178 
Pliny's natttbal history. [Book XXVI. 
As to the juice, the moment the down begins to appear 
upon the fruit, the branches are broken oif and the juice of 
them is received upon either meal of fitches or else figs, and 
left to dry therewith. Five drops are as much as each fig 
ought to receive ; and the story is, that if a dropsical patient 
eats one of these figs he will have as many motions as the fig 
has received drops. While the juice is being collected, due 
care must be taken not to let it touch the eyes. From the leaver, 
pounded, a juice is also extracted, but not of so useful a 
nature as the other kind : a decoction, too, is made from the 
branches. 
The seed also is used, being boiled with honey and made up 
into purgative pills. These seeds are sometimes inserted in 
hollow teeth with wax : the teeth are rinsed too, with a de- 
coction of the root in wine or oil. The juice is used externally 
for lichens, and is taken internally both as an emetic and to 
promote alvine evacuation : in other respects, it is prejudicial to 
the stomach. Taken in drink, with the addition of salt, it car- 
ries off pituitous humours ; and in combination with saltpetre,^^* 
removes bile. In cases where it is desirable that it should purge 
by stool, it is taken with oxy crate, but where it is wanted 
to act as an emetic, with raisin wine or hydromel ; three oboli 
being a middling dose. The best method, however, of using it, 
is to eat the prepared figs above-mentioned, just after taking 
food. In taste, it is slightly burning to the throat ; indeed it 
is of so heating a nature, that, applied externally by itself, it 
raises blisters on the flesh, like those caused by the action of 
fire. Hence it is that it is sometimes employed as a cautery. 
CHAP. 40. -—THE TITHYMALOS MYRTITES, OE CAEYITES ; TWENTY- 
ONE REMEDIES. 
A second kind of tithymalos is called '* myrtites ^^^"^ by some 
persons, and caryites by others. It has leaves like those 
of myrtle, pointed and prickly, but with a softer surface, and 
grows, like the one already mentioned, in rugged soils. The 
tufted heads of it are gathered just as barley is beginning to 
swell in the ear, and, after being left for nine days in the shade, 
are thoroughly dried in the sun. The fruit does not ripen all at 
^ "Catapotia." " Aphronitrum.'* See B. xxx. cA6, 
®^ The Euphorbia myrsiuites of Liimujus. 
