. 
CHAP. 35. THE elder: fifteen REMEDIES. 
There are two kinds of elder, one of which grows wild and 
is much smaller than the other ; by the Greeks it is known as 
the chamaeacte,'' or helion."^^ A decoction of the leaves,** 
seed, or root of either kind, taken in doses of two cyathi, in 
old wine, though bad for the upper regions of the stomach, 
carries off all aqueous humours by stool. This decoction is 
very cooling too for inflammations, those attendant upon recent 
burns in particular. A poultice is made also of the more 
" Extrahuntque per fistulas." 
47 111 B. xYi. c. 74. 
See B. xvi. c. 25. The blossoms of the linden-tree are the only part 
of it employed in modern medicine. Fee thinks, with Hardouin, that 
Pliny has here attributed to the linden, or Philyra of the Greeks, the pro- 
perties wliich in reality were supposed to belong to the Pbillyrea latifolia, 
a sljrub resembling the wild olive. Dioscorides, in his description of its 
properties, has not fallen into the same error. 
" Ground elder " or " marsh elder the Sambucus ebulus of Lin- 
naeus, or dwarf elder. The other kind mentioned by Pliny is the Sambu- 
cus nigra of Linnseus, or black elder. 
Fee says that though some of the assertions as to its medicinal pro- 
perties made by Pliny are unfounded, it is still an opinion among the 
moderns that the leaves of the elder are purgative, the inner bark an 
emetic and hydragogue, the berries laxative, and the flowers emollient. 
