CHAP. 74. THE CYNOSBATOS: THREE REMEDIES.
There is another kind of bramble also,298 which bears a rose. It produces a round excrescence,299 similar to a chesnut in appearance, which is remarkably valuable as a remedy for calculus. This is quite a different production from the “cynorrhoda,” which we shall have occasion to speak of in the succeeding Book.300
(14.) The cynosbatos301 is by some called “cynapanxis,”302 and by others “neurospastos;”303 the leaf resembles the human footstep in shape. It bears also a black grape, in the berries of which there is a nerve, to which it is indebted for its name of “neurospastos.” It is quite a different plant from the capparis304 or caper, to which medical men have also given the name of “cynosbatos.” The clusters305 of it, pickled in vinegar, are eaten as a remedy for diseases of the spleen, and flatulency: and the string found in the berries, chewed with Chian mastich, cleanses the mouth.
The rose306 of the bramble, mixed with axle-grease, is curative of alopecy: and the bramble-berries themselves, combined with oil of omphacium,307 stain308 the hair. The blossom of the bramble is gathered at harvest, and the white blossom, taken in wine, is an excellent remedy for pleurisy and cœliac affections. The root, boiled down to one third, arrests looseness of the bowels and hæmorrhage, and a decoction of it, used as a gargle, is good for the teeth: the juice too is employed as a fomentation for ulcers of the rectum and generative organs. The ashes of the root are curative of relaxations of the uvula.