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CHAP. 39.—REMEDIES FOR PAINS AND DISEASES OF THE EARS.

A sheep's gall, mixed with honey, is a good detergent of the ears. Pains in those organs are allayed by injecting a bitch's milk; and hardness of hearing is removed by using dogs' fat, with wormwood and old oil, or else goose-grease. Some persons add juice of onions and of garlic,1 in equal proportions. The eggs, too, of ants are used, by themselves, for this purpose; these insects being possessed, in fact, of certain medicinal properties, and bears, it is well known, curing themselves when sick, by eating2 them as food. Goose-grease, and indeed that of all birds, is prepared by removing all the veins and leaving the fat, in a new, shallow, earthen vessel, well covered, to melt in the sun, some boiling water being placed beneath it; which done, it is passed through linen strainers, and is then put by in a cool spot, in a new earthen vessel, for keeping: with the addition of honey it is less liable to turn rancid. Ashes of burnt mice, injected with honey or boiled with oil of roses, allay pains in the ears. In cases where an insect has got into the ears, a most excellent remedy is found in an injection of mouse gall, diluted with vinegar; where, too, water has made its way into the passages of the ear, goose-grease is used, in combination with juice of onions. Some persons skin a dormouse, and after removing the intestines boil the body in a new vessel with honey. Medical men, however, prefer boiling it down to one-third with nard, and recommend it to be kept in that state, and to be warmed when wanted, and injected with a syringe. It is a well-known fact, that this preparation is an effectual remedy for the most desperate maladies of the ears the same, too, with an injection of earth-worms boiled with goose-grease. The red worms, also, that are found upon trees, beaten up with oil, are a most excellent remedy for ulcerations and ruptures of the ears. Lizards, which have been suspended for some time and dried, with salt in the mouth, are curative of contusions of the ears, and of injuries inflicted by blows: the most efficacious for this purpose are those which have ironcoloured spots upon the skin,3 and are streaked with lines along the tail.

Millepedes, known also as "centipedes" or "multipedes," are insects belonging to the earth-worm genus, hairy, with numerous feet, forming curves as they crawl, and contracting themselves when touched: the Greeks give to this insect the name of "oniscos,"4 others, again, that of "tylos." Boiled with leek-juice in a pomegranate rind, it is highly efficacious, they say, for pains in the ears; oil of roses being added to the preparation, and the mixture injected into the ear opposite to the one affected. As for that kind which does not describe a curve when moving, the Greeks give it the name of "seps," while others, again, call it "scolopendra;" it is smaller than the former one, and is injurious.5 The snails which are commonly used as food, are applied to the ears with myrrh or powdered frankincense; and those with a small, broad, shell are employed with honey as a liniment for fractured ears. Old sloughs of serpents, burnt in a heated potsherd and mixed with oil of roses, are used as an injection for the ears, which is considered highly efficacious for all affections of those organs, and for offensive odours arising there from in particular. In cases where there is suppuration of the ears, vinegar is used, and it is still better if goat's gall, ox-gall, or that of the sea tortoise, is added. This slough, however, is good for nothing when more than a year old; the same, too, when it has been drenched with rain, as some think. The thick pulp of a spider's body, mixed with oil of roses, is also used for the ears; or else the pulp applied by itself with saffron or in wool: a cricket, too, is dug up with some of its earth, and applied. Nigidius attributes great6 virtues to this insect, and the magicians still greater, and all because it walks backwards, pierces the earth, and chirrups by night! The mode of catching it is by throwing an ant,7 made fast with a hair, into its hole, the dust being first blown away to prevent it from concealing itself: the moment it seizes the ant, it is drawn out.

The dried craw of poultry, a part that is generally thrown away, is beaten up in wine, and injected warm, for suppurations of the ears; the same, too, with the grease of poultry.

On pulling off the head of a black beetle,8 it yields a sort of greasy substance, which, beaten up with rose oil, is marvellously good, they say, for affections of the ears: care must be taken, however, to remove the wool very soon, or else this substance will be speedily transformed into an animal, in the shape of a small grub. Some writers assert that two or three of these insects, boiled in oil, are extremely efficacious for the ears; and that they are good, beaten up and applied in linen, for contusions of those organs.

This insect, also, is one of those that are of a disgusting character; but I am obliged, by the admiration which I feel for the operations of Nature, and for the careful researches. of the ancients, to enter somewhat more at large upon it on the present occasion. Their writers have described several varieties of it; the soft beetle, for instance, which, boiled in oil, has been found by experience to be a very useful liniment for warts. Another kind, to which they have given the name of "mylœcon,"9 is generally found in the vicinity of mills: deprived of the head, it has been found to be curative of leprosy —at least Musa10 and Picton11 have cited instances to that effect. There is a third kind, again, odious for its abominable smell, and tapering at the posterior extremities. Used in combination with pisselæon,12 it is curative, they say, of ulcers of a desperate nature, and, if kept applied for one-and-twenty days, for scrofulous sores and inflamed tumours. The legs and wings being first removed, it is employed for the cure of bruises, contusions, cancerous sores, itch-scabs, and boils—remedies, all of them, quite disgusting even to hear of. And yet, by Hercules! Diodorus13 tells us that he has administered this remedy internally, with resin and honey, for jaundice and hardness of breathing; such unlimited power has the medical art to prescribe as a remedy whatever it thinks fit!

Physicians who keep more within bounds, recommend the ashes of these insects to be kept for these various purposes in a box made of horn; or else that they should be bruised and injected in a lavement for hardness of breathing and catarrhs. At all events, that, applied externally, they extract foreign substances adhering to the flesh, is a fact well known.

Honey, too, in which the bees have died, is remarkably useful for affections of the ears. Pigeons' dung, applied by itself, or with barley-meal or oat-meal, reduces imposthumes of the parotid glands; a result which is equally obtained by injecting into the ear an owlet's brains or liver, mixed with oil, or by applying the mixture to the parotid glands; also, by applying millepedes with one-third part of resin; by using crickets in the form of a liniment; or by wearing crickets attached to the body as an amulet. The other kinds of maladies, and the several remedies for them, derived from the same animals or from others of the same class, we shall describe in the succeeding Book.

SUMMARY.—Remedies, narratives, and observations, six hundred and twenty-one.

ROMAN AUTHORS QUOTED.—M. Varro,14 L. Piso,15 Flaccus Verrius,16 Antias,17 Nigidius,18 Cassius Hemina,19 Cicero,20 Plautus,21 Celsus,22 Sextius Niger23 who wrote in Greek, Cæci- lius24 the physician, Metellus Scipio,25 the Poet Ovid,26 Licinius Macer.27

FOREIGN AUTHORS QUOTED.—Homer, Aristotle,28 Orpheus,29 Palæphatus,30 Democritus,31 Anaxilaiis.32

MEDICAL AUTHORS QUOTED.—Botrys,33 Apollodorus,34 Archi- demus,35 Aristogenes,36 XenocrDemo,37 Democrates,38 Diodorus,39 Chrysippus40 the philosopher, Horus,41 Nicander,42 Apollonius43 Of Pitanæ.

1 See B. xx. c. 23.

2 See B. vii. c. 27, and B. viii. c. 41. The formic acid which ants contain may possibly possess some medicinal properties.

3 Ajasson suggests that this may be the Lacerta cœpium of Dandin, of a reddish brown colour, with two blackish lines running longitudinally along the back.

4 This insect in reality is a woodlouse, whereas the millepedes previously described are evidently caterpillars. Woodlice are still swallowed alive by schoolboys, and old women are to be found who recommend them for consumption. Holland says that woodlice are good for pains in the ears.

5 "Perniciosam."

6 In the middle ages there were many superstitions with reference to this insect, some of which have survived to the present day.

7 Ajasson seems to think that this passage means that the ant itself adopts this plan of catching the cricket. If so, he is certainly in error. and his attack upon Pliny's credulity is, in this instance at least, misplaced.

8 See B. xi. c. 34. and B. xxv. c. 60.

9 "Inhabiting mills."

10 See B. six. c. 38. and B. xxv. c. 33.

11 Of this writer nothing is known.

12 See B. xxiv. c. 11.

13 See the end of this Book.

14 See end of B. ii.

15 See end of B. ii.

16 See end of B. iii.

17 See end of B. ii.

18 See end of B. vi.

19 See end of B. xii.

20 See end of B. vii.

21 See end of B. xiv.

22 See end of B. vii.

23 See end of B. xii.

24 See end of B. xxviii.

25 See end of B. viii.

26 See end of B. xviii.

27 See end of B. xix.

28 See end of B. ii.

29 See end of B. xx.

30 There are four literary persons of this name mentioned by Suidas, who appears to give but a confused account of them. He speaks of an ancient poet of Athens of this name, who wrote a Cosmogony and other works, a native of Priene, to whom some attributed the work on "Incredible Stories," by most persons assigned to Palæphatus of Athens; an historian of Abydos, a contemporary of Alexander the Great, and a friend of Aristotle; and a grammarian of Athens of uncertain date, to whom the work on "incredible Stories "is mostly assigned. But in the former editions of Pliny, the reading "Philopator" is mostly adopted; bearing reference, it has been suggested, to a Stoic philosopher and physician of that name mention by Galen, "On the Symptoms of Mental Diseases," c. 8.

31 See end of B. ii.

32 See end of B. xxi.

33 See end of B. xiii

34 See end of B. xi.

35 See end of B. xii.

36 There were two Greek physicians of this name, one of whom was a native of Thasos, and wrote several medical works. The other was a native of Cnidos, and, according to Suidas, a slave of the philosopher Chrysippus. Galen, however, says that he was a pupil of the physician of that name, and afterwards became physician to Antigonus Gonatas, king of Macedonia, B.C. 283—239. Hardouin is of opinion that the two physicians were one and the same person.

37 See end of B. xx.

38 Servilius Democrates, a Greek physician at Rome about the time of the Christian era. He probably received his prænomen from being a client of the Servilian family. Pliny speaks of him in B. xxiv. c. 28 and B. xxv. c. 49. He wrote several works on medicine in Greek lambic verse, the titles and a few extracts from which are preserved by Galen.

39 Probably the same physician that is mentioned by Galen as belonging to the sect of the Empirici. See c. 39 of this Book.

40 See end of B. xx.

41 A fabulous king of Assyria, or Egypt, to whom was attributed the discovery of many remedies and medicaments. See B. xxx. c. 51, and B. xxxvii. c. 52.

42 See end of B. viii.

43 Beyond the mention made of his absurd remedy in c. 38 of the present Book, nothing seems to be known of this writer.

The Natural History. Pliny the Elder. John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S. H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A. London. Taylor and Francis, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street. 1855.

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