Figs have long been valued for their laxative
properties. They are also regarded as aphrodisiacs which could lead to some
messy love-making. In ancient times, the very best of them were said to come
from Greece.
Amitrochates, the king of the
Indians, wrote to Antiochus [one of the Seleucid kings], entreating him to buy
and send him some sweet wine, and some dried figs, and a sophist; and that Antiochus
wrote to him in answer, “The dried figs and the sweet wine we will send you;
but it is not lawful for a sophist to be sold in Greece.”
(Athenaeus
– The Deipnosophists early 3rd
century CE)
The
Spanish Moors also praised the fig – although they recognised that eating too many
of them could have a very bad effect on the constitution.
Abu
Merwán Ibn Zohr was exceedingly fond of green figs, and used to eat
immoderately of them; Al-fár, on the contrary, never ate any, or if he did it
was only once a year: he used to say to Abu Merwán Ibn Zohr, whenever he saw
him eating that fruit, “If thou persist in eating green figs thou wilt soon be
attacked with a very bad na’lah,” a word meaning ‘an abscess’ in the language
of the Western people. In reply to this, Abu Merwán used to say to him, “if
thou do not eat figs thou wilt be subject to fever, and wilt at last die from a
constipation in the bowels.” Ibn Zohr’s words were prophetic; Al-fár died of
the disease which Ibn Zohr had announced to him. But the most extraordinary
thing was that Ibn Zohr himself died from an abscess in one of his sides. This
is, no doubt, the most remarkable instance of prophetic sagacity ever known of
two physicians.
(Ahmed ibn Mohammed Al-Makkari – History of the
Mohammedan Dynasties of Spain 1843)
Lois
Bourne, an occult writer and coven leader, recalls being liberally dosed with
syrup of figs as a child.
My mother had a positive mania for
regular bowel movements which she said was the basis of all good health, and
the doctor did nothing to discourage her by constantly asking to see my tongue
on his rare visits. This merely served to confirm her aberration to purge me
within an inch of my life. Even today I cannot view a bottle of syrup of figs
without wanting to heave, and my stomach contracts with spasmodic horror in
remembrance of the griping pains of yesteryear.
When many years later I asked her
with the benefit of some medical knowledge, “Did you ever read the label,
mother? – you were only supposed to dose me with two teaspoonfuls, not the
whole bottle!” I would berate her with my profound and newly-discovered
erudition about the dangers of the liberal use of purgatives, and she would
reply, “Nonsense, a good clean-out never did anyone any harm.”
(Lois Bourne – Witch Amongst Us
1979)
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