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CHAP. 24. (10.)—REMEDIES FOR EVILS WHICH ARE LIABLE TO AFFECT THE WHOLE BODY.

We will now turn our attention to those evils which are a cause of apprehension, as affecting the whole body. According to what the magicians say, the gall of a male black dog is a counter-charm for the whole of a house; and it will be quite sufficient to make fumigations with it, or to use it as a purification, to ensure its preservation against all noxious drugs and preparations. They say the same, too, with reference to a dog's blood, if the walls are sprinkled with it; and the genitals of that animal, if buried beneath the threshold. This will surprise persons the less who are aware how highly these same magicians extol that most abominable insect, the tick, and all because it is the only one that has no1 passage for the evacuations, its eating ending only in its death, and it living all the longer for fasting: in this latter state it has been known to live so long as seven days, they say, but when it gorges to satiety it will burst in a much shorter period. According to these authorities, a tick from a dog's left ear, worn as an amulet, will allay all kinds of pains. They presage, too, from it on matters of life and death; for if the patient, they say, gives an answer to a person who has a tick about him, and, standing at the foot of the bed, asks how he is, it is an infallible sign that he will survive; while, on the other hand, if he makes no answer, he will be sure to die. They add, also, that the dog from whose left ear the tick is taken, must be entirely black. Nigidius has stated in his writings that dogs will avoid the presence all day of a person who has taken a tick from off a hog.

The magicians likewise assure us that patients suffering from delirium will recover their reason on being sprinkled with a mole's blood; and that persons who are apt to be troubled by the gods of the night2 and by Fauni, will experience relief by rubbing themselves morning and evening with the tongue, eyes, gall, and intestines of a dragon,3 boiled in oil, and cooled in the open air at night.

1 A popular fallacy of Pliny's time. See B. xi. c. 40.

2 Spectres and nightmare.

3 The serpent so called.

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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