ABSTRACT
The latex of Ficus is notable for the extent of its medical employment through the millennia. This will be summarized in the ethnographic table. However, according to Dioscorides and Pliny, the method of collection is to take the juice from branches of the wild g tree when they are sapful, before buds appear, by pounding and pressing. Juice is dried in the shade and stored. Traditional uses by indigenous peoples worldwide include external treatments for warts, boils, and dermatitis as well as external applications for rheumatic pain and ophthalmia (inammation of the eye; Lansky et al. 2008).
