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MYROBALANS

Volume 14 · 132 words · 1815 Edition

a kind of medicinal fruit brought from the Indies, of which there are five kinds. 1. The citrine of a yellowish red colour, hard, oblong, and the size of an olive. 2. The black- or Indian myrobalan, of the bigness of an acorn, wrinkled and without a stone. 3. Chebulic myrobalans, which are of the size of a date, pointed at the end, and of a yellowish brown. 4. Emblie, which are round, rough, the size of gall, and of a dark brown. 5. Balleric, which are hard, round, of the size of an ordinary prune, less angular than the rest, and yellow. They are all slightly purgative and astringent. The word comes from the Greek *μυρον*, "ointment," and *βαλανης*, "acorn," as being in the form of acorns, and used in medicine.