Fig

Statema, B. C. P.

Plant

Fig

Ficus

Known today as: Ficus carica.
Kind: Plant, in 2 older authorities
Constituents: ficin, psoralen and bergapten, fibre and sugars
Poisoning: Phytophotodermatitis
Earliest authority here: Isaiah
In other databases: Plants of the World Online search · GBIF search · Wikidata search

Revised October 1, 2026: Lore added from texts read in full. Version 1, first published September 25, 2026.

Fig: what was it used for?

Figs ripen boils and soften the chest; in antidotes with rue and walnuts.

Fig: what does modern science say?

A mild laxative food.

Pharmacognosy & Toxicology

Constituents

ficina cysteine protease of the latex
psoralen and bergaptenfuranocoumarins of the leaf and sap
fibre and sugarsin the fruit

Mechanism

The latex’s ficin digests protein, which softens a boil’s head and removes warts; the fruit’s fibre and sorbitol are a mild laxative. The leaf and sap are strongly phototoxic, and fig-leaf burns are a yearly summer injury.

Toxic dose

The fruit is a food; the latex blisters the skin, above all in sun.

Syndrome

Phytophotodermatitis

Standing

A food; the dried fruit was in the lenitive electuary of the London Pharmacopoeia; the leaf has no approved use.

Bollero, D., et al. (2001). “Fig leaf tanning lotion and sun-related burns: case reports.” Burns 27. Verified against its record · doi:10.1016/s0305-4179(01)00033-x
Lansky, E. P., et al. (2008). “Ficus spp. (fig): ethnobotany and potential as anticancer and anti-inflammatory agents.” Journal of Ethnopharmacology 119. Verified against its record · doi:10.1016/j.jep.2008.06.025

The abstract of each source, beneath its citation. For Club members. About the Club or sign in.

Constituent names open the compound’s record at PubChem, and “ChEMBL” beside a name opens its record at ChEMBL, the European Bioinformatics Institute’s database of bioactive molecules. Where a mechanism line was checked against ChEMBL (ChEMBL 37, read 1 October 2026), the check is shown with the measured value and its source paper, or says plainly that nothing has been measured. Doses are as the references give them, for description only; this is not medical advice. Each source carries the result of its check against Crossref, PubMed, or the authority’s page: see Verification.

What Medicine Makes of It

Charming the WartThe toad, the bean, and the natural history of warts.

Fig: what lore surrounds it?

Folkard gives the fig to Bacchus, “often represented as crowned with Fig-leaves,” whose female votaries at Athens “wore round their necks collars composed of dried Figs,” and to Rome's Ficus ruminalis, the wild fig “upon the roots of which stranded the cradle containing the infants Romulus and Remus.” Yet “the Romans considered the Fig a tree at once impure and ill-omened,” and the Arval priests, when a fig sprang up on the roof of the temple of the goddess Dia, “after they had uprooted the desecrating tree, they destroyed the temple as being defiled.” The soothsayer Calchas lost his contest with Mopsus over the count of a fig-tree's fruit, “ten thousand except one,” and “pined away and died”; “the ancient Egyptians held the Fig-leaf sacred to the goddess Isis.”

Thiselton-Dyer adds that “the Italians, again, affirm that in each leaf of the fig-tree an evil spirit dwells,” and the proverbs: a man of show without practice “is said to be like ‘fig-tree fuel, much smoke and little fire,’” and “Peel a fig for your friend, and a peach for your enemy.”

Used in These Compounds

Fig is an ingredient of 1 compound medicine in the database. For Club members. Create a free account or sign in.

Fig: what did the older authorities say?

Isaiah: The prophet orders a lump of figs laid on King Hezekiah’s boil, and he recovers.
Pliny: Figs, walnuts, and rue made the antidote found among Mithridates’ papers (see Rue).

Sources

Isaiah 38:21. Book, seen in reviews
Pliny, Natural History XXIII. Primary text
Folkard, R. (1884). Plant Lore, Legends, and Lyrics, “Fig.” Project Gutenberg #44638. Primary text
Thiselton-Dyer, T. F. (1889). The Folk-lore of Plants. Project Gutenberg #10118. Read in part · the text read

Verification

Checked

October 1, 2026

Passes

Every sentence read against its sources, in the pass over the remaining 343 entries
The Standing line checked against the authority it names (EMA, WHO, FDA, CITES, Commission E)
Every dated or regulatory claim checked by category across the database
Each quotation from the older authorities checked word for word against the text, read in full

Sources

6 cited: 1 read in part, 2 verified against its record, 2 primary text, 1 book, seen in reviews. 1 with the abstract on file.

Corrections

"the EMA-listed Lenitive electuary tradition" was a confusion; the EMA lists no such thing. Now the London Pharmacopoeia's lenitive electuary.

What was checked, how, and what was found is set out on the Verification page. A checked source is one whose record was found; it does not make the entry medical advice.

Cite This Entry

Version 1 · first published September 25, 2026 · last revised October 1, 2026

Chicago: “Fig.” In Materia Medica, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1. The Thinking Press, 2026–. Last modified October 1, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/fig.
MLA: “Fig.” Materia Medica, edited by B. C. P. Statema, version 1, The Thinking Press, 1 Oct. 2026, thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/fig. Accessed 8 Oct. 2026.
APA: Fig. (2026, October 1). In B. C. P. Statema (Ed.), Materia medica (Version 1). The Thinking Press. Retrieved October 8, 2026, from https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/fig

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Fig

Fig: what was it used for?

Fig: what does modern science say?

Pharmacognosy & Toxicology

What Medicine Makes of It

Fig: what lore surrounds it?

Used in These Compounds

Fig: what did the older authorities say?

Sources

Verification

Cite This Entry

See Also

Poisoned alike: phytophotodermatitis

Also in Pliny the Elder

Drawing on the same sources: Pliny, Folkard, Thiselton-Dyer

Nearby in the alphabet