The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 5 (of 6) — A Reader’s Guide

A Catalog of Trees and Their Virtues

Book XXIV proceeds tree by tree, from the lotus to the willow. Each chapter begins with the plant's name and a count of remedies: "The cypress: twenty-three remedies" or "The plane-tree: twenty-five remedies." This numbering is not merely decorative; it signals completeness and invites comparison. The remedies themselves are terse prescriptions: gall-nuts are good for "thirteen remedies," including uses for ulcers and fluxes. Pliny rarely explains why a particular tree works—he simply records the observed effect. The translator's notes occasionally identify the modern botanical name, but the text itself remains firmly in the realm of ancient empirical medicine.

What emerges is a portrait of a world where every plant has a purpose. The entries are not exhaustive in a modern scientific sense, but they are exhaustive within Pliny's framework: he has consulted earlier authorities (often named in the footnotes) and synthesized their findings. A reader leafing through these pages will notice the recurrence of certain ailments—headaches, eye diseases, skin conditions—and the variety of trees proposed for each. This repetition underscores the therapeutic optimism of the era.

Animal Ingredients and Unlikely Cures

Later chapters move beyond plants to animal-derived remedies. Chapter 46, for instance, treats diseases of the head and alopecia (hair loss). The prescriptions are striking: bears' grease mixed with ladanum and adiantum prevents hair from falling; goat's gall with Cimolian chalk and vinegar treats porrigo; the ashes of an ass's genitals, pounded in a leaden mortar with oil, are thought to thicken hair and prevent greying. Pliny includes these remedies without skepticism, though he occasionally hedges: "if we choose to believe it," he writes of a fox's male organs worn as an amulet for headache.

These passages reveal Pliny's willingness to incorporate folk practices and his reliance on analogy—the idea that a substance's appearance or origin suggests its use. The translator's footnotes sometimes express doubt, but the text itself presents a level playing field where bear grease and deer horn ashes are equally valid. For the modern reader, these chapters offer a window into ancient pharmacology's blend of observation, tradition, and credulity.

Eye Afflictions and the Logic of Sympathy

Chapter 47 focuses on eye diseases, a common category in ancient medicine. Here the remedies draw on animal products with particular specificity: beef suet boiled with oil for defluxions; wolf's excrements for cataract; bear's gall for epinyctis; an ass's hoof reduced to ashes with asses' milk for marks on the eyes. The logic is often sympathetic or analogical: the wolf, a keen-sighted predator, might confer its visual acuity; the ass's hoof, hard and durable, might strengthen the eye's crystalline humours.

Pliny does not argue for these connections; he simply lists them. The effect is cumulative: by the time a reader has worked through dozens of such entries, the underlying principle becomes clear—nature is a vast pharmacy, and every creature or plant has a hidden virtue waiting to be discovered. The translator's notes occasionally reference Dioscorides or other sources, but the text itself stands as a monument to ancient faith in the material world's healing power.

Structure and Strategy for a First Reading

This volume is not meant to be read straight through. Its structure—688 text sections, each a short entry—invites selective consultation. A first-time reader might begin by skimming the table of contents, which lists every tree and its remedy count, then dip into chapters that seem promising. The repetitive format means that any page offers a complete microcosm: a plant name, a list of ailments, and a set of instructions.

Pay attention to the footnotes, which often clarify obscure terms or identify plants that have since been reclassified. The translators, Bostock and Riley, provide a running commentary that bridges Pliny's world and the nineteenth-century reader's. For those interested in the history of medicine, the volume is a treasure of pre-scientific therapeutics; for readers of natural history, it is a catalog of the ancient Mediterranean's botanical and zoological knowledge, organized not by taxonomy but by utility.

Approach this volume as a reference work from a different era of knowledge-making. The remedies may seem bizarre, but the method—collecting, organizing, and transmitting observations—is recognizably scientific in its ambition. Pliny's voice is that of a compiler, not a critic; he records what he has read or heard, leaving judgment to the reader. The footnotes by Bostock and Riley provide a crucial counterpoint, gently separating fact from fancy. For the modern reader, the pleasure lies not in applying the cures but in tracing the contours of an ancient mind that saw the natural world as a web of hidden correspondences, waiting to be cataloged and used.

Pliny’s catalogue of tree-bark cures always felt like a forest murmuring to itself—each remedy a root holding up some unseen canopy. I find that same quiet kinship in My First Summer in the Sierra — Inside the Classic, where every granite ledge and pine shadow seems to breathe with its own ancient, patient knowing. They are shelf-companions, really.