The smilax[208] also, otherwise known as the “anthophoros,”[209] has a strong resemblance to ivy, but the leaves of it are smaller. A chaplet, they say, made of an uneven number of the leaves, is an effectual cure for head-ache. Some writers mention two kinds of smilax, one of which is all but perennial, and is found climbing the trees in umbrageous valleys, the berries hanging in clusters. These berries, they say, are remarkably efficacious for all kinds of poisons; so much so indeed, that infants to whom the juice of them has been habitually administered, are rendered proof against all poisons for the rest of their life. The other kind, it is said, manifests a predilection for cultivated localities, and is often found growing there; but as for medicinal properties, it has none. The former kind, they say, is the smilax, the wood of which we have mentioned[210] as emitting a sound, if held close to the ear. Another plant, similar to this, they call by the name of “clematis:”[211] it is found adhering to trees, and has a jointed stem. The leaves of it cleanse leprous[212] sores, and the seed acts as an aperient, taken in doses of one acetabulum, in one hemina of water, or in hydromel. A decoction of it is prescribed also for a similar purpose. CHAP. 50. (11.)—THE REED: NINETEEN REMEDIES. We have already[213] treated of twenty-nine varieties of the reed, and there is none of her productions in which that mighty power of Nature,[214] which in our successive Books we have described, is more fully displayed than in this. The root of the reed, pounded and applied to the part affected, extracts the prickles of fern from the body, the root of the fern having a similar effect upon splinters of the reed. Among the numerous varieties which we have described, the scented reed[215] which is grown in Judæa and Syria as an ingredient in our unguents, boiled with hay-grass or parsley-seed, has a diuretic effect: employed as a pessary, it acts as an emmenagogue. Taken in drink, in doses of two oboli, it is curative of convulsions, diseases of the liver and kidneys, and dropsy. Used as a fumigation, and with resin, more particularly, it is good for coughs, and a decoction of it with myrrh is useful for scaly eruptions and running ulcers. A juice, too, is collected from it which has similar properties to those of elaterium.[216]