The seed, in combination with saltpetre and vinegar, removes lichens and freckles; mixed with honey, it heals ulcers and eruptions of the mouth; applied with butter and vine-leaves, it reduces swellings of the testes; used with water, as a linment, it cures chaps of the rectum; and employed with salt, nitre, and wax, it is good for sprains. The seed and leaves are used as ingredients also in emollient plasters for diseases of the sinews, and for gout; and a decoction of the seed in oil is employed as a fomentation for the head in cases of phrenitis and lethargy. Persons[172] who carry a sprig of this plant in the hand, or stuck in the girdle, will be proof, it is said, against chafing between the thighs. CHAP. 39.—THE ERICA; ONE REMEDY. The Greeks give the name of “erice,”[173] to a shrub that is but little different from the myrice.[174] It has the colour, and very nearly the leaf, of rosemary. It neutralizes[175] the venom of serpents, it is said. CHAP. 40.—THE BROOM; FIVE REMEDIES. The broom is used for making withes;[176] the flowers of it are greatly sought by bees. I have my doubts whether this is not the same plant that the Greek writers have called “sparton,” and of which, in those parts of the world, as I have already[177] stated, they are in the habit of making fishing-nets. I doubt also whether Homer[178] has alluded to this plant, when he speaks of the seams of the ships,—“the sparta” coming asunder; for it is certain that in those times the spartum[179] of Spain or Africa was not as yet in use, and that vessels made of materials sown together, were united by the agency, not of spartum, but of flax. The seed of the plant to which the Greeks now give the name of “sparton,” grows in pods like those of the kidney-bean. It is as strongly drastic[180] as hellebore, and is usually taken fasting, in doses of one drachma and a half, in four cyathi of hydromel. The branches also, with the foliage, are macerated for several days in vinegar, and are then beaten up, the infusion being recommended for sciatica, in doses of one cyathus. Some persons think it a better plan, however, to make an infusion of them in sea-water, and to inject it as a clyster. The juice of them is used also as a friction for sciatica, with the addition of oil. Some medical men, too, make use of the seed for strangury. Broom, bruised with axle-grease, is a cure for diseases of the knees. CHAP. 41.—THE MYRICA, OTHERWISE CALLED TAMARICA, OR TAMARIX: THREE REMEDIES.