Lenæus says, that the myrice,[181] otherwise known as the “erica,” is a similar plant to that of which brooms are made at Ameria.[182] He states also that, boiled in wine and then beaten up and applied with honey, it heals carcinomatous sores. I would here remark, parenthetically, that some persons identify it with the tamarice. Be this as it may, it is particularly useful for affections of the spleen, the juice of it being extracted for the purpose, and taken in wine; indeed so marvellous, they say, is its antipathy to this part of the viscera, and this only, that if swine drink from troughs made of this wood,[183] they will be found to lose the spleen. Hence it is that in maladies of the spleen victuals and drink are given to the patient in vessels made of this wood. A medical author too, of high repute,[184] has asserted that a sprig broken from off this tree, without being allowed to touch the earth or iron, will allay pains in the bowels, if applied to the body, and kept close to it by the clothes and girdle. The common people, as already[185] stated, look upon this tree as ill-omened, because it bears no fruit, and is never propagated from seed. CHAP. 42.—THE BRYA: TWENTY-NINE REMEDIES. At Corinth, and in the vicinity of that city, the Greeks give the name of “brya”[186] to a plant of which there are two varieties; the wild brya,[187] which is altogether barren, and the cultivated one.[188] This last, when found in Syria and Egypt, produces a ligneous fruit, somewhat larger than a gall-nut, in great abundance, and of an acrid flavour; medical men employ it as a substitute for galls in the compositions known as “antheræ.”[189] The wood also, with the blossoms, leaves, and bark of the tree, is used for similar purposes, but their properties are not so strongly developed. The bark is pounded also, and given for[190] discharges of blood from the mouth, irregularities of the catamenia, and cœliac affections: beaten up and applied to the part affected, it checks the increase of all kinds of abscesses.