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CHAP. 25.—PISSASPHALTOS: TWO REMEDIES.

There is pissasphaltos too, a natural production of the territory of the Apolloniates,1 and consisting of pitch mixed with bitumen. Some persons, however, make this mixture artificially, and employ it for the cure of itch in cattle, and of injuries done by the young sucklings to the mamillæ. The most esteemed portion of it is that which floats on the surface when boiled.

1 See B. xvi. c. 23. His description here is faulty, it being solely a natural pitch or mineral bitumen, without any admixture of vegetable pitch. Vitruvius calls this pissasphalt, pitch; but Ælian, more correctly, bitumen. The names now given to it are mineral pitch, and malthe or pitch of Malta.

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