The Greeks have given the name of cytinus[3086] to the first germs of this tree when it is just beginning to blossom. These germs have a singular property, which has been remarked by many. If a person, after taking off everything that is fastened upon the body, his girdle, for instance, shoes, and even his ring, plucks one of them with two fingers of the left hand, the thumb, namely, and the fourth finger, and, after rubbing it gently round his eyes, puts it into his mouth and swallows[3087] it without letting it touch his teeth, he will experience, it is said, no malady of the eyes throughout all the year. These germs, dried and pounded, check the growth of fleshy excrescences; they are good also for the gums and teeth; and if the teeth are loose a decoction of the germs will strengthen them.
The young pomegranates[3088] themselves are beaten up and applied as a liniment to spreading or putrid sores; they are used also for inflammations of the eyes and intestines, and nearly all the purposes for which pomegranate-rind is used. They are remedial also for the stings of scorpions.
CHAP. 60.—BALAUSTIUM: TWELVE REMEDIES.
We cannot sufficiently admire the care and diligence displayed by the ancients, who, in their enquiries into every subject, have left nothing untried. Within the cytinus, before the pomegranate itself makes its appearance, there are diminutive flowers, the name given to which, as already[3089] stated, is “balaustium.”[3090] These blossoms, even, have not escaped their enquiries; it having been ascertained by them that they are an excellent remedy for stings inflicted by the scorpion. Taken in drink, they arrest the catamenia, and are curative of ulcers of the mouth, tonsillary glands, and uvula, as also of spitting of blood, derangement of the stomach and bowels, diseases of the generative organs, and running sores in all parts of the body.
The ancients also dried these blossoms, to try their efficacy in that state, and made the discovery that, pulverized, they cure patients suffering from dysentery when at the very point of death even, and that they arrest looseness of the bowels. They have not disdained, too, to make trial of the pips of the pomegranate: parched and then pounded, these pips are good for the stomach, sprinkled in the food or drink. To arrest looseness of the bowels, they are taken in rain-water. A decoction of the juices of the root, in doses of one victoriatus,[3091] exterminates tape-worm;[3092] and the root itself, boiled down in water to a thick consistency, is employed for the same purposes as lycium.[3093]
CHAP. 61.—THE WILD POMEGRANATE.
There is a tree, also, which is called the wild pomegranate,[3094] on account of its strong resemblance to the cultivated pomegranate. The roots of it have a red bark, which taken in wine in doses of one denarius, promotes sleep. The seed of it taken in drink is curative of dropsy. Gnats are kept at a distance by the smoke of burnt pomegranate rind.
CHAP. 62. (7.)—PEARS: TWELVE OBSERVATIONS UPON THEM.
All kinds of pears, as an aliment, are indigestible,[3095] to persons in robust health, even; but to invalids they are forbidden as rigidly as wine. Boiled, however, they are remarkably agreeable and wholesome, those of Crustumium[3096] in particular. All kinds of pears, too, boiled with honey, are wholesome to the stomach. Cataplasms of a resolvent nature are made with pears, and a decoction of them is used to disperse indurations. They are efficacious, also, in cases of poisoning[3097] by mushrooms and fungi, as much by reason of their heaviness, as by the neutralizing effects of their juice.
The wild pear ripens but very slowly. Cut in slices and hung in the air to dry, it arrests looseness of the bowels, an effect which is equally produced by a decoction of it taken in drink; in which case the leaves also are boiled up together with the fruit. The ashes of pear-tree wood are even more efficacious[3098] as an antidote to the poison of fungi.