CHAP. 41.—THE MYRICA, OTHERWISE CALLED TAMARICA, OR TAMARIX: THREE REMEDIES.
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 already185 stated, look upon this tree as ill-omened, because it bears no fruit, and is never propagated from seed.