[152] Fée says that though some of the assertions as to its medicinal properties 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.
[153] According to Hardouin, this would appear to be the measles; but according to Festus, swellings on the legs were so called. The shingles is probably the malady meant.
[154] Fée speaks of a decoction of the inner bark as having been recently in vogue for the cure of dropsy.
[155] This so-called cedar, Fée says, is in reality itself a juniper. The medicinal properties of all the varieties of the juniper are not identical. The essential oil of the leaves acts with a formidable energy upon the human system.
[156] This is identified by Fée with the Juniperus communis of Lamarck, variety α, the Juniperus communis of Linnæus.
[157] Identified by Fée with the Juniperus nana of Willdenow, the Juniperus communis of Lamarck, variety β. The Spanish juniper, mentioned in B. xvi. c. 76, he identifies with the Juniperus thurifera of Linnæus.
[158] Virgil says this of the fumes of the cedar, Georg. III. 414; an additional proof, Fée says, that under the name of “cedrus,” the juniper was really meant. The smoke of the juniper is not known to have the effect upon serpents here described.
[159] The berries of the juniper contain sugar, mucilage, and a small proportion of essential oil; a rob is prepared from them, Fée says, under the line of “extract of juniper.”
[160] It is a well-known fact, that juniper berries are diuretic; they impart also to the urine the odour of the violet, a property which is equally possessed by turpentine. All the other properties here attributed to the juniper, are, in Fée’s opinion, either hypothetical or absurd.
[161] See B. xvi. c. 68.