Mala, _Apples_; a common property of all apples is that of an excrementitious and cold juice, but those which are dissolved and watery are colder and more humid than the others. The sweet are watery, but not sensibly cold. Those which are austere are colder than the sweet, but less humid. Those which are acid are also cold, and cut the thick humours in the stomach. The sour, such as _Quinces_, and that species of them called _Struthia_, are of a cold and terrene temperament, and, on that account, prove astringent of the belly, and agglutinative of wounds. Thus the leaves, juices, and barks of trees differ from one another. * * * * * COMMENTARY. By _Mala_, as Macrobius states, the ancients understood all kinds of fruit which have their hard part or kernel in the middle, and their esculent part without. (Saturnalia, iii, 19.) The malum cydonium is undoubtedly the _Quince_. The _Struthia_ is a species of it. See Dioscorides (i, 160); Pliny (H. N. xv, 10); Casiri (Bibl. Arab. Hisp. i, 329.) These, namely, the _Struthia_, according to Harduin, are the same as our _Pear-quince_; it is an astringent, stomachic fruit. There is more difficulty in determining for certain what the Malum Persicum was. Stackhouse makes it to be the _Citrus aurantium_, or _Orange_, but we are disposed to think that the evidence preponderates in favour of the opinion of Matthiolus, R. Stephens, and Harduin, who held that it is the _Peach_ (_Amygdalus Persica_.) That species, or rather variety, which Pliny calls _Duracina_, was probably the _Nectarine_, as Harduin suggests. The Malum Armeniacum, or præcocia, was undoubtedly the _Apricot_. See Harduin in Plin. H. N. (xv, 31); Casiri (Bibl. Arab. Hisp. i, 330); and Gesner (Lex. Rust.) Contrary to the opinion of the etymologists, we have long thought that the English name is a corruption of the Latin _præcocia_. See, however, Loudon (Encyc. of Garden. 806.) We have given their characters as articles of food in the First Book. As to their medicinal powers, little need be added to our author’s account of them, as it agrees entirely with that of the other authorities. See in particular, Dioscorides (i, 160, 166); Galen (De Simpl. vii); Avicenna (ii, 2, 562.) Galen makes mention of the quince and pear-quince as being preserved with honey. He recommends the leaves, the juice, and the rind of apple trees in general, as being possessed of acid and austere qualities, and thus agglutinating wounds, restraining the defluxions of incipient inflammations, and strengthening the stomach and bowels when they have lost their tone. Dioscorides and, afterwards more fully, Avicenna state that the immoderate use of fruit is flatulent, and superinduces nervous debility. Dioscorides describes accurately the mode of preparing a wine from quinces, which, he says, is possessed of the same medicinal powers as the parts of the quince. He also makes mention of an ointment prepared from it.