Pliny the Elder, The Natural History, BOOK XXVIII. REMEDIES DERIVED FROM LIVING CREATURES.

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BOOK XXVIII. REMEDIES DERIVED FROM LIVING CREATURES.

CHAP. 1. (1.)—INTRODUCTION.

WE should have now concluded our description of the various things¹ that are produced between the heavens and the earth, and it would have only remained for us to speak of the substances that are dug out of the ground itself; did not our exposition of the remedies derived from plants and shrubs necessarily lead us into a digression upon the medicinal properties which have been discovered, to a still greater extent, in those living creatures themselves which are thus indebted [to other objects] for the cure of their respective maladies. For ought we, after describing the plants, the forms of the various flowers, and so many objects rare and difficult to be found—ought we to pass in silence the resources which exist in man himself for the benefit of man, and the other remedies to be derived from the creatures that live among us—and this more particularly, seeing that life itself is nothing short of a punishment, unless it is exempt from pains and maladies? Assuredly not; and even though I may incur the risk of being tedious, I shall exert all my energies on the subject, it being my fixed determination to pay less regard to what may be amusing, than to what may prove practically useful to mankind.

Nay, even more than this, my researches will extend to the usages of foreign countries, and to the customs of barbarous nations, subjects upon which I shall have to appeal to the good faith of other authors; though at the same time I have made it my object to select no² facts but such as are established by pretty nearly uniform testimony, and to pay more attention to scrupulous exactness than to copiousness of diction.

It is highly necessary, however, to advertise the reader, that whereas I have already described the natures of the various animals, and the discoveries³ due to them respectively—for, in fact, they have been no less serviceable in former times in dis- covering remedies, than they are at the present day in providing us with them—it is my present intention to confine myself to the remedial properties which are found in the animal world, a subject which has not been altogether lost sight of in the former portion of this work. These additional details therefore, though of a different nature, must still be read in connexion with those which precede.

CHAP. 2.—REMEDIES DERIVED FROM MAN.

We will begin then with man, and our first enquires will be into the resources which he provides for himself-a subject replete with boundless difficulties at the very outset.⁴

Epileptic patients are in the habit of drinking the blood even of gladiators, draughts teeming with life,⁵ as it were; a thing that, when we see it done by the wild beasts even, upon the same arena, inspires us with horror at the spectacle! And yet these persons, forsooth, consider it a most effectual cure for their disease, to quaff the warm, breathing, blood from man himself, and, as they apply their mouth to the wound, to draw forth his very life; and this, though it is regarded as an act of impiety to apply the human lips to the wound even of a wild beast! Others there are, again, who make the marrow⁶ of the leg-bones, and the brains of infants, the objects of their research!

Among the Greek writers, too, there are not a few who have enlarged upon the distinctive flavours of each one of the viscera and members of the human body, pursuing their researches to the very parings of the nails! as though, forsooth, it could possibly be accounted the pursuit of health for man to make himself a wild beast, and so deserve to contract disease from the very remedies he adopts for avoiding it. Most righteously, by Hercules! if such attempts are all in vain, is he disappointed of his cure! To examine human entrails is deemed an act of impiety;⁷ what then must it be to devour them?

Say, Osthanes,⁸ who was it that first devised these practices; for it is thee that I accuse, thou uprooter of all human laws, thou inventor of these monstrosities; devised, no doubt, with the view that mankind might not forget thy name! Who was it that first thought of devouring each member of the human body? By what conjectural motives was he induced? What can possibly have been the origin of such a system of medicine as this? Who was it that thus made the very poisons less baneful than the antidotes prescribed for them? Granted that barbarous and outlandish tribes first devised such practices, must the men of Greece, too, adopt these as arts of their own?

We read, for instance, in the memoirs of Democritus, still extant, that for some diseases, the skull of a malefactor is most efficacious, while for the treatment of others, that of one who has been a friend or guest is required. Apollonius, again, informs us in his writings, that the most effectual remedy for tooth-ache is to scarify the gums with the tooth of a man who has died a violent death; and, according to Miletus, human gall is a cure for cataract.⁹ For epilepsy, Artemon has prescribed water drawn from a spring in the night, and drunk from the skull of a man who has been slain, and whose body remains unburnt. From the skull, too, of a man who had been hanged, Antæus made pills that were to be an antidote to. the bite of; mad dog. Even more than this, man has resorted to similar remedies for the cure of four-footed beasts even—for tympanitis in oxen, for instance, the horns have been perforated, and human bones inserted; and when swine have been found to be diseased, fine wheat has been given them which has lain for a night in the spot where a human being has been slain or burnt!

Far from us, far too from our writings, be such prescriptions¹⁰ as these! It will be for us to describe remedies only, and not abominations;¹¹ cases, for instance, in which the milk of a nursing woman may have a curative effect, cases where the human spittle may be useful, or the contact¹² of the human body, and other instances of a similar nature. We do not look upon life as so essentially desirable that it must be prolonged at any cost, be it what it may—and you, who are of that opinion, be assured, whoever you may be, that you will die none the less, even though you shall have lived in the midst of obscenities or abominations!

Let each then reckon this as one great solace to his mind, that of all the blessings which Nature has bestowed on man, there is none greater than the death¹³ which comes at a seasonable hour; and that the very best feature in connexion with it is, that every person has it in his own power to procure it for himself.¹⁴

CHAP. 3. (2.)—WHETHER WORDS ARE POSSESSED OF ANY HEALING EFFICACY.

In reference to the remedies derived from man, there arises first of all one question, of the greatest importance and always attended with the same uncertainty, whether words, charms, and incantations, are of any efficacy or not?¹⁵ For if such is the case, it will be only proper to ascribe this efficacy to man himself;¹⁶ though the wisest of our fellow-men, I should remark, taken individually, refuse to place the slightest faith in these opinions. And yet, in our every-day life, we practically show, each passing hour, that we do entertain this belief, though at the moment we are not sensible of it. Thus, for instance, it is a general belief that without a certain form of prayer¹⁷ it would be useless to immolate a victim, and that, with such an informality, the gods would be consulted to little purpose. And then besides, there are different forms of address to the deities, one form for entreating,¹⁸ another form for averting their ire, and another for commendation.

We see too, how that our supreme magistrates use certain formulæ for their prayers: that not a single word may be omitted or pronounced out of its place, it is the duty of one person to precede the dignitary by reading the formula before him from a written ritual, of another, to keep watch upon every word, and of a third to see that¹⁹ silence is not ominously broken; while a musician, in the meantime, is performing on the flute to prevent any other words being heard.²⁰ Indeed, there are memorable instances recorded in our Annals, of cases where either the sacrifice has been interrupted, and so blemished, by imprecations, or a mistake has been made in the utterance of the prayer; the result being that the lobe of the liver or the heart has disappeared in a moment, or has been doubled,²¹ while the victim stood before the altar. There is still in existence a most remarkable testimony,²² in the formula which the Decii, father and son, pronounced on the occasions when they devoted themselves.²³ There is also preserved the prayer uttered by the Vestal Tuccia,²⁴ when, upon being accused of incest, she carried water in a sieve—an event which took place in the year of the City 609. Our own age even has seen a man and a woman buried alive in the Ox Market,²⁵ Greeks by birth, or else natives of some other²⁶ country with which we were at war at the time. The prayer used upon the occasion of this ceremonial, and which is usually pronounced first by the Master of the College of the Quindecimviri,²⁷ if read by a person, must assuredly force him to admit the potency of formulæ; when it is recollected that it has been proved to be effectual by the experience of eight hundred and thirty years.

At the present day, too, it is a general belief, that our Vestal virgins have the power, by uttering a certain prayer, to arrest the flight of runaway slaves, and to rivet them to the spot, provided they have not gone beyond the precincts of the City. If then these opinions be once received as truth, and if it be admitted that the gods do listen to certain prayers, or are influenced by set forms of words, we are bound to conclude in the affirmative upon the whole question. Our ancestors, no doubt, always entertained such a belief, and have even assured us, a thing by far the most difficult of all, that it is possible by such means to bring down lightning from heaven, as already²⁸ mentioned on a more appropriate occasion.

CHAP. 4.—THAT PRODIGIES AND PORTENTS MAY BE CONFIRMED, OR MADE OF NO EFFECT.

L. Piso informs us, in the first Book of his Annals, that King Tullus Hostilius,²⁹ while attempting, in accordance with the books of Numa, to summon Jupiter from heaven by means of a sacrifice similar to that employed by him, was struck by lightning in consequence of his omission to follow certain forms with due exactness. Many other authors, too, have attested, that by the power of words a change has been effected in destinies and portents of the greatest importance. While they were digging on the Tarpeian Hill for the foundations of a temple, a human head was found; upon which deputies were sent to Olenus Calenus, the most celebrated diviner of Etruria. He, foreseeing the glory and success which attached to such a presage as this, attempted, by putting a question to them, to transfer the benefit of it to his own nation. First describing, on the ground before him, the outline of a temple with his staff—"Is it so, Romans, as you say?" said he; "here then must be the temple³⁰ of Jupiter, all good and all powerful; it is here that we have found the head"—and the constant asseveration of the Annals is, that the destiny of the Roman empire would have been assuredly transferred to Etruria, had not the deputies, forewarned by the son of the diviner, made answer—"No, not here exactly, but at Rome, we say, the head was found."

It is related also that the same was the case when a certain four-horse chariot, made of clay, and intended for the roof of the same temple, had considerably increased while in the furnace;³¹ and that on this occasion, in a similar manner, the destinies of Rome were saved. Let these instances suffice then to show, that the virtues of presages lie in our own hands, and that they are valuable in each instance according as they are received.³² At all events, it is a principle in the doctrine of the augurs, that neither imprecations nor auspices of any kind have any effect upon those who, when entering upon an undertaking, declare that they will pay no attention whatever to them; a greater instance than which, of the indulgent disposition of the gods towards us, cannot be found.

And then besides, in the laws themselves of the Twelve Tables, do we not read the following words—"Whosoever shall have enchanted the harvest,"³³ and in another place, "Whosoever shall have used pernicious incantations"?³⁴ Verrius Flaccus cites authors whom he deems worthy of credit, to show that on the occasion of a siege, it was the usage, the first thing of all, for the Roman priests to summon forth the tutelary divinity of that particular town, and to promise him the same rites, or even a more extended worship, at Rome; and at the present day even, this ritual still forms part of the discipline of our pontiffs. Hence it is, no doubt, that the name³⁵ of the tutelary deity of Rome has been so strictly kept concealed, lest any of our enemies should act in a similar manner. There is no one, too, who does not dread being spell-bound by means of evil imprecations;³⁶ and hence the practice, after eating eggs or snails, of immediately breaking³⁷ the shells, or piercing them with the spoon. Hence, too, those love-sick imitations of enchantments which we find described by Theocritus among the Greeks, and by Catullus, and more recently, Virgil,³⁸ among our own writers. Many persons are fully persuaded that articles of pottery may be broken by a similar agency; and not a few are of opinion even that serpents can counteract incantations, and that this is the only kind of intelligence they possess—so much so, in fact, that by the agency of the magic spells of the Marsi, they may be attracted to one spot, even when asleep in the middle of the night. Some people go so far, too, as to write certain words³⁹ on the walls of houses, deprecatory of accident by fire.

But it is not easy to say whether the outlandish and unpronounceable words that are thus employed, or the Latin expressions that are used at random, and which must appear ridiculous to our judgment, tend the most strongly to stagger our belief-seeing that the human imagination is always conceiving something of the infinite, something deserving of the notice of the divinity, or indeed, to speak more correctly, something that must command his intervention perforce. Homer⁴⁰ tells us that Ulysses arrested the flow of blood from a wound in the thigh, by repeating a charm; and Theophrastus⁴¹ says that sciatica may be cured by similar means. Cato⁴² has preserved a formula for the cure of sprains, and M. Varro for that of gout. The Dictator Cæsar, they say, having on one occasion accidentally had a fall in his chariot,⁴³ was always in the habit, immediately upon taking his seat, of thrice repeating a certain formula, with the view of ensuring safety upon the journey; a thing that, to my own knowledge, is done by many persons at the present day.

CHAP. 5.—A DESCRIPTION OF VARIOUS USAGES.

I would appeal, too, for confirmation on this subject, to the intimate experience of each individual. Why, in fact, upon the first day of the new year, do we accost one another with prayers for good fortune,⁴⁴ and, for luck's sake, wish each other a happy new year? Why, too, upon the occasion of public lustrations, do we select persons with lucky names, to lead the victims? Why, to counteract fascinations, do we Romans observe a peculiar form of adoration, in invoking the Nemesis of the Greeks; whose statue, for this reason, has been placed in the Capitol at Rome, although the goddess herself possesses no Latin name?⁴⁵ Why, when we make mention of the dead, do we protest that we have no wish⁴⁶ to impeach their good name?⁴⁷ Why is it that we entertain the belief that for every purpose odd numbers are the most effectual;⁴⁸—a thing that is particularly observed with reference to the critical days in fevers? Why is it that, when gathering the earliest fruit, apples, on pears, as the case may be, we make a point of saying

"This fruit is old, may other fruit be sent us that is new?" Why is it that we salute⁴⁹ a person when he sneezes, an observance which Tiberius Cæsar, they say, the most unsociable of men, as we all know, used to exact, when riding in his chariot even? Some there are, too, who think it a point religiously to be observed to mention the name as well of the person whom they salute.

And then, besides, it is a notion⁵⁰ universally received, that absent persons have warning that others are speaking of them, by the tingling of the ears. Attalus⁵¹ assures us, that if a person, the moment he sees a scorpion, says "Duo,"⁵² the reptile will stop short, and forbear to sting. And now that I am speaking of the scorpion, I recall to mind that in Africa no one ever undertakes any matter without prefacing with the word "Africa;" while in other countries, before an enterprise is commenced, it is the practice to adjure the gods that they will manifest their good will.

In addition to this, it is very clear that there are some religious observances, unaccompanied by speech, which are considered to be productive of certain effects. Thus,⁵³ when we are at table, for instance, it is the universal practice, we see, to take the ring from off the finger. Another person, again, will take some spittle from his mouth and place it with his finger behind the ear, to propitiate and modify disquietude of mind. When we wish to signify applause, we have a proverb even which tells us we should press the thumbs.⁵⁴ When paying adoration, we kiss the right hand, and turn the whole body to the right: while the people of the Gallic provinces, on the contrary, turn to the left, and believe that they show mere devoutness by so doing. To salute summer lightning with clapping of the hands, is the universal practice with all nations. If, when eating, we happen to make mention of a fire that has happened, we avert the inauspicious omen by pouring water beneath the table. To sweep the floor at the moment that a person is rising from table, or to remove the table or tray,⁵⁵ as the case may be, while a guest is drinking, is looked upon as a most unfortunate presage. There is a treatise, written by Servius Sulpicius, a man of the highest rank, in which reasons are given why we should never leave the table we are eating at; for in his day it was not yet⁵⁶ the practice to reckon more tables than guests at an entertainment. Where a person has sneezed, it is considered highly ominous for the dish or table to be brought back again, and not a taste thereof to be taken, after doing so; the same, too, where a person at table eats nothing at all.

These usages have been established by persons who entertained a belief that the gods are ever present, in all our affairs and at all hours, and who have therefore found the means of appeasing them by our vices even. It has been remarked, too, that there is never a dead silence on a sudden among the guests at table, except when there is an even number present; when this happens, too, it is a sign that the good name and repute of every individual present is in peril. In former times, when food fell from the hand of a guest, it was the custom to return it by placing it on the table, and it was forbidden⁵⁷ to blow upon it, for the purpose of cleansing it. Auguries, too, have been derived from the words or thoughts of a person at the moment such an accident befalls him; and it is looked upon as one of the most dreadful of presages, if this should happen to a pontiff, while celebrating the feast of Dis.⁵⁸ The proper expiation in such a case is, to have the morsel replaced on table, and then burnt in honour of the Lar.⁵⁹ Medicines, it is said, will prove ineffectual, if they happen to have been placed on a table before they are administered. It is religiously believed by many, that it is ominous in a pecuniary point of view, for a person to pare his nails without speaking, on the market days⁶⁰ at Rome, or to begin at the forefinger⁶¹ in doing so: it is thought, too, to be a preventive of baldness and of head-ache, to cut the hair on the seventeenth and twenty-ninth⁶² days of the moon.

A rural law observed in most of the farms of Italy, forbids⁶³ women to twirl their distaffs, or even to carry them uncovered, while walking in the public roads; it being a thing so prejudicial to all hopes and anticipations, those of a good harvest⁶⁴ in particular. It is not so long ago, that M. Servilius Nonianus, the principal citizen at Rome,⁶⁵ being apprehensive of ophthalmia, had a paper, with the two Greek letters P and A⁶⁶ written upon it, wrapped in linen and attached to his neck, before he would venture to name the malady, and before any other person had spoken to him about it. Mucianus, too, who was thrice consul, following a similar observance, carried about him a living fly, wrapped in a piece of white linen; and it was strongly asserted, by both of them, that to the use of these expedients they owed their preservation from ophthalmia. There are in existence, also, certain charms against hail-storms, diseases of various kinds, and burns, some of which have been proved, by actual experience, to be effectual; but so great is the diversity of opinion upon them, that I am precluded by a feeling of extreme diffidence from entering into further particulars, and must therefore leave each to form his own conclusions as he may feel inclined.

CHAP. 6. (3.)—TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY-SIX OBSERVATIONS ON REMEDIES DERIVED FROM MAN. EIGHT REMEDIES DERIVED, FROM CHILDREN.

We have already,⁶⁷ when speaking of the singular peculiarities of various nations, made mention of certain men of a monstrous nature, whose gaze is endowed with powers of fascination; and we have also described properties belonging to numerous animals, which it would be superfluous here to repeat. In some men, the whole of the body is endowed with remarkable properties, as in those families, for instance, which are a terror to serpents; it being in their power to cure persons when stung, either by the touch or by a slight suction of the wound. To this class belong the Psylli, the Marsi, and the people called "Ophiogenes,"⁶⁸ in the Isle of Cyprus. One Euagon, a member of this family, while attending upon a deputation at Rome, was thrown by way of experiment, by order of the consuls, into a large vessel⁶⁹ filled with serpents; upon which, to the astonishment of all, they licked his body all over with their tongues. One peculiarity of this family—if indeed it is still in existence—is the strong offensive smell which proceeds from their body in the spring; their sweat, too, no less than their spittle, was possessed of remedial virtues. The people who are born at Tentyris, an island in the river Nilus, are so formidable⁷⁰ to the crocodiles there, that their voice even is sufficient to put them to flight. The presence even, it is well known, of all these different races, will suffice for the cure of injuries inflicted by the animals to which they respectively have an antipathy; just in the same way that wounds are irritated by the approach of persons who have been stung by a serpent at some former time, or bitten by a dog. Such persons, too, by their presence, will cause the eggs upon which a hen is sitting to be addled, and will make pregnant cattle cast their young and miscarry; for, in fact, so much of the venom remains in their body, that, from being poisoned themselves, they become poisonous to other creatures. The proper remedy in such case is first to make them wash their hands, and then to sprinkle with the water the patient who is under medical treatment. When, again, persons have been once stung by a scorpion they will never afterwards be attacked by hornets, wasps, or bees: a fact at which a person will be the less surprised when he learns that a garment which has been worn at a funeral will never be touched by moths;⁷¹ that it is hardly possible to draw serpents from their holes except by using the left hand; and that, of the discoveries made by Pythagoras, one of the most unerring, is the fact, that in the name given to infants, an odd number of vowels is portentous of lameness, loss of eyesight, or similar accidents, on⁷² the right side of the body, and an even number of vowels of the like infirmities on the left.

(4.) It is said, that if a person takes a stone or other missile which has slain three living creatures, a man, a boar, and a bear, at three blows, and throws it over the roof of a house in which there is a pregnant woman, her delivery, however difficult, will be instantly accelerated thereby. In such a case, too, a successful result will be rendered all the more probable, it a light infantry lance⁷³ is used, which has been drawn from a man's body without touching the earth; indeed, if it is brought into the house it will be productive of a similar result. In the same way, too, we find it stated in the writings of Orpheus and Archelaiis, that arrows, drawn from a human body without being allowed to touch the ground, and placed beneath the bed, will have all the effect of a philtre; and, what is even more than this, that it is a cure for epilepsy if the patient eats the flesh of it wild beast killed with an iron weapon with which a human being has been slain.

Some individuals, too, are possessed of medicinal properties in certain parts of the body; the thumb of King Pyrrhus, for instance, as already⁷⁴ mentioned. At Elis, there used to be shown one of the ribs⁷⁵ of Pelops, which, it was generally asserted, was made of ivory. At the present day even, there are many persons, who from religious motives will never clip the hair growing upon a mole on the face.

CHAP. 7.—PROPERTIES OF THE HUMAN SPITTLE.

But it is the fasting spittle of a human being, that is, as already⁷⁶ stated by us, the sovereign preservative against the poison of serpents; while, at the same time, our daily experience may recognize its efficacy and utility,⁷⁷ in many other respects. We are in the habit of spitting,⁷⁸ for instance, as a preservative from epilepsy, or in other words, we repel contagion thereby: in a similar manner, too, we repel fascinations, and the evil presages attendant upon meeting a person who is lame in the right leg. We ask pardon of the gods, by spitting in⁷⁹ the lap, for entertaining some too presumptuous hope or expectation.⁸⁰ On the same principle, it is the practice in all cases where medicine is employed, to spit three times on the ground, and to conjure the malady as often; the object being, to aid the operation of the remedy employed. It is usual, too, to mark a boil, when it first makes its appearance, three times with fasting⁸¹ spittle. What we are going to say is marvellous, but it may easily be tested⁸² by experiment: if a person repents of a blow given to another, either by hand or with a missile, he has nothing to do but to spit at once into the palm of the hand which has inflicted the blow, and all feelings⁸³ of resentment will be instantly alleviated in the person struck. This, too, is often verified in the case of a beast of burden, when brought on its haunches with blows; for upon this remedy being adopted, the animal will immediately step out and mend its pace. Some persons, however, before making an effort, spit into the hand in manner above stated, in order to make the blow more heavy.⁸⁴

We may well believe, then, that lichens and leprous spots may be removed by a constant application of fasting spittle; that ophthalmia may be cured by anointing, as it were, the eyes every morning with fasting spittle; that carcinomata may be effectually treated, by kneading the root of the plant known as "apple of the earth,"⁸⁵ with human spittle; that crick in the neck may be got rid of by carrying fasting spittle to the right knee with the right hand, and to the left knee with the left; and that when an insect has got into the ear, it is quite sufficient to spit into that organ, to make it come out. Among the counter-charms too, are reckoned, the practice of spitting into the urine the moment it is voided, of spitting into the shoe of the right foot before putting it on, and of spitting while a person is passing a place in which he has incurred any kind of peril.

Marcion of Smyrna, who has written a work on the virtues of simples, informs us that the sea scolopendra will burst asunder if spit upon; and that the same is the case with bram- ble-frogs,⁸⁶ and other kinds of frogs. Opilius says that serpents will do the same, if a person spits into their open mouth; and Salpe tells us, that when any part of the body is asleep, the numbness may be got rid of by the person spitting into his lap, or touching the upper eyelid with his spittle. If we are ready to give faith to such statements as these, we must believe also in the efficacy of the following practices: upon the entrance of a stranger, or when a person looks at an infant while asleep, it is usual for the nurse to spit three times upon the ground; and this, although infants are under the especial guardianship of the god Fascinus,⁸⁷ the protector, not of infants only, but of generals as well, and a divinity whose worship is entrusted to the Vestal virgins, and forms part of the Roman rites. It is the image of this divinity that is attached beneath the triumphant car of the victorious general, protecting him, like some attendant physician, against the effects of envy;⁸⁸ while, at the same time, equally salutary is the advice of the tongue, which warns him to be wise in time,⁸⁹ that so Fortune may be prevailed upon by his prayers, not to follow, as the destroyer of his glory, close upon his back.

CHAP. 8.—REMEDIES DERIVED FROM THE WAX OF THE HUMAN EAR.

The human bite is also looked upon as one of the most dangerous of all. The proper remedy for it is human ear-wax: a thing that we must not be surprised at, seeing that, if applied immediately, it is a cure for the stings of scorpions even, and serpents. The best, however, for this purpose, is that taken from the ears of the wounded person. Agnails, too, it is said, may be cured in a similar manner. A human tooth, reduced to powder, is a cure, they say, for the sting of a serpent.

CHAP. 9.—REMEDIES DERIVED FROM THE HUMAN HAIR, TEETH, ETC.

The first hair, it is said, that is cut from an infant's head, and, in fact, the hair of all persons that have not reached the age of puberty, attached to the limbs, will modify the attacks of gout. A man's hair, applied with vinegar, is a cure for the bite of a dog, and, used with oil or wine, for wounds on the head. It is said, too, if we choose to believe it, that the hair of a man torn down from the cross, is good for quartan fevers. Ashes, too, of burnt human hair are curative of carcinomata. If a woman takes the first tooth that; a child has shed, provided it has not touched the ground, and has it set in a bracelet, and wears it constantly upon her arm, it will preserve her from all pains in the uterus and adjacent parts. If the great toe is tied fast to the one next to it, it will reduce tumours in the groin; and if the two middle fingers of the right hand are slightly bound together with a linen thread, it will act as a preservative against catarrhs and ophthalmia. A stone, it is said, that has been voided by a patient suffering from calculi, if attached to the body above the pubes, will alleviate the pains of others similarly afflicted, as well as pains in the liver; it will have the effect, also, of facilitating delivery. Granius⁹⁰ adds, however, that for this last purpose, the stone will be more efficacious if it has been extracted with the knife. Delivery, when near at hand, will be accelerated, if the man by whom the woman has conceived, unties his girdle, and, after tying it round her, unties it, adding at the same time this formula, "I have tied it, and I will untie it," and then taking his de- parture.

CHAP. 10.—REMEDIES DERIVED FROM THE HUMAN BLOOD, THE SEXUAL CONGRESS, ETC.

The blood of the human body, come from what part it may, is most efficacious, according to Orpheus and Archelaiis, as an application for quinzy: they say, too, that if it is applied to the mouth of a person who has fallen down in a fit of epilepsy, he will come to himself immediately. Some say that, for epilepsy, the great toes should be pricked, and the drops of blood that exude therefrom applied to the face; or else, that a virgin should touch the patient with her right thumb—a cir- cumstance that has led to the belief that persons suffering from epilepsy should eat the flesh of animals in a virgin state. Æschines of Athens used to cure quinzy, carcinoma, and affec- tions of the tonsillary glands and uvula, with the ashes of burnt excrements, a medicament to which he gave the name of "botryon."⁹¹ There are many kinds of diseases which disappear entirely after the first sexual congress,⁹² or, in the case of females, at the first appearance of menstruation; indeed, if such is not the case, they are apt to become chronic, epilepsy in particular. Even more than this-a man, it is said, who has been stung by a serpent or scorpion, experiences relief from the sexual congress; but the woman, on the other hand, is sensible of detriment. We are assured, too, that if persons, when washing their feet, touch the eyes three times with the water, they will never be subject to ophthalmia or other diseases of the eyes.

CHAP. 11.—REMEDIES DERIVED FROM THE DEAD.

Scrofula, imposthumes of the parotid glands, and throat diseases, they say, may be cured by the contact of the hand of a person who has been carried off. by an early death: indeed there are some who assert that any dead body will produce the same effect, provided it is of the same sex as the patient, and that the part affected is touched with the back of the left hand.⁹³ To bite off a piece from wood that has been struck by lightning, the hands being held behind the back, and then to apply it to the tooth, is a sure remedy, they say, for toothache. Some persons recommend the tooth to be fumigated with the smoke of a burnt tooth, which has belonged to another person of the same sex; or else to attach to the person a dogtooth, as it is called, which has been extracted from a body before burial. Earth, they say, taken from out of a human skull, acts as a depilatory to the eyelashes; it is asserted, also, that any plant which may happen to have grown there, if chewed, will cause the teeth to come out; and that if a circle is traced round an ulcer with a human bone, it will be effectually prevented from spreading.

Some persons, again, mix water in equal proportions from three different wells, and, after making a libation with part of it in a new earthen vessel, administer the rest to patients suffering from tertian fever, when the paroxysms come on. So, too, in cases of quartan fever, they take a fragment of a nail from a cross, or else a piece of a halter⁹⁴ that has been used for crucifixion, and, after wrapping it in wool, attach it to the patient's neck; taking care, the moment he has recovered, to conceal it in some hole to which the light of the sun cannot penetrate.

CHAP. 12.—VARIOUS REVERIES AND DEVICES OF THE MAGICIANS.

The following are some of the reveries of magic.⁹⁵ A whetstone upon which iron tools have been frequently sharpened, if put, without his being aware of it, beneath the pillow of a person sinking under the effects of poison, will make him give evidence and declare what poison has been administered, and at what time and place, though at the same time he will not disclose the author of the crime. When a person has been struck by lightning, if the body is turned upon the side which has sustained the injury, he will instantly recover the power of speech—that is quite certain.⁹⁶ For the cure of inguinal tumours, some persons take the thrum of an old web, and after tying seven or nine knots in it, mentioning at each knot the name of some widow woman or other, attach it to the part affected. To assuage the pain of a wound, they recommend the party to take a nail or any other substance that has been trodden under foot, and to wear it, attached to the body with the thrum of a web. To get rid of warts, some lie in a footpath with the face upwards, when the moon is twenty days old at least, and after fixing their gaze upon it, extend their arms above the head, and rub themselves with anything within their reach. If a person is extracting a corn at the moment that a star shoots, he will experience an immediate cure,⁹⁷ they say. By pouring vinegar upon the hinges of a door, a thick liniment is formed, which, applied to the forehead, will alleviate headache: an effect equally produced, we are told, by binding the temples with a halter with which a man has been hanged. When a fish-bone happens to stick in the throat, it will go down immediately, if the person plunges his feet into cold water; but where the accident has happened with any other kind of bone, the proper remedy is to apply to the head some fragments of bones taken from the same dish. In cases where bread has stuck in the throat, the best plan is to take some of the same bread, and insert it in both ears.

CHAP. 13.—REMEDIES DERIVED FROM THE HUMAN EXCRETIONS.

In Greece, where everything is turned to account, the owners of the gymnasia have introduced the very excretions⁹⁸ even of the human body among the most efficient remedies; so much so, indeed, that the scrapings from the bodies of the athletes are looked upon as possessed of certain properties of an emollient, calorific, resolvent, and expletive nature, resulting from the compound of human sweat and oil. These scrapings are used, in the form of a pessary, for inflammations and contractions of the uterus: similarly employed, they act as an emmenagogue, and are useful for reducing condylomata and inflammations of the rectum, as also for assuaging pains in the sinews, sprains, and nodosities of the joints. The scrapings obtained from the baths are still more efficacious for these purposes, and hence it is that they form an ingredient in maturative preparations. Such scrapings as are impregnated with wrestlers' oil,⁹⁹ used in combination with mud, have a mollifying effect upon the joints, and are more particularly efficacious as a calorific and resolvent; but in other respects their properties are not so strongly developed.

The shameless and disgusting researches that have been made will quite transcend all belief, when we find authors of the very highest repute proclaiming aloud that the male seminal fluid is a sovereign remedy for the sting of the scorpion! In the case too, of women afflicted with sterility, they recommend the application of a pessary, made of the first excrement that is voided by an infant at the moment of its birth; the name they give it is "meconium."¹⁰⁰ They have even gone so far, too, as to scrape the very filth from off the walls of the gymnasia, and to assert that this is also possessed of certain calorific properties. These scrapings are used as a resolvent for inflamed tumours, and are applied topically to ulcers upon aged people and children, and to excoriations and burns.

CHAP. 14.—REMEDIES DEPENDING UPON THE HUMAN WILL.

It would be the less becoming then for me to omit all mention of the remedies which depend upon the human will. Total abstinence from food or drink, or from wine only, from flesh, or from the use of the bath, in cases where the health requires any of these expedients, is looked upon as one of the most effectual modes of treating diseases. To this class of remedies must be added bodily exercise, exertion of the voice,¹⁰¹ anointings, and frictions according to a prescribed method: for powerful friction, it should be remembered, has a binding effect upon the body, while gentle friction, on the other hand, acts as a laxative; so too, repeated friction reduces the body, while used in moderation it has a tendency to make flesh. But the most beneficial practice of all is to take walking or carriage¹⁰² exercise; this last being performed in various ways. Exercise on horseback is extremely good for affections of the stomach and hips, a voyage for phthisis,¹⁰³ and a change of locality¹⁰⁴ for diseases of long standing. So, too, a cure may sometimes be effected by sleep, by a recumbent position in bed, or by the use of emetics in moderation. To lie upon the back is beneficial to the sight, to lie with the face downwards is good for a cough, and to lie on the side is recommended for patients suffering from catarrh.

According to Aristotle and Fabianus, it is towards spring and autumn that we are most apt to dream; and they tell us that persons are most liable to do so when lying on the back, but never when lying with the face downwards. Theophrastus assures us that the digestion is accelerated by lying on the right side; while, on the other hand, it is retarded by lying with the face upwards. The most powerful, however, of all remedies, and one which is always at a person's own command, is the sun: violent friction, too, is useful by the agency of linen towels and body-scrapers.¹⁰⁵ To pour warm water on the head before taking the vapour-bath, and cold water after it, is looked upon as a most beneficial practice; so, too, is the habit of taking cold water before food, of drinking it every now and then while eating, of taking it just before going to sleep, and, if practicable, of waking every now and then, and taking a draught. It is worthy also of remark, that there is no living creature but man¹⁰⁶ that is fond of hot drinks, a proof that they are contrary to nature. It has been ascertained by experiment, that it is a good plan to rinse the mouth with undiluted wine, before going to sleep, for the purpose of sweetening the breath; to rinse the mouth with cold water an odd number of times every morning, as a preservative against tooth-ache; and to wash the eyes with oxycrate, as a preventive of ophthalmia. It has been remarked also, that the general health is improved by a varying regimen, subject to no fixed rules.

(5.) Hippocrates informs us that the viscera of persons who do not take the morning meal¹⁰⁷ become prematurely aged and feeble; but then he has pronounced this aphorism, it must be remembered, by way of suggesting a healthful regimen, and not to promote gluttony; for moderation in diet is, after all, the thing most conducive to health. L. Lucullus gave charge to one of his slaves to overlook him in this respect; and, a thing that reflected the highest discredit on him, when, now an aged man and laden with triumphs, he was feasting in the Capitol even, his hand had to be removed. from the dish to which he was about to help himself. Surely it was a disgrace for a man to be governed by his own slave¹⁰⁸ more easily than by himself!

CHAP. 15. (6.)—REMEDIES DERIVED FROM SNEEZING.

Sneezing, provoked by a feather, relieves heaviness in the head; it is said too, that to touch the nostrils of a mule with the lips, will arrest sneezing and hiccup. For this last purpose, Varro recommends us to scratch the palm, first of one hand and then of the other; while many say that it is a good plan to shift the ring from off the left hand to the longest finger of the right, and then to plunge the hands into hot water. Theophrastus says, that aged persons sneeze with greater difficulty than others.

CHAP. 16.—REMEDIES DERIVED FROM THE SEXUAL CONGRESS.

Democritus spoke in condemnation of the sexual congress, as¹⁰⁹ being merely an act through which one human being springs from another; and really, by Hercules! the more rarely it is used the better. Still however, athletes, we find, when they become dull and heavy, are re-established by it: the voice, too, is restored by it, when from being perfectly clear, it has degenerated into hoarseness. The congress of the sexes is a cure also for pains in the loins, dimness of the eyesight,¹¹⁰ alienation of the mental difficulties, and melancholy.

CHAP. 17.—VARIOUS OTHER REMEDIES.

To sit by a pregnant woman, or by a person to whom any remedy is being administered, with the fingers of one hand inserted between those of the other, acts as a magic spell; a discovery that was made, it is said, when Alcmena¹¹¹ was delivered of Hercules. If the fingers are thus joined, clasping one or both knees, or if the ham of one leg is first put upon the knee of the other, and then changed about, the omen is of still worse signification. Hence it is, that in councils held by generals and persons in authority, our ancestors forbade these postures, as being an impediment to all business.¹¹² They have given a similar prohibition also with reference to sacrifices and the offering of public vows; but as to the usage of uncovering the head in presence of the magistrates, that has been enjoined, Varro says, not as a mark of respect, but with a view to health, the head being strengthened¹¹³ by the practice of keeping it uncovered.

When anything has got into the eye, it is a good plan to close the other; and when water has got into the right ear, the person should hop about on the left foot, with the head reclining upon the right shoulder, the reverse being done when the same has happened to the left ear. If the secretion of the phlegm produces coughing, the best way of stopping it is for another person to blow in the party's face. When the uvula is relaxed, another person should take the patient with his teeth by the crown,¹¹⁴ and lift him from the ground; while for pains in the neck, the hams should be rubbed, and for pains in the hams the neck. If a person is seized in bed with cramp in the sinews of the legs or thighs, he should set his feet upon the ground: so, too, if he has cramp on the left side, he should take hold of the great toe of the left foot with the right hand, and if on the right side, the great toe of the right foot with the left hand. For cold shiverings or for excessive bleeding at the nostrils, the extremities of the body should be well rubbed with sheep's wool. To arrest incontinence of urine, the extremities of the generative organs should be tied with a thread of linen or papyrus, and a binding passed round the middle of the thigh. For derangement of the stomach, it is a good plan to press the feet together, or to plunge the hands into hot water.

In addition to all this, in many cases it is found highly beneficial to speak but little; thus, for instance, Mæcenas Melissus,¹¹⁵ we are told, enjoined silence on himself for three years, in consequence of spitting blood after a convulsive fit. When a person is thrown from a carriage, or when, while mounting an elevation or lying extended at full length, he is menaced with any accident, or if he receives a blow, it is singularly beneficial to hold the breath; a discovery for which we are indebted to an animal, as already¹¹⁶ stated.

To thrust an iron nail into the spot where a person's head lay at the moment he was seized with a fit of epilepsy, is said to have the effect of curing him of that disease. For pains in the kidneys, loins, or bladder, it is considered highly soothing to void the urine lying on the face at full length in a reclining bath. It is quite surprising how much more speedily wounds will heal if they are bound up and tied with a Hercules' knot:¹¹⁷ indeed, it is said, that if the girdle which we wear every day is tied with a knot of this description, it will be productive of certain beneficial effects, Hercules having been the first to discover the fact.

Demetrius, in the treatise which he has compiled upon the number Four, alleges certain reasons why drink should never be taken in proportions of four cyathi or sextarii. As a preventive of ophthalmia, it is a good plan to rub the parts behind the ears, and, as a cure for watery eyes, to rub the forehead. As to the presages which are derived from man himself, there is one to the effect that so long as a person is able to see himself reflected in the pupil of the patient's eye, there need be no apprehension of a fatal termination to the malady.

CHAP. 18.—REMEDIES DERIVED FROM THE URINE.

The urine,¹¹⁸ too, has been the subject not only of numerous theories with authors, but of various religious observances as well, its properties being classified under several distinctive heads: thus, for instance, the urine of eunuchs, they say, is highly beneficial as a promoter of fruitfulness in females. But to turn to those remedies which we may be allowed to name without impropriety—the urine of children who have not arrived at puberty is a sovereign remedy for the poisonous secretions of the asp known as the "ptyas,"¹¹⁹ from the fact that it spits its venom into the eyes of human beings. It is good, too, for the cure of albugo, films and marks upon the eyes, white specks¹²⁰ upon the pupils, and maladies of the eyelids. In combination with meal of fitches, it is used for the cure of burns, and, with a head of bulbed leek, it is boiled down to one half, in a new earthen vessel, for the treatment of suppurations of the ears, or the extermination of worms breeding in those organs: the vapour, too, of this decoction acts as an emmenagogue. Salpe recommends that the eyes should be fomented with it, as a means of strengthening the sight; and that it should be used as a liniment for sun scorches, in combination with white of egg, that of the ostrich being the most effectual, the application being kept on for a couple of hours.

Urine is also used for taking out ink spots. Male urine cures gout, witness the fullers for instance,¹²¹ who, for this reason, it is said, are never troubled with that disease. With stale urine some mix ashes of calcined oyster-shells, for the cure of eruptions on the bodies of infants, and all kinds of running ulcers: it is used, too, as a liniment for corrosive sores, burns, diseases of the rectum, chaps upon the body, and stings inflicted by scorpions. The most celebrated midwives have pronounced that there is no lotion which removes itching sensations more effectually; and, with the addition of nitre,¹²² they prescribe it for the cure of ulcers of the head, porrigo, and cancerous sores, those of the generative organs in particular. But the fact is, and there is no impropriety in saying so, that every person's own urine is the best for his own case, due care being taken to apply it immediately, and unmixed with anything else; in such cases as the bite of a dog, for instance, or the quill of a hedge-hog entering the flesh, a sponge or some wool being the vehicle in which it is applied. Kneaded up with ashes, it is good for the bite of a mad dog, and for the cure of stings inflicted by serpents. As to the bite of the scolopendra, the effects of urine are said to be quite marvellous—the person who has been injured has only to touch the crown of his head with a drop of his own urine, and he will experience an instantaneous cure.

CHAP. 19.—INDICATIONS OF HEALTH DERIVED FROM THE URINE.

Certain indications of the health are furnished by the urine. Thus, for example, if it is white at first in the morning and afterwards high-coloured, the first signifies that the digestion is going on, the last that it is completed. When the urine is red, it is a bad sign; but when it is swarthy, it is the worst sign of all. So, too, when it is thick or full of bubbles, it is a bad sign; and when a white sediment forms, it is a symptom of pains in the region of the viscera or in the joints. A green-coloured urine is indicative of disease of the viscera, a pale urine of biliousness, and a red urine of some distemper in the blood. The urine is in a bad state, too, when certain objects form in it, like bran or fine clouds in appearance. A thin, white, urine also is in a diseased state; but when it is thick and possessed of an offensive smell, it is significant of approaching death: so, too, when with children it is thin and watery.

The adepts in magic expressly forbid a person, when about to make water, to uncover the body in the face of the sun¹²³ or moon, or to sprinkle with his urine the shadow of any object whatsoever. Hesiod¹²⁴ gives a precept, recommending persons to make water against an object standing full before them, that no divinity may be offended by their nakedness being uncovered. Osthanes maintains that every one who drops some urine upon his foot in the morning will be proof against all noxious medicaments.

CHAP. 20. (7.)—FORTY-ONE REMEDIES DERIVED FROM THE FEMALE SEX.

The remedies said to be derived from the bodies of females closely approach the marvellous nature of prodigies; to say nothing of still-born infants cut up limb by limb for the most abominable practices, expiations made with the menstrual discharge, and other devices which have been mentioned, not only by midwives but by harlots¹²⁵ even as well! The smell of a woman's hair, burnt, will drive away serpents, and hysterical suffocations, it is said, may be dispelled thereby. The ashes of a woman's hair, burnt in an earthen vessel, or used in combination with litharge, will cure eruptions and prurigo of the eyes: used in combination with honey they will remove warts and ulcers upon infants; with the addition of honey and frankincense, they will heal wounds upon the head, and fill up all concavities left by corrosive ulcers; used with hogs' lard, they will cure inflammatory tumours and gout; and applied topically to the part affected, they will arrest erysipelas and hæmorrhage, and remove itching pimples on the body which resemble the stings of ants.

CHAP. 21.—REMEDIES DERIVED FROM WOMAN'S MILK.

As to the uses to which woman's milk has been applied, it is generally agreed that it is the sweetest and the most delicate of all, and that it is the best¹²⁶ of remedies for chronic fevers and cœliac affections, when the woman has just weaned her infant more particularly. In cases, too, of sickness at stomach, fevers, and gnawing sensations, it has been found by experience to be highly beneficial; as also, in combination with frankincense, for abscesses of the mamillæ. When the eyes are bloodshot from the effects of a blow, or affected with pain or defluxion, it is a very good plan to inject woman's milk into them, more particularly in combination with honey and juice of daffodil, or else powdered frankincense. In all cases, however, the milk of a woman who has been delivered of a male child is the most efficacious, and still more so if she has had male twins; provided always she abstains from wine and food of an acrid nature. Mixed with the white of an egg in a liquid state, and applied to the forehead in wool, it arrests defluxions of the eyes. If a frog¹²⁷ has spirted its secretions¹²⁸ into the eye, woman's milk is a most excellent remedy; and for the bite of that reptile it is used both internally and externally.

It is asserted that if a person is rubbed at the same moment with the milk of both mother and daughter, he will be proof for the rest of his life against all affections of the eyes. Mixed with a small quantity of oil, woman's milk is a cure for diseases of the ears; and if they are in pain from the effects of a blow, it is applied warm with goose-grease. If the ears emit an offensive smell, a thing that is mostly the case in diseases of long standing, wool is introduced into those organs, steeped in woman's milk and honey. While symptoms of jaundice are still visible in the eyes, woman's milk is injected, in combination with elaterium.¹²⁹ Taken as a drink, it is productive of singularly good effects, where the poison of the sea-hare, the buprestis,¹³⁰ or, as Aristotle tells us, the plant dorycnium¹³¹ has been administered; as a preventive also of the madness produced by taking henbane. Woman's milk also, mixed with hemlock, is recommended as a liniment for gout; while some there are who employ it for that purpose in combination with wool-grease¹³² or goose-grease; a form in which it is used as an application for pains in the uterus. Taken as a drink, it arrests diarrhœa, Rabirius¹³³ says, and acts as an emmenagogue; but where the woman has been delivered of a female child, her milk is of use only for the cure of face diseases.

Woman's milk is also a cure for affections of the lungs; and, mixed with the urine of a youth who has not arrived at puberty, and Attic honey, in the proportion of one spoonful of each, it removes singing in the ears, I find. Dogs which have once tasted the milk of a woman who has been delivered of a male child, will never become mad, they say.

CHAP. 22.—REMEDIES DERIVED FROM THE SPITTLE OF FEMALES.

A woman's fasting spittle is generally considered highly efficacious for bloodshot eyes: it is good also for defluxions of those organs, the inflamed corners of the eyes being moistened with it every now and then; the result, too, is still more successful, if the woman has abstained from food and wine the day before.

I find it stated that head-ache may be alleviated by tying a woman's fillet¹³⁴ round the head.

CHAP. 23.—FACTS CONNECTED WITH THE MENSTRUAL DISCHARGE.

Over and above these particulars, there is no limit to the marvellous powers attributed to females. For, in the first place, hailstorms, they say, whirlwinds, and lightning¹³⁵ even, will be scared away by a woman uncovering her body while her monthly courses are upon her. The same, too, with all other kinds of tempestuous weather; and out at sea, a storm may be lulled by a woman uncovering her body merely, even though not menstruating at the time. As to the menstrual discharge itself, a thing that in other respects, as¹³⁶ already stated on a more appropriate occasion, is productive of the most monstrous effects, there are some ravings about it of a most dreadful and unutterable nature. Of these particulars, however, I do not feel so much shocked at mentioning the following. If the menstrual discharge coincides with an eclipse of the moon or sun, the evils resulting from it are irremediable; and no less so, when it happens while the moon is in conjunction with the sun; the congress with a woman at such a period being noxious, and attended with fatal effects to the man. At this period also, the lustre of purple is tarnished by the touch of a woman: so much more baneful is her influence at this time than at any other. At any other time, also, if a woman strips herself naked while she is menstruating, and walks round a field of wheat, the caterpillars, worms, beetles, and other vermin, will fall from off the ears of corn. Metrodorus of Scepsos tells us that this discovery was first made in Cappadocia; and that, in consequence of such multitudes of can- tharides being found to breed there, it is the practice for women to walk through the middle of the fields with their garments tucked up above the thighs.¹³⁷ In other places, again, it is the usage for women to go barefoot, with the hair dishevelled and the girdle loose: due precaution must be taken, however, that this is not done at sun-rise, for if so, the crop will wither and dry up. Young vines, too, it is said, are injured irremediably by the touch of a woman in this state; and both rue and ivy, plants possessed of highly medicinal virtues, will die instantly upon being touched by her.

Much as I have already stated on the virulent effects of this discharge, I have to state, in addition, that bees, it is a well-known fact, will forsake their hives if touched by a menstruous woman; that linen boiling in the cauldron will turn black, that the edge of a razor will become blunted, and that copper vessels will contract a fetid smell and become covered with verdigrease, on coming in contact with her. A mare big with foal, if touched by a woman in this state, will be sure to miscarry; nay, even more than this, at the very sight of a woman, though seen at a distance even, should she happen to be menstruating for the first time after the loss of her virginity, or for the first time, while in a state of virginity. The bitumen¹³⁸ that is found in Judæa, will yield to nothing but the menstrual discharge; its tenacity being overcome, as already stated, by the agency of a thread from a garment which has been brought in contact with this fluid. Fire itself even, an element which triumphs over every other substance, is unable to conquer this; for if reduced to ashes and then sprinkled upon garments when about to be scoured, it will change their purple tint, and tarnish the brightness of the colours. Indeed so pernicious are its properties, that women themselves, the source from which it is derived, are far from being proof against its effects; a pregnant woman, for instance, if touched with it, or indeed if she so much as steps over it, will be liable to miscarry.

Laïs and Elephant is¹³⁹ have given statements quite at variance, on the subject of abortives; they mention the efficacy for that purpose of charcoal of cabbage root, myrtle root, or tamarisk root, quenched in the menstrual discharge; they say that she-asses will be barren for as many years as they have eaten barley-corns steeped in this fluid; and they have enumerated various other monstrous and irreconcileable properties, the one telling us, for instance, that fruitfulness may be ensured by the very same methods, which, according to the statement of the other, are productive of barrenness; to all which stories it is the best plan to refuse credit altogether. Bithus of Dyrrhachium informs us that a mirror,¹⁴⁰ which has been tarnished by the gaze of a menstruous female, will recover its brightness if the same woman looks steadily upon the back of it; he states, also, that all evil influences of this nature will be entirely neutralized, if the woman carries the fish known as the sur mullet about her person.

On the other hand, again, many writers say that, baneful as it is, there are certain remedial properties in this fluid; that it is a good plan, for instance, to use it as a topical application for gout, and that women, while menstruating, can give relief by touching scrofulous sores and imposthumes of the parotid glands, inflamed tumours, erysipelas, boils, and defluxions of the eyes. According to Laïs and Salpe, the bite of a mad (log, as well as tertian or quartan fevers, may be cured by putting some menstruous blood in the wool of a black ram and enclosing it in a silver bracelet; and we learn from Diotimus of Thebes that the smallest portion will suffice of any kind of cloth that has been stained therewith, a thread even, if inserted and worn in a bracelet. The midwife Sotira informs us that the most efficient cure for tertian and quartan fevers is to rub the soles of the patient's feet therewith, the result being still more successful if the operation is performed by the woman herself, without the patient being aware of it; she says, too, that this is an excellent method for reviving persons when attacked with epilepsy.

Icetidas the physician pledges his word that quartan fever may be cured by sexual intercourse, provided the woman is just beginning to menstruate. It is universally agreed, too, that when a person has been bitten by a dog and manifests a dread of water and of all kinds of drink, it will be quite sufficient to put under his clip a strip of cloth that has been dipped in this fluid; the result being that the hydrophobia will immediately disappear. This arises, no doubt, from that powerful sympathy which has been so much spoken of by the Greeks, and the existence of which is proved by the fact,¹⁴¹ already mentioned, that dogs become mad upon tasting this fluid. It is a well- known fact, too, that the menstruous discharge, reduced to ashes, and applied with furnace soot and wax, is a cure for ulcers upon all kinds of beasts of burden; and that stains made upon a garment with it can only be removed by the agency of the urine of the same female. Equally certain it is, too, that this fluid, reduced to ashes and mixed with oil of roses, is very useful, applied to the forehead, for allaying head-ache, in women more particularly; as also that the nature of the discharge is most virulent in females whose virginity has been destroyed solely by the lapse of time.

Another thing universally acknowledged and one which I am ready to believe with the greatest pleasure, is the fact, that if the door-posts are only touched with the menstruous fluid all spells of the magicians will be neutralized—a set of men the most lying in existence, as any one may ascertain. I will give an example of one of the most reasonable of their prescriptions—Take the parings of the toe-nails and finger-nails of a sick person, and mix them up with wax, the party saying that he is seeking a remedy for a tertian, quartan, or quotidian fever, as the case may be; then stick this wax, before sunrise, upon the door of another person—such is the prescription they give for these diseases! What deceitful persons they must be if there is no truth in it! And how highly criminal, if they really do thus transfer diseases from one person to another! Some of them, again, whose practices are of a less guilty nature, recommend that the parings of all the finger-nails should be thrown at the entrance of ant-holes, the first ant to be taken which attempts to draw one into the hole; this, they say, must be attached to the neck of the patient, and he will experience a speedy cure.

CHAP. 24. (8.)—REMEDIES DERIVED FROM FOREIGN ANIMALS: THE ELEPHANT, EIGHT REMEDIES.

Such then are the remedies from human beings which may with any degree of propriety be described, and many of those only with the leave and good-will of the reader. The rest are of a most execrable and infamous nature, such, in fact, as to make me hasten to close my description of the remedies derived from man: we will therefore proceed to speak of the more remarkable animals, and the effects produced by them. The blood of the elephant, the male in particular, arrests all those defluxions known by the name of "rheumatismi." Ivory shavings, it is said, in combination with Attic honey, are good for the removal of spots upon the face: with the sawdust, too, of ivory, hangnails are removed. By the touch of an elephant's trunk head-ache is alleviated, if the animal happens to sneeze at the time more particularly. The right side of the trunk, attached to the body with red earth of Lemnos, acts powerfully as an aphrodisiac. Elephant's blood is good for consumption, and the liver for epilepsy.

CHAP. 25.—TEN REMEDIES DERIVED FROM THE LION.

Lion's fat, mixed with oil of roses, protects the skin of the face from all kinds of spots, and preserves the whiteness of the complexion; it is remedial also for such parts of the body as have been frozen by snow, and for swellings in the joints. The frivolous lies of the magicians assert that persons who are anointed with lion's fat, will more readily win favour with kings and peoples; more particularly when the fat has been used that lies between the eyebrows of the animal-a place, in fact, where there is no fat to be found! The like effects they promise also from the possession of a lion's tooth, one from the right side in particular, as also the shaggy hairs that are found upon the lower jaw. The gall, used as an ointment in combination with water, improves the eyesight, and, employed with the fat of the same animal, is a cure for epilepsy; but a slight taste only must be taken of it, and the patient must run immediately after swallowing it, in order to digest it. A lion's heart, used as food, is curative of quartan fevers, and the fat, taken with oil of roses, of quotidian fevers. Wild beasts will fly from persons anointed with lion's fat, and it is thought to be a preservative even against treacherous practices.

CHAP. 26.—TEN REMEDIES DERIVED FROM THE CAMEL.

A camel's¹⁴² brains, dried and taken in vinegar, are a cure, they say, for epilepsy: the same, too, with the gall, taken with honey; which is a remedy also for quinzy. A camel's tail dried, it is said, is productive of diarrhœa, and ashes of burnt camel's dung, mixed with oil, make the hair curl. These ashes, applied topically, are very useful for dysentery, as also taken in drink, the proper dose being a pinch in three fingers at a time; they are curative also of epilepsy. Camel's urine it is said, is very useful to fullers, and is good for the cure of running sores. Barbarous nations, we are told, are in the habit of keeping it till it is five years old, and then taking it as a purgative, in doses of one semisextarius. The hairs of the tail, it is said, plaited and attached to the left arm, are a cure for quartan fevers.

CHAP. 27.—SEVENTY-NINE REMEDIES DERIVED FROM THE HYÆNA.

But of all animals, it is the hyæna that has been held in the highest admiration by the magicians, who have gone so far as to attribute to it certain magical virtues even, and the power of alluring¹⁴³ human beings and depriving them of their senses. Of its change of sex each year, and other monstrous peculiarities¹⁴⁴ in its nature, we have spoken already;¹⁴⁵ we will now proceed to describe the medicinal virtues that are ascribed to it.

The hyæna, it is said, is particularly terrible to panthers; so much so, indeed, that they will not attempt to make the slightest resistance to it, and will never attack a man who has any portion of a hyæna's skin about him. A thing truly marvellous to tell of, if the hides of these two animals are hung up facing one another, the hair will fall from off the panther's skin! When the hyæna flies before the hunter, it turns off on the right, and letting the man get before it, follows in his track: should it succeed in doing which, the man is sure to lose his senses and fall from his horse even. But if, on the other hand, it turns off to the left, it is a sign that the animal is losing strength, and that it will soon be taken. The easiest method, however, of taking it, they say, is for the hunter to tie his girdle with seven knots, and to make as many knots in the whip with which he guides his horse. In addition to all this, so full of quirks and subtleties are the vain conceits of the magicians, they recommend the hyæna to be captured while the moon is passing through the sign of Gemini, and every hair of it to be preserved, if possible. They say, too, that the skin of the head is highly efficacious, if attached to a person suffering from head-ache; that the gall, applied to the forehead, is curative of ophthalmia; and that if the gall is boiled down with three cyathi of Attic honey and one ounce of saffron, it will be a most effectual preservative against that disease, the same preparation being equally good for the dispersion of films on the eyes and cataract. If, again, this preparation is kept till it is old, it will be all the better for improving the sight, due care being taken to preserve it in a box of Cyprian copper: they assert also, that it is good for the cure of argema, eruptions and excrescences of the eyes, and marks upon those organs. For diseases¹⁴⁶ of the crystalline humours of the eyes, it is recommended to anoint them with the gravy of hyæna's liver roasted fresh, incorporated with clarified honey.

We learn also, from the same sources, that the teeth of the hyæna are useful for the cure of tooth-ache, the diseased tooth being either touched with them, or the animal's teeth being arranged in their regular order, and attached to the patient; that the shoulders of this animal are good for the cure of pains in the arms and shoulders; that the teeth, extracted from the left side of the jaw, and wrapped in the skin of a sheep or hegoat, are an effectual cure for pains in the stomach; that the lights of the animal, taken with the food, are good for cœliac affections; that the lights, reduced to ashes and applied with oil, are also soothing to the stomach; that the marrow of the backbone, used with old oil and gall, is strengthening to the sinews; that the liver, tasted thrice just before the paroxysms, is good for quartan fevers; that the ashes of the vertebræ, applied in hyena's skin with the tongue and right foot of a sea-calf and a bull's gall, the whole boiled up together, are soothing for gout; that for the same disease hyæna's gall is advantageously employed in combination with stone of Assos;¹⁴⁷ that for cold shiverings, spasms, sudden fits of starting, and palpitations of the heart, it is a good plan to eat some portion of a hyæna's heart cooked, care being taken to reduce the rest to ashes, and to apply it with the brains of the animal to the part affected; that this last composition, or the gall applied alone, acts as a depilatory, the hairs being first plucked out which are wanted not to grow again; that by this method superfluous hairs of the eyelids may be removed; that the flesh of the loins, eaten and applied with oil, is a cure for pains in the loins; and that sterility in females may be removed by giving them the eye of this animal to eat, in combination with liquorice and dill, conception within three days being warranted as the result.

Persons afflicted with night-mare and dread of spectres, will experience relief, they say, by attaching one of the large teeth of a hyæna to the body, with a linen thread. In fits of delirium too, it is recommended to fumigate the patient with the smoke of one of these teeth, and to attach one in front of his chest, with the fat of the kidneys, or else the liver or skin. They assert also that a pregnant woman will never miscarry, if she wears suspended from her neck, the white flesh from a hyena's breast, with seven hairs and the genitals of a stag, the whole tied up in the skin of a gazelle. The genitals, they say, eaten with honey, act as a stimulant upon a person, according to the sex, and this even though it should be the case of a man who has manifested an aversion to all intercourse with females.

Nay, even more than all this, we are assured that if the genitals and a certain joint of the vertebræ are preserved in a house with the hide adhering to them, they will ensure peace and concord between all members of the family; hence it is that this part is known as the "joint of the spine,"¹⁴⁸ or "Atlantian¹⁴⁹ knot." This joint, which is the first, is reckoned among the remedies for epilepsy.

The fumes of the burnt fat of this animal will put serpents to flight, they say; and the jawbone, pounded with anise and taken with the food, is a cure for shivering fits. A fumigation made therewith has the effect of an emmenagogue; and such are the frivolous and absurd conceits of the professors of the magic art, that they boldly assert that if a man attaches to his arm a tooth from the right side of the upper jaw, he will never miss any object he may happen to aim at with a dart. The palate, dried and warmed with Egyptian alum,¹⁵⁰ is curative of bad odours and ulcers of the mouth, care being taken to renew the application three times. Dogs, they say, will never bark at persons who have a hyæna's tongue in the shoe, beneath the sole of the foot. The left side of the brain, applied to the nostrils, is said to have a soothing effect upon all dangerous maladies either in men or beasts. They say, too, that the skin of the forehead is a preservative against all fascinations; that the flesh of the neck, whether eaten or dried and taken in drink, is good for pains in the loins; that the sinews of the back and shoulders, used as a fumigation, are good for pains in the sinews; that the bristles of the snout, applied to a woman's lips, have all the effect of a philtre; and that the liver, administered in drink, is curative of griping pains and urinary calculi.

The heart, it is said, taken with the food or drink, is remedial for all kinds of pains in the body; the milt for pains in the spleen; the caul, in combination with oil, for inflammatoryulcers; and the marrow for pains in the spine and weakness in the sinews. The strings of the kidneys, they say, if taken with wine and frankincense, will restore fruitfulness, in cases where it has been banished through the agency of noxious spells; the uterus, taken in drink with the rind of a sweet pomegranate, is highly beneficial for diseases of the uterus; and the fat of the loins, used as a fumigation, removes all impediments to delivery, and accelerates parturition. The marrow of the back, attached to the body as an amulet, is an effectual remedy for fantastic illusions,¹⁵¹ and the genitals of the male animal, used as a fumigation, are good for the cure of spasms. For ophthalmia, ruptures, and inflammations, the feet, which are kept for the purpose, are touched; the left feet for affections on the right side of the body, and the right feet for affections on the left. The left foot, if laid upon the body of a woman in travail, will be productive, they say, of fatal effects; but the right foot, similarly employed, will facilitate delivery. The vesicle which has contained the gall, taken in wine or with the food. is beneficial for the cardiac disease; and the bladder, taken in wine, is a good preservative against incontinence of urine. The urine, too, which is found in the bladder, taken with oil, sesame, and honey, is said to be useful for diseases of long standing.

The first rib and the eighth, used as a fumigation, are said to be useful for ruptures; the vertebræ for women in travail; and the blood, in combination with polenta,¹⁵² for griping pains in the bowels. If the door-posts are touched with this blood, the various arts of the magicians will be rendered of no effect; they will neither be able to summon the gods into their presence nor to converse with them, whatever the method to which they have recourse, whether lamps or basin, water or globe,¹⁵³ or any other method.

The flesh of the hyæna, taken as food, is said to be efficacious for the bite of a mad dog, and the liver still more so. The flesh or bones of a human being which have been found in the belly of a slain hyæna, used as a fumigation, are said to be remedial for gout: but if among these remains the nails are found, it is looked upon as a presage of death to some one among those who have captured it. The excrements or bones which have been voided by the animal at the moment when killed, are looked upon as counter-charms to magic spells. The dung found in the intestines is dried and administered in drink for dysentery; and it is applied to all parts of the body with goose-grease, in the form of a liniment, in the case of persons who have received injury from some noxious medicament. By rubbing themselves with the grease, and lying upon the skin, of a hyæna, persons who have been bitten by dogs are cured.

On the other hand, the ashes of the left pastern-bone, they say, boiled with weasel's blood, and applied to a person's body, will ensure universal hatred; a similar effect being equally produced by the eye when boiled. But the most extraordinary thing of all is, their assertion that the extremity of the rectum of this animal is a preservative against all oppression on the part of chiefs and potentates, and an assurance of success in all petitions, judgments, and lawsuits, and this, if a person only carries it about him. The anus, according to them, has so powerful an effect as a philtre, that if it is worn on the left arm, a woman will be sure to follow the wearer the moment he looks at her. The hairs, too, of this part, reduced to ashes, and applied with oil to the body of a man who is living a life of disgraceful effeminacy, will render him not only modest, they assure us, but of scrupulous morals even.

CHAP. 28.—NINETEEN REMEDIES DERIVED FROM THE CROCODILE.

For fabulous stories connected with it the crocodile may challenge the next place; and, indeed for cunning, the one¹⁵⁴ which lives both upon land and in the water is fully its equal: for I would here remark, that there are two varieties of this animal. The teeth of the right jaw of the amphibious crocodile, attached to the right arm as an amulet, acts as an aphrodisiac, that is, if we choose to believe it. The eye-teeth of the animal, filled with frankincense—for they are hollow—are a cure for periodical fevers, care being taken to let the patient remain five days without seeing the person who has attached them to his body. A similar virtue is attributed to the small stones which are found in the belly of this animal, as being a check to the cold shiverings in fevers, when about to come on; and with the same object the Ægyptians are in the habit of anointing their sick with the fat of the crocodile.

The other kind of crocodile¹⁵⁵ resembles it, but is much inferior in size: it lives upon land only, and among the most odoriferous flowers; hence it is that its intestines are so greatly in request, being filled as they are with a mass of agreeable perfumes. This substance is called "crocodilea," and it is looked upon as extremely beneficial for diseases of the eyes, and for the treatment of films and cataract, being applied with leek-juice in the form of an ointment. Applied with oil of cyprus,¹⁵⁶ it removes blemishes growing upon the face; and, employed with water, it is a cure for all those diseases, the nature of which it is to spread upon the face, while at the same time it restores the natural tints of the skin. An application of it makes freckles disappear, as well as all kinds of spots and pimples; and it is taken for epilepsy, in doses of two oboli, in oxymel. Used in the form of a pessary it acts as an emmenagogue. The best kind of crocodilea, is that which is the whitest, friable, and the lightest in weight: when rubbed between the fingers it should ferment like leaven. The usual method is to wash it, as they do white lead. It is sometimes adulterated with amylum¹⁵⁷ or with Cimolian earth, but the most common method of sophistication is to catch the crocodiles and feed them upon nothing but rice. It is recommended as one of the most efficient remedies for cataract to anoint the eyes with crocodile's gall, incorporated with honey. We are assured also that it is highly beneficial for affections of the uterus to make fumigations with the intestines and rest of the body, or else to envelope the patient with wool impregnated with the smoke.

The ashes of the skin of either crocodile, applied with vinegar to such parts of the body as are about to undergo an incision, or indeed the very smell of the skin when burning, will render the patient insensible to the knife. The blood of either crocodile, applied to the eyes, effaces marks upon those organs and improves the sight. The body, with the exception of the head and feet, is eaten, boiled, for the cure of sciatica, and is found very useful for chronic coughs, in children more particularly: it is equally good, too, for the cure of lumbago. These animals have a certain fat also, which, applied to the hair, makes it fall off; persons anointed with this fat are effectually protected against crocodiles, and it is the practice to drop it into wounds inflicted by them. A crocodile's heart, attached to the body in the wool of a black sheep without a speck of any other colour, due care too being taken that the sheep was the first lamb yeaned by its dam, will effectually cure a quartan fever, it is said.

CHAP. 29.—FIFTEEN REMEDIES DERIVED FROM THE CHAMÆLEON.

To these animals we shall annex some others that are equally foreign, and very similar in their properties. To begin then with the chameleon, which Democritus has considered worthy to be made the subject of an especial work, and each part of which has been consecrated to some particular purpose—This book, in fact, has afforded me no small amusement, revealing as it does, and exposing the lies and frivolities of the Greeks.— In size, the chameleon resembles the crocodile last mentioned, and only differs from it in having the back-bone arched at a more acute angle, and a larger tail. There is no animal, it is thought, more¹⁵⁸ timid than this, a fact to which it owes its repeated changes of colour.¹⁵⁹ It has a peculiar ascendancy over the hawk tribe; for, according to report, it has the power of attracting those birds, when flying above it, and then leaving them a voluntary prey for other animals. Democritus¹⁶⁰ asserts that if the head and neck of a chamæleon are burnt in a fire made with logs of oak, it will be productive of a storm attended with rain and thunder; a result equally produced by burning the liver upon the tiles of a house. As to the rest of the magical virtues which he ascribes to this animal, we shall forbear to mention them, although we look upon them as unfounded;¹⁶¹ except, indeed, in some few instances where their very ridiculousness sufficiently refutes his assertions.

The right eye, he says, taken from the living animal and applied with goats' milk, removes diseases of the crystalline humours of the eyes; and the tongue, attached to the body as an amulet, is an effectual preservative against the perils of child-birth. He asserts also that the animal itself will facilitate parturition, if in the house at the moment; but if, on the other hand, it is brought from elsewhere, the consequences, he says, will be most dangerous. The tongue, he tells us, if taken from the animal alive, will ensure a favourable result to suits at law; and the heart, attached to the body with black wool of the first shearing, is a good preservative against the attacks of quartan fever.

He states also that the right fore-paw, attached to the left arm in the skin of the hyena, is a most effectual preservative against robberies and alarms at night; that the pap on the right side is a preventive of fright and panics; that the left foot is sometimes burnt in a furnace with the plant which also has the name of "chamæleon,"¹⁶² and is then made up, with some unguent, into lozenges; and that these lozenges, kept in a wooden vessel, have the effect, if we choose to believe him, of making their owner invisible to others; that the possession, also, of the right shoulder of this animal will ensure victory over all adversaries or enemies, provided always the party throws the sinews of the shoulder upon the ground and treads them under foot. As to the left shoulder of the chamæleon, I should be quite ashamed to say to what monstrous purposes Democritus devotes it; how that dreams may be produced by the agency thereof, and transferred to any person we may think proper; how that these dreams may be dispelled by the employment of the right foot; and how that lethargy, which has been produced by the right foot of this animal, may be removed by the agency of the left side.

So, too, head-ache, he tells us, may be cured by sprinkling wine upon the head, in which either flank of a chameleon has been macerated. If the feet are rubbed with the ashes of the left thigh or foot, mixed with sow's milk, gout, he says, will be the result. It is pretty generally believed, however, that cataract and diseases of the crystalline humours of the eyes may be cured by anointing those organs with the gall for three consecutive days; that serpents may be put to flight by dropping some of it into the fire; that weasels may be attracted by water into which it has been thrown; and that, applied to the body, it acts as a depilatory. The liver, they say, applied with the lungs of a bramble-frog, is productive of a similar effect: in addition to which, we are told that the liver counteracts the effects of philtres; that persons are cured of melancholy by drinking from the warm skin of a chamæleon the juice of the plant known by that name; and that if the intestines of the animal and their contents—we should bear in mind that in reality the animal lives without food¹⁶³—are mixed with apes' urine, and the doors of an enemy are besmeared with the mixture, he will, through its agency, become the object of universal hatred.

We are told, too, that by the agency of the tail, the course of rivers and torrents may be stopped, and serpents struck with torpor; that the tail, prepared with cedar and myrrh, and tied to a double branch of the date-palm, will divide waters that are smitten therewith, and so disclose every- thing that lies at the bottom—and I only wish¹⁶⁴ that Democri- tus himself had been touched up with this branch of palm, seeing that, as he tells us, it has the property of putting an end to immoderate garrulity. It is quite evident that this philosopher, a man who has shown himself so sagacious in other respects, and so useful to his fellow-men, has been led away, in this instance, by too earnest a desire to promote the welfare of mankind.

CHAP. 30.—FOUR REMEDIES DERIVED FROM THE SCINCUS.

Similar in appearance to the preceding animals is the scincus,¹⁶⁵ which by some writers has been called the land crocodile; it is, however, whiter in appearance, and the skin is not so thick. But the main difference between it and the cro- codile is in the arrangement of the scales, which run from the tail towards the head. The largest of these animals is the Indian scincus, and next to it that of Arabia; they are brought here salted. The muzzle and fat of the scincus, taken in white wine, act as an aphrodisiac; when used with satyrion¹⁶⁶ and rocket-seed more particularly, in the proportion of one drachma of each, mixed with two drachmæ of pepper; the whole being made up into lozenges of one drachma each, and so taken in drink. The flesh from the flanks, taken internally in a similar manner, in doses of two oboli, with myrrh and pepper, is generally thought to be productive of a similar effect, and to be even more efficacious for the purpose. According to Apelles, the flesh of the scincus is good for wounds inflicted by poisoned arrows, whether taken before or after the wound is inflicted: it is used as an ingredient, also, in the most celebrated anti- dotes. Sextius tells us, that, taken in doses of more than one drachma, in one semisextarius of wine, the flesh is productive of deadly results: he adds, too, that a broth prepared from it. taken with honey, acts as an antaphrodisiac.

CHAP. 31.—SEEN REMEDIES DERIVED FROM THE HIPPOPOTAMUS.

Between the crocodile, too, and the hippopotamus there is a certain affinity, frequenting as they do the same river, and being both of them of an amphibious nature. The hippopo- tamus was the first inventor of the practice of letting blood, a fact to which we have¹⁶⁷ made allusion on a previous occasion: it is found, too, in the greatest numbers in the parts above the prefecture of Saïs.

The hide, reduced to ashes and applied with water, is curative of inflamed tumours, and the fat, as well as the dung, used as a fumigation, is employed for the cure of cold agues. With the teeth of the left side of the jaw, the gums are scarified for the cure of tooth-ache. The skin of the left side of the forehead, attached to the groin, acts as an antaphrodisiac; and an application of the ashes of the same part will cause the hair to grow when lost through alopecy. The testes are taken in water, in doses of one drachma, for the cure of injuries inflicted by serpents. The blood is made use of by painters.

CHAP. 32.—FIVE REMEDIES DERIVED FROM THE LYNX.

To foreign countries, also, belongs the lynx, which of all quadrupeds is possessed of the most piercing sight. It is said that in the Isle of Carpathus a most powerful medicament is obtained by reducing to ashes the nails of the lynx, together with the hide; that these ashes, taken in drink, have the effect of checking abominable desires in men; and that, if they are sprinkled upon women, all libidinous thoughts will be restrained. They are good too for the removal of itching sensations in any part of the body. The urine of the lynx is a remedy for strangury; for which reason the animal, it is said, is in the habit of rooting up the ground and covering it the moment it is voided.¹⁶⁸ It is mentioned, too, that this urine is an effectual remedy for pains in the throat. Thus much with reference to foreign animals.

CHAP. 33. (9.)—REMEDIES FURNISHED IN COMMON BY ANIMALS OF THE SAME CLASS, WHETHER WILD OR TAME. FIFTY-FOUR MEDICINAL USES OF MILK, WITH OBSERVATIONS THEREON.

We will now return to our own part of the world, speaking, first of all, of certain remedies common to animals in general, but excellent in their nature; such as the use of milk, for example. The most beneficial milk to every creature is the mother's¹⁶⁹ milk. It is highly dangerous for nursing women to conceive: children that are suckled by them are known among us as "colostrati,"¹⁷⁰ their milk being thick, like cheese in appearance—the name "colostra,"¹⁷¹ it should be remembered, is given to the first milk secreted after delivery, which assumes a spongy, coagulated form. The most nutritive milk, in all cases, is woman's milk, and next to that goats' milk, to which is owing, probably, the fabulous story that Jupiter was suckled by a goat.¹⁷² The sweetest, next to woman's milk, is camels' milk; but the most efficacious, medicinally speaking, is asses' milk. It is in animals of the largest size and individuals of the greatest bulk, that the milk is secreted with the greatest facility. Goats' milk agrees the best with the stomach, that animal browsing more than grazing. Cows' milk is considered more medicinal, while ewes' milk is sweeter and more nutritive, but not so well adapted to the stomach, it being more oleaginous than any other.

Every kind of milk is more aqueous in spring than in summer, and the same in all cases where the animal has grazed upon a new pasture. The best milk of all is that which adheres to the finger nail, when placed there, and does not run from off it. Milk is most harmless when boiled, more particularly if sea pebbles¹⁷³ have been boiled with it. Cows' milk is the most relaxing, and all kinds of milk are less apt to inflate when boiled. Milk is used for all kinds of internal ulcerations, those of the kidneys, bladder, intestines, throat, and lungs in particular; and externally, it is employed for itching sensations upon the skin, and for purulent eruptions, it being taken fasting for the purpose. We have already¹⁷⁴ stated, when speaking of the plants, how that in Arcadia cows' milk is administered for phthisis, consumption, and cachexy. Instances are cited, also, of persons who have been cured of gout in the hands and feet, by drinking asses' milk.

To these various kinds of' milk, medical men have added another, to which they have given the name of "schiston;"¹⁷⁵ the following being the usual method of preparing it. Goats' milk, which is used in preference for the purpose, is boiled in a new earthen vessel, and stirred with branches of a fig-tree newly gathered, as many cyathi of honied wine being added to it as there are semisextarii of milk. When the mixture boils, care is taken to prevent it running over, by plunging into it a silver cyathus measure filled with cold water, none of the water being allowed to escape. When taken off the fire, the constituent parts of it divide as it cools, and the whey is thus separated from the milk. Some persons, again, take this whey, which is now very strongly impregnated with wine, and, after boiling it down to one third, leave it to cool in the open air. The best way of taking it, is in doses of one semisextarius, at stated intervals, during five consecutive days; after taking it, riding exercise should be used by the patient. This whey is admi- nistered in cases of epilepsy, melancholy, paralysis, leprosy, elephantiasis, and diseases of the joints.

Milk is employed as an injection where excoriations have been caused by the use of strong purgatives; in cases also where dysentery is productive of chafing, it is similarly employed, boiled with sea pebbles or a ptisan of barley. Where, however, the intestines are excoriated, cows' milk or ewes' milk is the best. New milk is used as an injection for dysentery; and in an unboiled state, it is employed for affections of the colon and uterus, and for injuries inflicted by serpents. It is also taken internally as an antidote to the venom of cantharides, the pine-caterpillar, the buprestis, and the salamander. Cows' milk is particularly recommended for persons who have taken colchicum, hemlock, dorycnium,¹⁷⁶ or the flesh of the seahare; and asses' milk, in cases where gypsum, white-lead, sulphur,¹⁷⁷ or quick-silver, have been taken internally. This last is good too for constipation attendant upon fever, and is remarkably useful as a gargle for ulcerations of the throat. It is taken, also, internally, by patients suffering from atrophy, for the purpose of recruiting their exhausted strength; as also in cases of fever unattended with head-ache. The ancients held it as one of their grand secrets, to administer to children, before taking food, a semisextarius of asses' milk, or for want of that, goats' milk; a similar dose, too, was given to children troubled with chafing of the rectum at stool. It is considered a sovereign remedy for hardness of breathing, to take cows' milk whey, mixed with nasturtium. In cases of ophthalmia, too, the eyes are fomented with a mixture of one semisextarius of milk and four drachmæ of pounded sesame.

Goats' milk is a cure for diseases of the spleen; but in such case the goats must fast a couple of days, and be fed on ivyleaves the third; the patient, too, must drink the milk for three consecutive days, without taking any other nutriment. Milk, under other circumstances, is detrimental to persons suffering from head-ache, liver complaints, diseases of the spleen, and affections of the sinews; it is bad for fevers, also, vertigo—except, indeed, where it is required as a purgative—-oppression of the head, coughs, and ophthalmia. Sows' milk is extremely use- ful in cases of tenesmus, dysentery, and phthisis; authors have been found too, to assert that it is very wholesome for females.

CHAP. 34.—TWELVE REMEDIES DERIVED FROM CHEESE.

We have already¹⁷⁸ spoken of the different kinds of cheese when treating of the mamillæ and other parts of animals. Sextius attributes the same properties to mares' milk cheese that he does to cheese made of cows' milk: to the former he gives the names of "hippace." Cheese is best for the stomach when not salted, or, in other words, when new cheese is used. Old [salted] cheese has a binding effect upon the bowels, and reduces the flesh, but is more wholesome to the stomach [than new salted cheese]. Indeed, we may pronounce of aliments in general, that salt meats reduce the system, while fresh food has a tendency to make flesh. Fresh cheese, applied with honey, effaces the marks of bruises. It acts, also, emolliently upon the bowels; and, taken in the form of tablets, boiled in astringent wine and then toasted with honey on a platter, it modifies and alleviates griping pains in the bowels.

The cheese known as "saprum,"¹⁷⁹ is beaten up, in wine, with salt and dried sorb apples, and taken in drink, for the cure of celiac affections. Goats' milk cheese, pounded and applied to the part affected, is a cure for carbuncle of the generative organs; sour cheese, also, with oxymel, is productive of a similar effect. In the bath it is used as a friction, alternately with oil, for the removal of spots. ¹⁸⁰

CHAP. 35.—TWENTY-FIVE REMEDIES DERIVED FROM BUTTER.

From milk, too, butter is produced; held as the most delicate of food among barbarous¹⁸¹ nations, and one which distinguishes¹⁸² the wealthy from the multitude at large. It is mostly made from cows' milk, and hence its name;¹⁸³ but the richest butter is that made from ewes' milk. There is a butter made also from goats' milk; but previously to making it, the milk should first be warmed, in winter. In summer it is extracted from the milk by merely shaking it to and fro in a tall vessel, with a small orifice at the mouth to admit the air, but otherwise closely stopped, a little water¹⁸⁴ being added to make it curdle the sooner. The milk that curdles the most, floats upon the surface; this they remove, and, adding salt to it, give it the name of "oxygala."¹⁸⁵ They then take the remaining part and boil it down in pots, and that portion of it which floats on the surface is butter, a substance of an oily nature. The more¹⁸⁶ rank it is in smell, the more higthly it is esteemed. When old, it forms an ingredient in numerous compositions. It is of an astringent, emollient, repletive, and purgative nature.

CHAP. 36.—OXYGALA: ONE REMEDY.

Oxygala, too, is prepared another way, sour milk being added to the fresh milk which is wanted to curdle. This preparation is extremely wholesome to the stomach: of its properties we shall have occasion¹⁸⁷ to speak in another place.

CHAP. 37.—THE VARIOUS USES OF FAT AND OBSERVATIONS UPON IT, FIFTY-TWO IN NUMBER.

Among the remedies common to living creatures, fat is the substance held in the next highest esteem, that of swine in particular, which was employed by the ancients for certain religious purposes even: at all events, it is still the usage for the newly-wedded bride, when entering her husband's house, to touch the door-posts with it. There are two methods of keeping hogs' lard, either salted or fresh; indeed, the older it is, the better. The Greek writers have now given it the name of "axungia,"¹⁸⁸ or axle-grease, in their works. Nor, in fact, is it any secret, why swine's fat should be possessed of such marked properties, seeing that the animal feeds to such a great extent upon the roots of plants—owing too, to which, its dung is applied to such a vast number of purposes. It will be as well, therefore, to premise, that I shall here speak only of the hog that feeds in the open field, and no other; of which kind it is the female that is much the most useful-if she has never farrowed, more particularly. But it is the fat of the wild boar that is held in by far the highest esteem of all.

The distinguishing properties, then, of swine's-grease, are emollient, calorific, resolvent, and detergent. Some physicians recommend it as an ointment for the gout, mixed with goose grease, bull-suet, and wool-grease: in cases, however, where the pain is persistent, it should be used in combination with wax, myrtle, resin, and pitch. Hogs' lard is used fresh for the cure of burns, and of blains, too, caused by snow: with ashes of burnt barley and nutgalls, in equal proportions, it is employed for the cure of chilblains. It is good also for excoriations of the limbs, and for dispelling weariness and lassitude arising from long journeys. For the cure of chronic cough, new lard is boiled down, in the proportion of three ounces to three cyathi of wine, some honey being added to the mixture. Old lard too, if it has been kept without salt, made up into pills and taken internally, is a cure for phthisis: but it is a general rule not to use it salted in any cases except where detergents are required, or where there are no symptoms of ulceration. For the cure of phthisis, some persons boil down three ounces of hogs' lard and honied wine, in three cyathi of ordinary wine; and after swathing the sides, chest, and shoulders of the patient with compresses steeped in the preparation, administer to him, every four days, some tar with an egg: indeed, so potent is this composition, that if it is only attached to the knees even, the flavour of it will ascend to the mouth, and the patient will appear to spit it out,¹⁸⁹ as it were.

The grease of a sow that has never farrowed, is the most useful of all cosmetics for the skin of females; but in all cases, hogs' lard is good for the cure of itch-scab, mixed with pitch and beef-suet in the proportion of one-third, the whole being made lukewarm for the purpose. Fresh hogs' lard, applied as a pessary, imparts nutriment to the infant in the womb, and prevents abortion. Mixed with white lead or litharge, it restores scars to their natural colour; and, in combination with sulphur, it rectifies malformed nails. It prevents the hair also from falling off; and, applied with a quarter of a nutgall, it heals ulcers upon the head in females. When well smoked, it strengthens the eyelashes. Lard is recommended also for phthisis, boiled down with old wine, in the proportion of one ounce to a semisextarius, till only three ounces are left; some persons add a little honey to the composition. Mixed with lime, it is used as a liniment for inflamed tumours, boils, and indurations of the mamillæ: it is curative also of ruptures, convulsions, cramps, and sprains. Used with white hellebore, it is good for corns, chaps, and callosities; and, with pounded earthen- ware¹⁹⁰ which has held salted provisions, for imposthumes of the parotid glands and scrofulous sores. Employed as a friction in the bath, it removes itching sensations and pimples: but for the treatment of gout there is another method of preparing it, by mixing it with old oil, and adding pounded sarcophagus¹⁹¹ stone and cinquefoil bruised in wine, or else with lime or ashes. A peculiar kind of plaster is also made of it for the cure of inflammatory ulcers, seventy-five denarii of hogs' lard being mixed with one hundred of litharge.

It is reckoned a very good plan also to anoint ulcers with boars' grease, and, if they are of a serpiginous nature, to add resin to the liniment. The ancients used to employ hogs' lard in particular for greasing the axles of their vehicles, that the wheels might revolve the more easily, and to this, in fact, it owes its name of "axungia." When hogs' lard has been used for this purpose, incorporated as it is with the rust of the iron upon the wheels, it is remarkably useful as an application for diseases of the rectum and of the generative organs. The ancient physicians, too, set a high value upon the medicinal properties of hogs' lard in an unmixed state: separating it from the kidneys, and carefully removing the veins, they used to wash and rub it well in rain water, after which they boiled it several times in a new earthen vessel, and then put it by for keeping. It is generally agreed that it is more emollient, calorific, and resolvent, when salted; and that it is still more useful when it has been rinsed in wine.

Massurius informs us, that the ancients set the highest' value of all upon the fat of the wolf: and that it was for this reason that the newly-wedded bride used to anoint the doorposts of her husband's house with it, in order that no noxious spells might find admittance.

CHAP. 38.—SUET.

Corresponding with the grease of the swine, is the suet¹⁹² that is found in the ruminating animals, a substance employed in other ways, but no less efficacious in its properties. The proper mode of preparing it, in all cases, is to take out the veins and to rinse it in sea or salt-water, after which it is beaten up in a mortar, with a sprinkling of sea-water in it. This done, it is boiled in several waters, until, in fact, it has lost all smell, and is then bleached by continual exposure to the sun; that of the most esteemed quality being the fat which grows about the kidneys. In case stale suet is required for any medicinal purpose, it is recommended to melt it first, and then to wash it in cold water several times; after which, it must again be melted with a sprinkling of the most aromatic wine that can be pro- cured, it being then boiled again and again, until the rank smell has totally disappeared.

Many persons recommend that the fat of bulls, lions, panthers, and camels, in particular, should be thus prepared. As to the various uses to which these substances are applied, we shall mention them on the appropriate occasions.

CHAP. 39.—MARROW.

Common too, to all these animals, is marrow; a substance which in all cases is possessed of certain emollient, expletive, desiccative, and calorific properties. The most highly esteemed of all is deer's marrow, the next best being that of the calf, and then that of the goat, both male and female. These substances are prepared before autumn, by washing them in a fresh state, and drying them in the shade; after which they are passed through a sieve, and then strained through linen, and put by in earthen pots for keeping, in a cool spot.

CHAP. 40.—GALL.

But among the substances which are furnished in common by the various animals, it is the gall, we may say, that is the most efficacious of all. The properties of this substance are of a calorific, pungent, resolvent, extractive, and dispersive nature. The gall of the smaller animals is looked upon as the most penetrating; for which reason it is that it is generally considered the most efficacious for the composition of eye-salves. Bull's gall is possessed of a remarkable degree of potency, having the effect of imparting a golden tint to the surface of copper even and to vessels made of other metals. Gall in every case is prepared in the following manner: it is taken fresh, and the orifice of the vesicle in which it is contained being tied fast with a strong linen thread, it is left to steep for half an hour in boiling water; after which it is dried in the shade, and then put away for keeping, in honey.

That of the horse is condemned, being reckoned among the poisons only. Hence it is that the Flamen¹⁹³ of the Sacrifices is not allowed to touch a horse, notwithstanding that it is the custom to immolate one¹⁹⁴ of these animals at the public sacrifices at Rome.

CHAP. 41.—BLOOD.

The blood, also, of the horse is possessed of certain corrosive properties; and so, too, is mare's blood-except, indeed, where the animal has not been covered-it having the effect of cauterizing the margins of ulcers, and so enlarging them. Bull's blood too, taken fresh, is reckoned¹⁹⁵ among the poisons; except, indeed, at Ægira,¹⁹⁶ at which place the priestess of the Earth, when about to foretell coming events, takes a draught of bull's blood before she descends into the cavern: so powerful, in fact, is the agency of that sympathy so generally spoken of, that it may occasionally originate, we find, in feelings of religious awe,¹⁹⁷ or in the peculiar nature of the locality.

Drusus,¹⁹⁸ the tribune of the people, drank goats' blood, it is said; it being his object by his pallid looks to suggest that his enemy, Q. Cæpio, had given him poison, and so expose him to public hatred. So remarkably powerful is the blood of the hegoat, that there is nothing better in existence for sharpening iron implements, the rust produced by this blood giving them a better edge even than a file. Considering, however, that the blood of all animals cannot be reckoned as a remedy in common, will it not be advisable, in preference, to speak of the effects that are produced by that of each kind?

CHAP. 42.—PECULIAR REMEDIES DERIVED FROM VARIOUS ANIMALS, AND CLASSIFIED ACCORDING TO THE MALADIES. REMEDIES AGAINST THE POISON OF SERPENTS, DERIVED FROM THE STAG, THE FAWN, THE OPHION, THE SHE-GOAT, THE KID, AND THE ASS.

We will therefore classify the various remedies, according to the maladies for which they are respectively used; and, first of all, those to which man has recourse for injuries inflicted by serpents. That deer are destructive to those reptiles¹⁹⁹ no one is ignorant; as also of the fact that they drag them from their holes when they find them, and so devour them. And it is not only while alive and breathing that deer are thus fatal to serpents, but even when dead and separated limb from limb. The fumes of their horns, while burning, will drive away serpents, as already²⁰⁰ stated; but the bones, it is said, of the upper part of a stag's throat, if burnt upon a fire, will bring those reptiles together. Persons may sleep upon a deer's skin in perfect safety, and without any apprehension of attacks by serpents; its rennet too, taken with vinegar, is an effectual antidote to the stings of those reptiles; indeed, if it has been only touched by a person, he will be for that day effectually protected from them. The testes, dried, or the genitals of the male animal, are considered to be very wholesome, taken in wine, and so are the umbles, generally known as the "centipellio."²⁰¹ Persons having about them a deer's tooth, or who have taken the precaution of rubbing the body with a deer or fawn's marrow, will be sure to repel the attacks of all serpents.

But the most effectual remedy of all is thought to be the rennet of a fawn that has been cut from the uterus of the dam, as already²⁰² mentioned in another place. Deer's blood, burnt upon a fire of lentisk wood, with dracontium,²⁰³ cunilago,²⁰⁴ and alkanet, will attract serpents, they say; while, on the other hand, if the blood is removed and pyrethrum²⁰⁵ substituted for it, they will take to flight.

I find an animal mentioned by Greek writers, smaller than the stag, but resembling it in the hair, and to which they give the name of "ophion."²⁰⁶ Sardinia, they say, is the only country that produces it; I am of opinion, however, that it is now extinct, and for that reason I shall not enlarge upon its medicinal properties.

(10.) As a preservative against the attacks of serpents, the brains and blood of the wild boar are held in high esteem: the liver also, dried and taken in wine with rue; and the fat, used with honey and resin. Similar properties are attributed to the liver of the domesticated boar and the outer filaments, and those only, of the gall, these last being taken in doses of four denarii; the brains also, taken in wine, are equally ef- fectual. The fumes of the burning horns or hair of a she-goat will repel serpents, they say: the ashes, too, of the horns, used either internally or externally, are thought to be an antidote to their poison. A similar effect is attributed to goats' milk, taken with Taminian²⁰⁷ grapes; to the urine of those animals, taken with squill vinegar; to goats' milk cheese, applied with origanum;²⁰⁸ and to goat suet, used with wax.

In addition to all this, as will be seen hereafter, there are a thousand other remedial properties attributed to this animal; a fact which surprises me all the more, seeing that the goat, it is said, is never free from fever.²⁰⁹ The wild animals of the same species, which are very numerous, as already²¹⁰ stated, have a still greater efficacy attributed to them; but the hegoat has certain properties peculiar to itself, and Democritus attributes properties still more powerful to the animal when it has been the only one yeaned. It is recommended also to apply she-goat's dung, boiled²¹¹ in vinegar, to injuries inflicted by serpents, as also the ashes of fresh dung mixed with wine. As a general rule, persons who find that they are recovering but slowly from injuries inflicted by a serpent, will find their health more speedily re-established by frequenting the stalls where goats are kept. Those, however, whose object is a more assured remedy, attach immediately to the wound the paunch of a she-goat killed for the purpose, dung and all. Others, again, use the flesh of a kid just killed, and fumigate it with the singed hair, the smell of which has the effect of repelling serpents.

For stings of serpents, as also for injuries inflicted by the scorpion and shrew-mouse, some employ the skin of a goat newly killed, as also the flesh and dung of a horse that has been out at pasture, or a hare's rennet in vinegar. They say, too, that if a person has the body well rubbed with a hare's rennet, he will never receive injury from venomous animals. When a person has been stung by a scorpion, she-goat's dung, boiled with vinegar, is considered a most efficient remedy: in cases too, where a buprestis has been swallowed, bacon and the broth in which it has been boiled, are highly efficacious. Nay, what is even more than this, if a person applies his mouth to an ass's ear, and says that he has been stung by a scorpion, the whole of the poison, they say, will immediately pass away from him and be transferred to the animal. All venomous creatures, it is said, are put to flight by a fumigation made by burning an ass's lights. It is considered an excellent plan too, to fumigate persons, when stung by a scorpion, with the smoke of burnt calves' dung.

CHAP. 43.—REMEDIES FOR THE BITE OF THE MAD DOG. REMEDIES DERIVED FROM THE CALF, THE HE-GOAT, AND VARIOUS OTHER ANIMALS.

When a person has been bitten by a mad dog, it is the practice to make an incision round the wound to the quick, and then to apply raw veal to it, and to make the patient take either veal broth or hogs' lard, mixed with lime internally. Some persons recommend a he-goat's liver, and maintain that if it is applied to the wound the patient will never be attacked with hydrophobia. She-goat's dung, too, is highly spoken of, applied with wine, as also the dung of the badger, cuckoo, and swallow, boiled and taken in drink.

For bites inflicted by other animals, dried goats' milk cheese is applied with origanum and taken with the drink; and for injuries caused by the human²¹² teeth, boiled beef is applied; veal, however, is still more efficacious for the purpose, provided it is not removed before the end of four days.

CHAP. 44.—REMEDIES TO BE ADOPTED AGAINST ENCHANTMENTS.

The dried muzzle of a wolf, they say, is an effectual preservative against the malpractices of magic; and it is for this reason that it is so commonly to be seen fastened to the doors of farm-houses. A similar degree of efficacy, it is thought, belongs to the skin of the neck, when taken whole from the animal. Indeed, so powerful is the influence of this animal, in addition to what we have already²¹³ stated, that if a horse only treads in its track, it will be struck with torpor²¹⁴ in consequence.

CHAP. 45.—REMEDIES FOR POISONS.

In case where persons have swallowed quicksilver,²¹⁵ bacon is the proper remedy to be employed. Poisons are neutralized by taking asses' milk; henbane more particularly, mistletoe, hemlock, the flesh of the sea-hare, opocarpathon,²¹⁶ pharicon,²¹⁷ and dorycnium:²¹⁸ the same, too, where coagulated milk²¹⁹ has been productive of bad effects, for the biestings,²²⁰ or first curdled milk, should be reckoned as nothing short of a poison.²²¹ We shall have to mention many other uses to which asses' milk is applied; but it should be remembered that in all cases it must be used fresh, or, if not, as new as possible, and warmed, for there is nothing that more speedily loses its virtue. The bones, too, of the ass are pounded and boiled, as an antidote to the poison of the sea-hare. The wild ass²²² is possessed of similar properties in every respect, but in a much higher degree.

Of the wild horse²²³ the Greek writers have made no mention, it not being a native of their country; we have every reason to believe, however, that it has the same properties as the animal in a tame state, but much more fully developed. Mares' milk effectually neutralizes the venom of the sea-hare and all narcotic poisons. Nor had the Greeks any knowledge from experience of the urns²²⁴ and the bison,²²⁵ although in India the forests are filled with herds of wild oxen: it is only reasonable, however, to conclude that all their medicinal properties must be much more highly developed than in the animal as found among us. It is asserted also, that cows' milk is a general counter-poison, in the cases above-mentioned, more particularly, as also where the poison of ephemeron²²⁶ has settled internally, or cantharides have been administered; it acting upon the poison by vomit. Broth, too, made from goats' flesh, neutral- izes the effects of cantharides, in a similar manner, it is said. To counteract the corrosive poisons which destroy by ulceration, veal or beef-suet is resorted to; and in cases where a leech has been swallowed, butter is the usual remedy, with vinegar heated with a red-hot iron. Indeed, butter employed by itself is a good remedy for poisons, for where oil is not to be procured, it is an excellent substitute for it. Used with honey, butter heals injuries inflicted by millepedes. The broth of boiled tripe, it is thought, is an effectual repellent of the above-mentioned poisons, aconite and hemlock more particularly; veal-suet also has a similar repute.

Fresh goats' milk cheese is given to persons who have taken mistletoe, and goats' milk itself is a remedy for cantharides. Taken with Taminian²²⁷ grapes, goats' milk is an antidote to the effects of ephemeron. Goats' blood, boiled down with the marrow, is used as a remedy for the narcotic²²⁸ poisons, and kids' blood for the other poisons. Kid's rennet is administered where per- sons have taken mistletoe, the juice of the white chamæleon,²²⁹ or bull's blood: for which last, hare's rennet in vinegar is also used by way of antidote. For injuries inflicted by the pastinaca,²³⁰ and the stings or bites of all kinds of marine animals, hare's rennet, kid's rennet, or lamb's rennet is taken, in doses of one drachma, in wine. Hare's rennet, too, generally forms an ingredient in the antidotes for poisons.

The moth that is seen fluttering about the flame of a lamp is generally reckoned in the number of the noxious substances: its bad effects are neutralized by the agency of goat's liver. Goat's gall, too, is looked upon as an antidote to venomous preparations from the field weazel.²³¹ But we will now return to the other remedies, classified according to the various diseases.

CHAP. 46. (11.)—-REMEDIES FOR DIEASES OF THE HEAD, AND FOR ALOPECY.

Bears' grease,²³² mixed with ladanum²³³ and the plant adiantum,²³⁴ prevents the hair from falling off; it is a cure also for alopecy and defects in the eyebrows, mixed with the fungus from the wick of a lamp, and the soot that is found in the nozzle. Used with wine, it is good for the cure of porrigo, a malady which is also treated with the ashes of deer's horns in wine: this last substance also prevents the growth of vermin in the hair. For porrigo some persons employ goat's gall, in combination with Cimolian chalk and vinegar, leaving the prepration to dry for a time on the head. Sow's gall, too, mixed with bull's urine, is employed for a similar purpose; and when old, it is an effectual cure, with the addition of sulphur, for furfuraceous eruptions. The ashes, it is thought, of an ass's genitals, will make the hair grow more thickly, and prevent it from turning grey; the proper method of applying it being to shave the head and to pound the ashes in a leaden mortar with oil. Similar effects are attributed to the genitals of an ass's foal, reduced to ashes and mixed with urine; some nard being added to render the mixture less offensive. In cases of alopecy the part affected is rubbed with bull's gall, warmed with Egyptian alum. Running ulcers of the head are successfully treated with bull's urine, or stale human urine, in combination with cyclaminos²³⁵ and sulphur: but the most effectual remedy is calf's gall, a substance which, heated with vinegar, has also the effect of exterminating lice. Veal suet, pounded with salt and applied to ulcers of the head, is a very useful remedy: the fat, too, of the fox is highly spoken of, but the greatest value is set upon cats' dung, applied in a similar manner with mustard.

Powdered goats' horns, or the horns reduced to ashes, those of the he-goat in particular, with the addition of nitre, tamarisk-seed, butter, and oil, are remarkably effectual for preventing the hair from coming off, the head being first shaved for the purpose. So too, the ashes of burnt goats' flesh, applied to the eye-brows with oil, impart to them a black tint. By using goats' milk, they say, lice may be exterminated; and the dung of those animals, with honey, is thought to be a cure for alopecy: the ashes, too, of the hoofs, mixed with pitch, prevent the hair from coming off.

The ashes of a burnt hare, mixed with oil of myrtle, alleviate head-ache, the patient drinking some water that has been left in the trough after an ox or ass has been drinking there. The male organs of a fox, worn as an amulet, are productive, if we choose to believe it, of a similar effect: the same, too, with the ashes of a burnt deer's horn, applied with vinegar, rose oil, or oil of iris.

CHAP. 47.—-REMEDIES FOR AFFECTIONS OF THE EYES.

For defluxions²³⁶ of the eyes, beef suet, boiled with oil, is applied to the parts affected; and for eruptions of those organs, ashes of burnt deer's horns are similarly employed, the tips of the horns being considered the most effectual for the purpose. For the cure of cataract, it is reckoned a good plan to apply a wolf's excrements: the same substance, too, reduced to ashes, is used for the dispersion of films, in combination with Attic honey. Bear's gall, too, is similarly employed; and for the cure of epinyctis, wild boar's lard, mixed with oil of roses, is thought to be very useful. An ass's hoof, reduced to ashes and applied with asses' milk, is used for the removal of marks in the eyes and indurations of the crystalline humours. Beef marrow, from the right fore leg, beaten up with soot, is employed for affections of the eyebrows, and for diseases of the eyelids and corners of the eyes. For the same purpose, also, a sort of calliblepharon²³⁷ is prepared from soot, the best of all being that made from a wick of papyrus mixed with oil of sesame; the soot being removed with a feather and caught in a new vessel prepared for the purpose. This mixture, too, is very efficacious for preventing superfluous eyelashes from growing again when once pulled out.

Bull's gall is made up into eye-salves²³⁸ with white of egg, these salves being steeped in water and applied to the eyes for four days successively. Veal suet, with goose-grease and the extracted juice of ocimum, is remarkably good for diseases of the eye-lids. Veal marrow, with the addition of an equal proportion of wax and oil or oil of roses, an egg being added to the mixture, is used as a liniment for indurations of the eyelids. Soft goats' milk cheese is used as an application, with warm water, to allay defluxions of the eyes; but when they are attended with swelling, honey is used instead of the water. In both cases, however, the eyes should be fomented with warm whey. In cases of dry ophthalmia, it is found a very useful plan to take the muscles²³⁹ lying within a loin of pork, and, after reducing them to ashes, to pound and apply them to the part affected.

She-goats, they say, are never affected with ophthalmia, from the circumstance that they browse upon certain kinds of herbs: the same, too, with the gazelle. Hence it is that we find it recommended, at the time of new moon, to swallow the dung of these animals, coated with wax. As they are able to see, too, by night, it is a general belief that the blood of a hegoat is a cure for those persons affected with dimness of sight to whom the Greeks have given the name of "nyctalopes."²⁴⁰ A similar virtue is attributed to the liver of a she-goat, boiled in astringent wine. Some are in the habit of rubbing the eyes with the thick gravy²⁴¹ which exudes from a she-goat's liver roasted, or with the gall of that animal: they recommend the flesh also as a diet, and say that the patient should expose his eyes to the fumes of it while boiling: it is a general opinion, too, that the animal should be of a reddish colour. Another prescription is, to fumigate the eyes with the steam arising from the liver boiled in an earthen jar, or, according to some authorities, roasted.

Goats' gall is applied for numerous purposes: with honey, for films upon the eyes; with one-third part of white hellebore, for cataract; with wine, for spots upon the eyes, indurations of the cornea, films, webs, and argema; with extracted juice of cabbage, for diseases of the eyelids, the hairs being first pulled out, and the preparation left to dry on the parts affected; and with woman's milk, for rupture of the coats of the eye. For all these purposes, the gall is considered the most efficacious, when dried. Nor is the dung of this animal held in disesteem, being applied with honey for defluxions of the eyes. The marrow, too, of a goat, or a hare's lights, we find used for pains in the eyes; and the gall of a goat, with raisin wine or honey, for the dispersion of films upon those organs. It is recommended also, for ophthalmia, to anoint the eyes with wolf's fat or swine's marrow: we find it asserted, too, that persons who carry a wolf's tongue, inserted in a bracelet, will always be exempt from ophthalmia.

CHAP. 48.—REMEDIES FOR DISEASES AND AFFECTIONS OF THE EARS.

Pains and diseases of the ears are cured by using the urine of a wild boar, kept in a glass vessel, or the gall of a wild boar, swine, or ox, mixed with castor-oil and oil of roses in equal proportions. But the best remedy of all is bull's gall, warmed with leek juice, or with honey, if there is any suppuration. Bull's gall too, warmed by itself in a pomegranate rind, is an excellent remedy for offensive exhalations from the ears: in combination with woman's milk, it is efficacious as a cure for ruptures of those organs. Some persons are of opinion that it is a good plan to wash the ears with this preparation in cases where the hearing is affected; while others again, after washing the ears with warm water, insert a mixture composed of the old slough of a serpent and vinegar, wrapped up in a dossil of wool. In cases, however, where the deafness is very considerable, gall warmed in a pomegranate rind with myrrh and rue, is injected into the ears; sometimes, also, fat bacon is used for this purpose, or fresh asses' dung, mixed with oil of roses: in all cases, however, the ingredients should be warmed.

The foam from a horse's mouth is better still, or the ashes of fresh horse dung, mixed with oil of roses: fresh butter too is good; beef-suet mixed with goose-grease; the urine of a bull or she-goat; or fullers' lant, heated to such a degree that the steam escapes by the neck of the vessel. For this purpose also, one third part of vinegar is mixed with a small portion of the urine of a calf, which has not begun to graze. They apply also to the ears calf's dung, mixed with the gall of that animal and sloughs of serpents, care being taken to warm the ears before the application, and all the remedies being wrapped in wool. Veal-suet, too, is used, with goose-grease and extract of ocimum; or else veal marrow, mixed with bruised cummin and injected into the ears. For pains in the ears, the liquid ejected by a boar in copulation is used, due care being taken to receive it before it falls to the ground. For fractures of the ears, a glutinous composition is made from the genitals of a calf, which is dissolved in water when used; and for other diseases of those organs, foxes' fat is employed, goat's gall mixed with rose-oil warmed, or else extracted juice of leeks: in all cases where there is any rupture, these preparations are used in combination with woman's milk. Where a patient is suffering from hardness of hearing, ox-gall is employed, with the urine of a he or she-goat; the same, too, where there is any suppuration.

Whatever the purpose for which they are wanted, it is the general opinion that these substances are more efficacious when they have been smoked in a goat's horn for twenty days. Hare's rennet, too, is highly spoken of, taken in Aminean²⁴² wine, in the proportion of one third of a denarius of rennet to one half of a denarius of sacopenum.²⁴³ Bears' grease, mixed with equal proportions of wax and bull-suet, is a cure for imposthumes of the parotid glands: some persons add hypocisthis²⁴⁴ to the composition, or else content themselves with employing butter only, after first fomenting the parts affected with a decoction of fenugreek, the good effects of which are augmented by strychnos. The testes, too, of the fox, are very useful for this purpose; as also bull's blood, dried and reduced to powder. She-goats' urine, made warm, is used as an injection for the ears; and a liniment is made of the dung of those animals, in combination with axle-grease.

CHAP. 49.—REMEDIES FOR TOOTH-ACHE.

The ashes of deer's horns strengthen loose teeth and allay tooth-ache, used either as a friction or as a gargle. Some persons, however, are of opinion that the horn, unburnt and reduced to powder, is still more efficacious for all these purposes. Dentifrices are made both from the powder and the ashes. Another excellent remedy is a wolf's head, reduced to ashes: it is a well-known fact, too, that there are bones generally found in the excrements of that animal; these bones, attached to the body as an amulet, are productive of advantageous effects. For the cure of tooth-ache, hare's rennet is injected into the ear: the head also of that animal, reduced to ashes, is used in the form of a dentifrice, and, with the addition of nard, is a corrective of bad breath. Some persons, however, think it a better plan to mix the ashes of a mouse's head with the dentifrice. In the side of the hare there is a bone found, similar to a needle in appearance: for the cure of tooth-ache it is recommended to scarify the gums with this bone. The pastern-bone of an ox, ignited and applied to loose teeth which ache, has the effect of strengthening them in the sockets; the same bone, reduced to ashes, and mixed with myrrh, is also used as a dentifrice. The ashes of burnt pig's feet are productive of a similar effect, as also the calcined bones of the cotyloïd cavities in which the hip-bones move. It is a well-known fact, that, introduced into the throat of beasts of burden, these bones are a cure for worms, and that, in a calcined state, they are good for strength- ening the teeth.

When the teeth have been loosened by a blow, they are strengthened by using asses' milk, or else ashes of the burnt teeth of that animal, or a horse's lichen, reduced to powder, and injected into the car with oil. By lichen²⁴⁵ I do not mean the hippomanes, a noxious substance which I purposely forbear to enlarge upon, but an excrescence which forms upon the knees of horses, and just above the hoofs. In the heart²⁴⁶ of this animal there is also found a bone which bears a close resemblance to the eye-teeth of a dog: if the gums are scarified with this bone, or with a tooth taken from the jaw-bone of a dead horse, corresponding in place with the tooth affected, the pain will be removed, they say. Anaxilaüs assures us that if the liquid which exudes from a mare when covered, is ignited on the wick of a lamp, it will give out a most marvellous representation²⁴⁷ of horses' heads; and the same with reference ²⁴⁸ to the she-ass. As to the hippomanes, it is possessed of properties so virulent and so truly magical, that if it is only thrown into fused metal²⁴⁹ which is being cast into the resemblance of an Olympian mare, it will excite in all stallions that approach it a perfect frenzy for copulation.

Another remedy for diseases of the teeth is joiners' glue, boiled in water and applied, care being taken to remove it very speedily, and instantly to rinse the teeth with wine in which sweet pomegranate-rind has been boiled. It is, considered, also, a very efficacious remedy to wash the teeth with goats' milk, or bull's gall. The pastern-bones of a she-goat just killed, reduced to ashes, and indeed, to avoid the necessity for repetition, of any other four-footed beast reared in the farmyard, are considered to make an excellent dentifrice.

CHAP. 50. (12.)—REMEDIES FOR DISEASES OF THE FACE.

It is generally believed that asses' milk effaces wrinkles in the face, renders the skin more delicate, and preserves its whiteness: and it is a well-known fact, that some women are in the habit of washing their face with it seven²⁵⁰ hundred times daily, strictly observing that number. Poppæa, the wife of the Emperor Nero, was the first to practise this; indeed, she had sitting-baths, prepared solely with asses' milk, for which purpose whole troops of she-asses²⁵¹ used to attend her on her journies.²⁵² Purulent eruptions on the face are removed by an application of butter, but white lead, mixed with the butter, is an improvement. Pure butter, alone, is used for serpiginous eruptions of the face, a layer of barley-meal being pow- dered over it. The caul of a cow that has just calved, is applied, while still moist, to ulcers of the face.

The following recipe may seem frivolous, but still, to please the women,²⁵³ it must not be omitted; the pastern-bone of a white steer, they say, boiled forty days and forty nights, till it is quite dissolved, and then applied to the face in a linen cloth, will remove wrinkles and preserve the whiteness of the skin. An application of bull's dung, they say, will impart a rosy tint to the cheeks, and not crocodilea²⁵⁴ even is better for the purpose; the face, however, must be washed with cold water, both before and after the application. Sun-burns and all other discolorations of the skin, are removed by the aid of' calves' dung kneaded up by hand with oil and gum; ulcerations and chaps of the mouth, by an application of veal or beef-suet, mixed with goose-grease and juice of' ocimum. There is another composition, also, made of veal-suet with stag's marrow and leaves of white-thorn, the whole beaten up together. Marrow, too, mixed with resin, even if it be cow marrow only, is equally good; and the broth of cow-beef is productive of similar effects. A most excellent remedy for lichens on the face is a glutinous substance prepared from the genitals of a male calf, melted with vinegar and live sulphur, and stirred together with the branch of a fig-tree: this composition is applied twice a day, and should be used quite fresh. This glue, similarly prepared from a decoction of honey and vinegar, is a cure for leprous spots, which are also removed by applying a he-goat's liver warm.

Elephantiasis, too, is removed by an application of goats' gall; and leprous spots and furfuraceous eruptions by em- ploying bull's gall with the addition of nitre, or else asses' urine about the rising of the Dog-star. Spots on the face are removed by either bull's gall or ass's gall diluted in water by itself, care being taken to avoid the sun or wind after the skin has peeled off. A similar effect is produced, also, by using bull's gall or calf's gall, in combination with seed of cunila and the ashes of a deer's horn, burnt at the rising of Canicula.

Asses' fat, in particular, restores the natural colour to scars and spots on the skin caused by lichen or leprosy. A he-goat's gall, mixed with cheese, live sulphur, and sponge reduced to ashes, effectually removes freckles, the composition being brought to the consistency of honey before being applied. Some persons, however, prefer using dried gall, and mix with it warm bran, in the proportion of one obolus to four oboli of honey, the spots being rubbed briskly first. He-goat suet, too, is highly efficacious, used in combination with gith, sulphur, and iris; this mixture being also employed, with goose-grease, stag's marrow, resin, and lime, for the cure of cracked lips. I find it stated by certain authors, that persons who have freckles on the skin are looked upon as disqualified from taking any part in the sacrifices prescribed by the magic art.

CHAP. 51.—REMEDIES FOR DISEASES OF THE TONSILLARY GLANDS, AND FOR SCROFULA.

Cow's milk or goat's milk is good for ulcerations of the tonsillary glands and of the trachea. It is used in the form of a gargle, warm from the udder or heated, goat's milk being the best, boiled with mallows and a little salt. A broth made from tripe is an excellent gargle for ulcerations of the tongue and trachea; and for diseases of the tonsillary glands, the kidneys of a fox are considered a sovereign remedy, dried and beaten up with honey, and applied externally. For quinzy, bull's gall or goat's gall is used, mixed with honey. A badger's liver, taken in water, is good for offensive breath, and butter has a healing effect upon ulcerations of the mouth. When a pointed or other substance has stuck in the throat, by rubbing it externally with cats' dung, the substance, they say, will either come up again or pass downwards into the stomach.

Scrofulous sores are dispersed by applying the gall of a wild boar or of an ox, warmed for the purpose: but it is only when the sores are ulcerated that hare's rennet is used, applied in a linen cloth with wine. The ashes of the burnt hoof of an ass or horse, applied with oil or water, is good for dispersing scrofu- lous sores; warmed urine also; the ashes of an ox's hoof, taken in water; cow-dung, applied hot with vinegar; goat- suet with lime; goats' dung, boiled in vinegar; or the testes of a fox. Soap,²⁵⁵ too, is very useful for this purpose, an invention of the Gauls for giving a reddish²⁵⁶ tint to the hair. This substance is prepared from tallow and ashes, the best ashes for the purpose being those of the beech and yoke-elm: there are two kinds of it, the hard soap and the liquid, both of them much used by the people of Germany, the men, in particular, more than the women.

CHAP. 52—REMEDIES FOR PAINS IN THE NECK.

For pains in the neck, the part should be well rubbed with butter or bears' grease; and for a stiff neck, with beef suet, a substance which, in combination with oil, is very useful for the cure of scrofula. For the painful cramp, attended with inflexibility, to which people give the name of "opisthotony," the urine of a she-goat, injected into the ears, is found very useful; as also a liniment made of the dung of that animal, mixed with bulbs. In cases where the nails have been crushed, it is an excel- lent plan to attach to them the gall of any kind of animal. Whitlows upon the fingers should be treated with dried bull's gall, dissolved in warm water. Some persons are in the habit of adding sulphur and alum, of each an equal weight.

CHAP. 53.—-REMEDIES FOR COUGH AND FOR SPITTING OF BLOOD.

A. wolf's liver, administered in mulled wine, is a cure for cough; a bear's gall also, mixed with honey; the ashes of the tips of a cow's horn; or else the saliva of a horse, taken in the drink for three consecutive days—in which last case the horse will be sure to die, they say.²⁵⁷ A deer's lights are useful for the same purpose, dried with the gullet of the animal in the smoke, and then beaten up with honey, and taken daily as an electuary: the spitter²⁵⁸ deer, be it remarked, is the kind that is the most efficacious for the purpose.

Spitting of blood is cured by taking ashes of burnt deer's horns, or else a hare's rennet in drink, in doses of one-third of a denarius, with Samian earth and myrtle-wine. The dung of this last animal, reduced to ashes and taken in the evening, with wine, is good for coughs that are recurrent at night. The smoke, too, of a hare's fur, inhaled, has the effect of bringing off from the lungs such humours as are difficult to be discharged by expectoration. Purulent ulcerations of the chest and lungs, and bad breath proceeding from a morbid state of the lungs, are successfully treated with butter boiled with an equal quantity of Attic honey till it assumes a reddish hue, a spoonful of the mixture being taken by the patient every morning: some persons, however, instead of honey prefer using larch-resin for the purpose. In cases where there are discharges of blood, cow's blood, they say, is good, taken in small quantities with vinegar; but as to bull's blood, it would be a rash thing to believe in any such recommendation. For inveterate spitting of blood, bull-glue is taken, in doses of three oboli, in warm water.

CHAP. 54. (13.)—REMEDIES FOR AFFECTIONS OF THE STOMACH.

Ulcerations of the stomach are effectually treated with asses' milk²⁵⁹ or cows' milk. For gnawing pains in that region, beef is stewed, with vinegar and wine. Fluxes are healed by taking the ashes of burnt deer's horns; and discharges of blood by drinking the blood of a kid just killed, made hot, in doses of three cyathi, with equal proportions of vinegar and tart wine; or else by taking kid's rennet, with twice the quantity of vinegar.

CHAP. 55.—REMEDIES FOR LIVER COMPLAINTS AND FOR ASTHMA.

Liver complaints are cured by taking a wolf's liver dried, in honied wine; or by using the dried liver of an ass, with twice the quantity of rock-parsley and three nuts, the whole beaten up with honey and taken with the food. The blood, too, of a he-goat is prepared and taken with the food. For persons suffering from asthma, the most efficient remedy of all is the blood of wild horses²⁶⁰ taken in drink; and next to that, asses' milk boiled with bulbs, the whey being the part used, with the addition of nasturtium steeped in water and tempered with honey, in the proportion of one cyathus of nasturtium to three semi-sextarii of whey. The liver or lights of a fox, taken in red wine, or bear's gall in water, facilitate the respiration.

CHAP. 56.—REMEDIES FOR PAINS IN THE LOINS.

For pains in the loins and all other affections which require emollients, frictions with bears' grease should be used; or else ashes of stale boars' dung or swine's dung should be mixed with wine and given to the patients. The magicians, too, have added to this branch of medicine their own fanciful devices. In the first place of all, madness in he-goats, they say, may be effectually calmed by stroking the beard; and if the beard is cut off, the goat will never stray to another flock,

To the above composition they add goats' dung, and recommend it to be held in the hollow of the hand, as hot as possible, a greased linen cloth being placed beneath, and care being taken to hold it in the right hand if the pain is on the left side, and in the left hand if the pain is on the right. They recommend also that the dung employed for this purpose should be taken up on the point of a needle made of copper. The mode of treatment is, for the patient to hold the mixture in his hand till the heat is felt to have penetrated to the loins, after which the hand is rubbed with a pounded leek, and the loins with the same dung annealed with honey. They prescribe also for the same malady the testes of a hare, to be eaten by the patient. In cases of sciatica they are for applying cow-dung warmed upon hot ashes in leaves: and for pains in the kidneys they recommend a hare's kidneys to be swallowed raw, or perhaps boiled, but without letting them be touched by the teeth. If a person carries about him the pastern-bone of a hare, he will never be troubled with pains in the bowels, they say.

CHAP. 57.—REMEDIES FOR AFFECTIONS OF THE SPLEEN.

Affections of the spleen are alleviated by taking the gall of a wild boar or hog in drink; ashes of burnt deer's horns in vinegar; or, what is best of all, the dried spleen of an ass, the good effects being sure to be felt in the course of three days. The first dung voided by an ass's foal-a substance known as "polea"²⁶¹ by the people of Syria—is administered in oxymel for these complaints; a dried horse tongue, too, is taken in wine, a sovereign remedy which, Cæcilius Bion tells us, he first heard of when living among the barbarous nations. The milt of a cow or ox is used in a similar manner; but when it is quite fresh, the practice is to roast or boil it and take it with the food. For pains in the liver a topical application is made by bruising twenty heads of garlick in one sextarius of vinegar, and applying them in a piece of ox bladder. For the same malady the magicians recommend a calf's milt, bought at the price set upon it and without any haggling, that being an important point, and one that should be religiously observed. This done, the milt must be cut in two lengthwise, and attached to the patient's shirt,²⁶² on either side; after which, the patient must put it on and let the pieces fall at his feet, and must then pick them up, and dry them in the shade. While this last is doing, the diseased liver of the patient will gradually contract, they say, and he will eventually be cured. The lights, too, of a fox are very useful for this purpose, dried on hot ashes and taken in water; the same, too, with a kid's milt, applied to the part affected.

CHAP. 58. (14.)—REMEDIES FOR BOWEL COMPLAINTS.

To arrest looseness of the bowels, deer's blood is used; the ashes also of deer's horns; the liver of a wild boar, taken fresh and without salt, in wine; a swine's liver roasted, or that of a he-goat, boiled in five semisextarii of wine; a hare's rennet boiled, in quantities the size of a chick-pea, in wine, or, if there are symptoms of fever, in water. To this last some persons add nut-galls, while others, again, content themselves with hare's blood boiled by itself in milk. Ashes; too, of burnt horse-dung are taken in water for this purpose; or else ashes of the part of an old bull's horn which lies nearest the root, sprinkled in water; the blood, too, of a he-goat boiled upon charcoal; or a decoction made from a goat's hide boiled with the hair on.

For relaxing the bowels a horse's rennet is used, or else the blood, marrow, or liver of a she-goat. A similar effect is produced by applying a wolf's gall to the navel, with elaterium;²⁶³ by taking mares' milk, goats' milk with salt and honey, or a she-goat's gall with juice of cyclaminos,²⁶⁴ and a little alum—in which last case some prefer adding nitre and water to the mixture. Bull's gall, too, is used for a similar purpose, beaten up with wormwood and applied in the form of a suppository; or butter is taken, in considerable doses.

Cœliac affections and dysentery are cured by taking cow's liver; ashes of deer's horns, a pinch in three fingers swallowed in water; hare's rennet, kneaded up in bread, or, if there is any discharge of blood, taken with polenta;²⁶⁵ or else boar's dung, swine's dung, or hare's dung, reduced to ashes and mixed with mulled wine. Among the remedies, also, for the cœliac flux and dysentery, veal broth is reckoned, a remedy very commonly used. If the patient takes asses' milk for these complaints, it will be all the better if honey is added; and no less efficacious for either complaint are the ashes of asses' dung taken in wine; or else polea, the substance above²⁶⁶-mentioned. In such cases, even when attended with a discharge of blood, we find a horse's rennet recommended, by some persons known as "hippace;" ashes of burnt horse-dung; horses' teeth pounded; and boiled cows' milk. In cases of dysentery, it is recommended to add a little honey; and, for the cure of griping pains, ashes of deer's horns, bull's gall mixed with cum- min, or the flesh of a gourd, should be applied to the navel. For both complaints new cheese made of cows' milk is used, as an injection; butter also, in the proportion of four semisextarii to two ounces of turpentine, or else employed with a decoction of mallows or with oil of roses. Veal-suet or beef-suet is also given, and the marrow of those animals is boiled with meal, a little wax, and some oil, so as to form a sort of pottage. This marrow, too, is kneaded up with bread for a similar purpose; or else goats' milk is used, boiled down to one half. In cases, too, where there are gripings in the bowels, wine of the first running²⁶⁷ is administered. For the last-named pains, some persons are of opinion that it is a sufficient remedy to take a single dose of hare's rennet in mulled wine; though others again, who are more distrustful, are in the habit of applying a liniment to the abdomen, made of goats' blood, barley-meal, and resin.

For all defluxions of the bowels it is recommended to apply soft cheese, and for cœliac affections and dysentery old cheese, powdered, one cyathus of cheese being taken in three cyathi of ordinary wine. Goats' blood is boiled down with the marrow of those animals for the cure of dysentery; and the cœliac flux is effectually treated with the roasted liver of a she-goat, or, what is still better, the liver of a he-goat boiled in astringent wine, and administered in the drink, or else applied to the navel with oil of myrtle. Some persons boil down the liver in three sextarii of water to half a sextarius, and then add rue to it. The milt of a he or she-goat is sometimes roasted for this purpose, or the suet of a he-goat is incorporated in bread baked upon the ashes; the fat, too, of a she-goat, taken from the kidneys more particularly, is used. This last, however, must be taken by itself and swallowed immediately, being generally recommended to be taken in water moderately cool. Some persons, too, boil goats' suet in water, with a mixture of polenta, cummin, anise, and vinegar; and for the cure of cœliac affections, they rub the abdomen with a decoction of goats' dung and honey.

For both the cœliac flux and dysentery, kid's rennet is employed, taken in myrtle wine in pieces the size of a bean, or else kid's blood, prepared in the form of a dish known by the name of "sanguiculus."²⁶⁸ For dysentery an injection is employed, made of bull glue dissolved in warm water. Flatulency is dispelled by a decoction of calf's dung in wine. For intestinal affections deer's rennet is highly recommended, boiled with beef and lentils, and taken with the food; hare's fur, also reduced to ashes and boiled with honey; or boiled goat's milk, taken with a small quantity of mallows and some salt; if rennet is added, the remedy will be all the more effectual. Goat suet, taken in any kind of broth, is possessed of similar virtues, care being taken to swallow cold water immediately after. The ashes of a kid's thighs are said to be marvellously efficacious for intestinal hernia; as also hare's dung, boiled with honey, and taken daily in pieces the size of a bean; indeed, these remedies are said to have proved effectual in cases where a cure has been quite despaired of. The broth too, made from a goat's head, boiled with the hair on, is highly recommended.

CHAP. 59.—REMEDES FOR TENESMUS, TAPEWORM, AND AFFECTIONS OF THE COLON.

The disease called "tenesmus," or in other words, a frequent and ineffectual desire to go to stool, is removed by drinking asses' milk or cows' milk. The various kinds of tapewormn²⁶⁹ are expelled by taking the ashes of deer's horns in drink. The bones which we have spoken²⁷⁰ of as being found in the excrements of the wolf, worn attached to the arm, are curative of diseases of the colon, provided they have not been allowed to touch the ground. Polea, too, a substance already mentioned,²⁷¹ is remarkably useful for this purpose, boiled in grape juice:²⁷² the same too with swine's dung, powdered and mixed with cummin, in a decoction of rue. The antler of a young stag, reduced to ashes and taken in wine, mixed with African snails, crushed with the shells on, is considered a very, useful remedy.

CHAP. 60. (15.)—-REMEDIES FOR AFFECTIONS OF THE BLADDER, AND FOR URINARY CALCULI.

Diseases of the bladder, and the torments attendant upon calculi, are treated with the urine of a wild boar, or the bladder of that animal taken as food; both of them being still more efficacious if they have been thoroughly soaked first. The bladder, when eaten, should be boiled first, and if the patient is a female, it should be a sow's bladder. There are found in the liver of the wild boar certain small stones,²⁷³ or what in hardness resemble small stones, of a white hue, and resembling those found in the liver of the common swine: if these stones are pounded and taken in wine, they will expel calculi, it is said. So oppressed is the wild boar by the burden of his urine,²⁷⁴ that if he has not first voided it, he is unable to take to flight, and suffers himself to be taken as though he were enchained to the spot. This urine, they say, has a consuming effect upon urinary calculi. The kidneys of a hare, dried and taken in wine, act as an expellent upon calculi. We have already²⁷⁵ mentioned that in the gammon of the hog there are certain joint-bones; a decoction made from them is remarkably useful for urinary affections. The kidneys of an ass, dried and pounded, and administered in undiluted wine, are a cure for diseases of the bladder. The excrescences that grow on horses' legs, taken for forty days in ordinary wine or honied wine, expel urinary calculi. The ashes, too, of a horse's hoof, taken in wine or water, are considered highly useful for this purpose; and the same with the dung of a she-goat—if a wild goat, all the better—taken in honied wine: goats' hair, too, is used, reduced to ashes.

For carbuncles upon the generative organs, the brains and blood of a wild boar or swine are highly recommended: and for serpiginous affections of those parts, the liver of those animals is used, burnt upon juniper wood more particularly, and mixed with papyrus and arsenic;²⁷⁶ the ashes, also, of their dung; ox-gall, kneaded to the consistency of honey, with Egyptian alum and myrrh, beet-root boiled in wine being laid upon it; or else beef. Running ulcers of those parts are treated with veal-suet and marrow, boiled in wine, or with the gall of a she-goat, mixed with honey and the extracted juice of the bramble.²⁷⁷ In cases where these ulcers are serpiginous, it is recommended to use goats' dung with honey or vinegar, or else butter by itself. Swellings of the testes are reduced by using veal-suet with nitre, or the dung of the animal boiled in vinegar. The bladder of a wild boar, eaten roasted, acts as a check upon incontinence of urine; a similar effect being produced by the ashes of the feet of a wild boar or swine sprinkled in the drink; the ashes of a sow's bladder taken in drink; the bladder or lights of a kid; a hare's brains taken in wine; the testes of a male hare grilled; the rennet of that animal taken with goose-grease and polenta;²⁷⁸ or the kidneys of an ass, beaten up and taken in undiluted wine.

The magicians tell us, that after taking the ashes of a boar's genitals in sweet wine, the patient must make water in a dog kennel, and repeat the following formula—"This I do that I may not wet my bed as a dog does." On the other hand, a swine's bladder, attached to the groin, facilitates the discharge of the urine, provided it has not already touched the ground.

CHAP. 61.—REMEDIES FOR DISEASES OF THE GENERATIVE ORGANS AND OF THE FUNDAMENT.

For diseases of the fundament, a sovereign remedy is bear's gall, mixed with the grease; to which some persons are in the habit of adding litharge and frankincense. Butter, too, is very good, employed with goose-grease and oil of roses. The proportions in which they are mixed will be regulated by the circumstances of the case, care being taken to see that they are of a consistency which admits of their being easily applied. Bull's gall upon lint is a remarkably useful remedy, and has the effect of making chaps of the fundament cicatrize with great rapidity. Swellings of those parts are treated with veal suet—that from the loins in particular—mixed with rue. For other affections, goats' blood is used, with polenta. Goats' gall, too, is employed by itself, for the cure of condylomata, and sometimes, wolf's gall, mixed with wine.

Bears' blood is curative of inflamed tumours and apostemes upon these parts in general; as also bulls' blood, dried and powdered. The best remedy, however, is considered to be the stone which the wild ass²⁷⁹ voids with his urine, it is said, at the moment he is killed. This stone, which is in a somewhat liquefied state at first, becomes solid when it reaches the ground: attached to the thigh, it; disperses all collections of humours and all kinds of suppurations: it is but rarely found, however, and it is not every wild ass that produces it, but as a remedy it is held in high esteem. Asses' urine too, used in combination with gith, is highly recommended; the ashes of a horse's hoof, applied with oil and water; a horse's blood, that of a stone-horse in particular; the blood, also, of an ox or cow, or the gall of those animals. Their flesh too, applied warm, is productive of similar results; the hoofs reduced to ashes, and taken in water or honey; the urine of a she-goat; the flesh of a he-goat, boiled in water; the dung of these animals, boiled with honey; or else a boar's gall, or swine's urine, applied in wool.

Riding on horseback, we well know, galls and chafes the inside of the thighs: the best remedy for accidents of this nature is to rub the parts with the foam which collects at a horse's mouth. Where there are swellings in the groin, arising²⁸⁰ from ulcers, a cure is effected by inserting in the sores three horse-hairs, tied with as many knots.

CHAP. 62. (16.)—REMEDIES FOR GOUT AND FOR DISEASES OF THE FEET.

For the cure of gout, bears' grease is employed, mixed in equal proportions with bull-suet and wax; some persons add to the composition, hypocisthis²⁸¹ and nut-galls. Others, again, prefer he-goat suet, mixed with the dung of a she-goat and saffron, or else with mustard, or sprigs of ivy pounded and used with perdicium,²⁸² or with flowers of wild cucumber. Cowdung is also used, with lees of vinegar. Some persons speak highly in praise of the dung of a calf which has not begun to graze, or else a bull's blood, without any other addition; a fox, also, boiled alive till only the bones are left; a wolf boiled alive in oil to the consistency of a cerate; he-goat suet, with an equal proportion of helxine,²⁸³ and one-third part of mustard; or ashes of goats' dung, mixed with axle-grease. They say, too, that for sciatica, it is an excellent plan to apply this dung boiling²⁸⁴ hot beneath the great toes; and that, for diseases of the joints, it is highly efficacious to attach bears' gall or hares' feet to the part affected. Gout, they say, may be allayed by the patient always carrying about with him a hare's foot, cut off from the animal alive.

Bears' grease is a cure for chilblains and all kinds of chaps upon the feet; with the addition of alum, it is still more efficacious. The same results are produced by using goat-suet; a horse's teeth powdered; the gall of a wild boar or hog; or else the lights of those animals, applied with their grease; and this, too, where the soles are blistered, or the feet have been crushed by a substance striking against them. In cases where the feet have been frozen, ashes of burnt hare's fur are used; and for contusions of the feet, the lights of that animal are applied, sliced or reduced to ashes. Blisters occasioned by the sun are most effectually treated by using asses' fat, or else beef-suet, with oil of roses. Corns, chaps, and callosities of the feet are cured by the application of wild boars' dung or swine's dung, used fresh, and removed at the end of a couple of days. The pastern-bones of these animals are also used, reduced to ashes; or else the lights of a wild boar, swine, or deer. When the feet have been galled by the shoes, they are rubbed with the urine of an ass, applied with the mud formed by it upon the ground. Corns are treated with beef-suet and powdered frankincense; chilblains with burnt leather, that of an old shoe, in particular; and injuries produced by tight shoes with ashes of goat-skin, tempered with oil.

The pains attendant upon varicose veins are mitigated by using ashes of burnt calves' dung, boiled with lily roots and a little honey: a composition which is equally good for all kinds of inflammations and sores that tend to suppurate. It is very useful, also, for gout and diseases of the joints, when it is the dung of a bull-calf that is used more particularly. For excoriations of the joints, the gall of a wild boar or swine is applied, in a warm linen cloth: the dung, also, of a calf that has not begun to graze; or else goat-dung, boiled in vinegar with honey. Veal-suet rectifies malformed nails, as also goat-suet, mixed with sandarach. Warts are removed by applying ashes of burnt calves' dung in vinegar, or else the mud formed upon the ground by the urine of an ass.

CHAP. 63.—REMEDIES FOR EPILEPSY.

In cases of epilepsy, it is a good plan to eat a bear's testes, or those of a wild boar, with mares' milk or water; or else to drink a wild boar's urine with honey and vinegar, that being the best which has been left to dry in the bladder. The testes, also, of swine are prescribed, dried and beaten up in sows' milk, the patient abstaining from. wine some days before and after taking the mixture. The lights of a hare, too, are recom- mended, salted, and taken with one third of frankincense, for thirty consecutive days, in white wine: hare's rennet also and asses' brains, smoked with burning leaves, and administered in hydromel, in doses of half an ounce per day. An ass's hoofs are reduced to ashes, and taken for a month together, in doses of two spoonfuls; the testes, also, of an ass, salted and mixed with the drink, asses' milk or water in particular. The secundines, also, of a she-ass are recommended, more particularly when it is a male that has been foaled: placed beneath the nostrils of the patient, when the fits are likely to come on, this substance will effectually repel them.

There are some persons who recommend the patient to eat the heart of a black he-ass in the open air with bread, upon the first or second day of the moon: others, again, prescribe the flesh of that animal, and others the blood, diluted with vinegar, and taken for forty days together. Some mix horse- stale for this purpose, with smithy water fresh from the forge, employing the same mixture for the cure of delirium. Epilepsy is also treated with mares' milk, or the excrescences from a horse's legs, taken in honey and vinegar. The magicians highly recommend goats' flesh, grilled upon a funeral pile; as also the suet of that animal, boiled with an equal quantity of bull's gall, and kept in the gall-bladder; care being taken not to let it touch the ground, and the patient swallowing it in water, standing aloft.²⁸⁵ The smell arising from a goat's horns or deer's antlers, burnt, efficiently detects the presence of epilepsy.

In cases where persons are suddenly paralyzed, the urine of an ass's foal, applied to the body with nard, is very useful, it is

CHAP. 64.—REMEDIES FOR JAUNDICE.

For the cure of jaundice, the ashes of a stag's antlers are employed; or the blood of an ass's foal, taken in wine. The first dung,²⁸⁶ too, that has been voided by the foal after its birth, taken in wine, in pieces the size of a bean, will effect a cure by the end of three days. The dung of a new-born colt is possessed of a similar efficacy.

CHAP. 65.—-REMEDIES FOR BROKEN BONES.

For broken bones, a sovereign remedy is the ashes of the jaw-bone of a wild boar or swine: boiled bacon, too, tied round the broken bone, unites it with marvellous rapidity. For fractures of the ribs, goats' dung, applied in old wine, is extolled as the grand remedy, being possessed in a high degree of aperient, extractive, and healing properties.

CHAP. 66.—REMEDIES FOR FEVERS.

Deer's flesh, as already²⁸⁷ stated, is a febrifuge. Periodical and recurrent fevers are cured, if we are to believe what the magicians tell us, by wearing the right eye of a wolf, salted, and attached as an amulet. There is one kind of fever generally known as "amphemerine"²⁸⁸ it is to be cured, they say, by the patient taking three drops of blood from an ass's ear, and swallowing them in two semi-sextarii of water. For quartan fever, the magicians recommend cats' dung to be attached to the body, with the toe of a horned owl, and, that the fever may not be recurrent, not to be removed until the seventh paroxysm is past. Who,²⁸⁹ pray, could have ever made such a discovery as this? And what, too, can be the meaning of this combination? Why, of all things in the world, was the toe of a horned owl made choice of?

Other adepts in this art, who are more moderate in their suggestions, recommend for quartan fever, the salted liver of a cat that has been killed while the moon was on the wane, to be taken in wine just before the paroxysms come on. The magicians recommend, too, that the toes of the patient should be rubbed with the ashes of burnt cow-dung, diluted with a boy's urine, and that a hare's heart should be attached to the hands; they prescribe, also, hare's rennet, to be taken in drink just before the paroxysms come on. New goats' milk cheese is also given with honey, the whey being carefully extracted first.

CHAP. 67. (17.)—REMEDIES FOR MELANCHOLY, LETHARGY, AND PHTHSIS.

For patients affected with melancholy,²⁹⁰ calves' dung, boiled in wine, is a very useful remedy. Persons are aroused from lethargy by applying to the nostrils the callosities from an ass's legs steeped in vinegar, or the fumes of burnt goats' horns or hair, or by the application of a wild boar's liver: a remedy which is also used for confirmed²⁹¹ drowsiness.

The cure of phthisis is effected by taking a wolf's liver boiled in thin wine; the bacon of a sow that has been fed upon herbs; or the flesh of a she-ass, eaten with the broth: this last mode in particular, being the one that is employed by the people of Achaia. They say too, that the smoke of dried cow-dung—that of the animal when grazing, I mean-is remarkably good for phthisis, inhaled through a reed;²⁹² and we find it stated that the tips of cows' horns are burnt, and administered with honey, in doses of two spoonfuls, in the form of pills. Goat suet, many persons say, taken in a pottage of alica,²⁹³ or melted fresh with honied wine, in the proportion of one ounce of suet to one cyathus of wine, is good for cough and phthisis, care being taken to stir the mixture with a sprig of rue. One author of credit assures us that before now, a patient whose recovery has been despaired of; has been restored to health by taking one cyathus of wild goat²⁹⁴ suet and an equal quantity of milk. Some writers, too, have stated that ashes of burnt swine's dung are very useful, mixed with raisin wine; as also the lights of a deer, a spitter²⁹⁵ deer in particular, smoke-dried and beaten up in wine.

CHAP. 68.—REMEDIES FOR DROPSY.

For dropsy, a will boar's urine is good, taken in small doses in the patient's drink; it is of much greater efficacy, however, when it has been left to dry in the bladder of the animal. The ashes, too, of burnt cow-dung, and of bulls' dung in particular —animals that are reared in herds, I mean—are highly esteemed. This dung, the name given to which is "bolbiton,"²⁹⁶ is re- duced to ashes, and taken in doses of three spoonfuls to one semisextarius of honied wine; that of the female animal being used where the patient is a woman, and that of the other sex in the case of males; a distinction about which the magicians have made a sort of grand mystery. The dung of a bull-calf is also applied topically for this disease, and ashes of burnt calves' dung are taken with seed of staphylinos,²⁹⁷ in equal proportions, in wine. Goats' blood also is used, with the marrow; but it is generally thought that the blood of the he-goat is the most efficacious, when the animal has fed upon lentisk, more particularly.

CHAP. 69.—REMEDIES FOR ERYSIPELAS, AND FOR PURULENT ERUPTIONS.

For erysipelas a liniment of bears' grease is used, that from the kidneys in particular; fresh calves' dung also, or cow-dung; dried goats' milk cheese, with leeks; or else the fine scrapings of a deer's skin, brought off with pumice-stone and beaten up in vinegar. Where there is redness of the skin attended with itching, the foam from a horse's mouth is used, or the hoof, reduced to ashes.

For the cure of purulent²⁹⁸ eruptions ashes of burnt asses' dung are applied, with butter; and for the removal of swarthy pimples, dried goats' milk cheese, steeped in honey and vinegar, is applied in the bath, no oil being used. Pustules are treated with ashes of swine's dung, applied with water, or else ashes of deer's antlers.

CHAP. 70.—REMEDIES FOR SPRAINS, INDURATIONS, AND BOILS.

For the cure of sprains the following applications are used; wild boars' dung or swine's dung; calves' dung; wild boars' foam, used fresh with vinegar; goats' dung, applied with honey; and raw beef, used as a plaster. For swellings, swine's dung is used, warmed in an earthen pot, and beaten up with oil. The best emollient for all kinds of indurations upon the body is wolf's fat, applied topically. In the case of sores which are wanted to break, the most effectual plan is to apply cow-dung warmed in hot ashes, or else goats' dung boiled in vinegar or wine. For the cure of boils, beef-suet is applied with salt; but if they are attended with pain, it is melted with oil, and no salt is used. Goat-suet is employed in a similar manner.

CHAP. 71.—REMEDIES FOR BURNS. THE METHOD OF TESTING BULL-GLUE; SEVEN REMEDIES DERIVED FROM IT.

For the treatment of burns, bears' grease is used, with lily roots; dried wild boars' dung also, or swine's dung; the ashes of burnt bristles, extracted from plasterers' brushes, beaten up with grease; the pastern-bone of an ox, reduced to ashes, and mixed with wax and bull's marrow or deer's marrow; or the dung of a hare. The dung, too, of a she-goat, they say, will effect a cure without leaving any scars.

The best glue is that prepared from the ears and genitals of the bull, and there is no better cure in existence for burns. There is nothing, however, that is more extensively adulterated; which is done by boiling up all kinds of old skins, and shoes even, for the purpose. The Rhodian glue is the purest of all, and it is this that painters and physicians mostly use. The whiter it is, the more highly glue is esteemed: that, on the other hand, which is black and brittle like wood, is looked upon is good for nothing.

CHAP. 72.— REMEDIES FOR AFFECTIONS OF THE SINEWS AND FOR CONTUSIONS.

For pains in the sinews, goats' dung, boiled in vinegar with honey, is considered one of the most useful remedies, and this even where the sinew²⁹⁹ is threatened with putrefaction. Strains and contusions are healed with wild boars' dung, that has been gathered in spring and dried. A similar method is employed where persons have been dragged by a chariot or lacerated by the wheels, or have received contusions in any other way, the application being quite as effectual, should the dung happen to be fresh. Some think it a better plan, however, to boil it in vinegar; and if only powdered and taken in vinegar, they vouch for its good effects where persons are ruptured, wounded internally, or suffering from the effects of a fall.

Others again, who are of a more scrupulous tendency,³⁰⁰ take the ashes of it in water; and the Emperor Nero, it is said, was in the habit of refreshing himself with this drink, when he attempted to gain the public applause at the three-horse chariot races.³⁰¹ Swine's dung, it is generally thought, is the next best to that of the goat.

CHAP. 73. (18.)—REMEDIES FOR HÆMORRHAGE.

Hæmorrhage is arrested by applying deer's rennet with vinegar, hare's rennet, hare's fur reduced to ashes, or ashes of burnt asses' dung. The dung, however, of male animals is the most efficacious for this purpose, being mixed with vinegar, and applied with wool, in all cases of hæmorrhage. In the same way, too, the ashes of a horse's head or thigh, or of burnt calves' dung, are used with vinegar; the ashes also of a goat's horns or dung, with vinegar. But it is the thick blood that issues from the liver of a he-goat when cut asunder, that is looked upon as the most efficacious; or else the ashes of the burnt liver of a goat of either sex, taken in wine or applied to the nostrils with vinegar. The ashes, too, of a leather wine-bottle—but only when made of he-goat skin—are used very efficiently with an equal quantity of resin, for the purpose of stanching blood, and knitting together the lips of the wound. A kid's rennet in vinegar, or the thighs of that animal, reduced to ashes, are said to be productive of a similar result.

CHAP. 74.—REMEDIES FOR ULCERS AND CARACINOMATOUS SORES.

Ulcers upon the legs and thighs are cured by an application of bears' grease, mixed with red earth: and those of a serpiginous nature by using wild boar's gall, with resin and white lead; the jaw-bone of a wild boar or swine, reduced to ashes; swine's dung in a dry state; or goats' dung, made luke-warm in vinegar. For otter kinds of ulcers butter is used, as a detergent, and as tending to make new flesh; ashes of deer's antlers, or deer's marrow; or else bull's gall, mixed with oil of cyprus³⁰² or oil of iris. Wounds inflicted with edged weapons are rubbed with fresh swine's dung, or with dried swine's dung, powdered. When ulcers are phagedænic or fistulous, bull's gall is injected, with leek-juice or woman's milk; or else bull's blood, dried and powdered, with the plant cotyledon.³⁰³

Carcinomatous sores are treated with hare's rennet, sprin- kled upon them with an equal proportion of capers in wine; gangrenes, with bears' grease, applied with a feather; and ulcers of a serpiginous nature with the ashes of an ass's hoofs, powdered upon then. The blood of the horse corrodes the flesh by virtue of certain septic powers which it possesses; dried horse-dung, too, reduced to ashes, has a similar effect. Those kinds of ulcer which are commonly known as "phagedænic," are treated with the ashes of a cow's hide, mixed with honey. Calves' flesh, as also cow-dung mixed with honey, prevents recent wounds from swelling. The ashes of a leg of veal, applied with woman's milk, are a cure for sordid ulcers, and the malignant sore known s "cacoëthes:"³⁰⁴ bull-glue, melted, is applied to recent wounds inflicted with edged weapons, the application being removed before the end of three days. Dried goats' milk cheese, applied with vinegar and honey, acts as a detergent upon ulcers; and goat suet, used in combination with wax, arrests the spread of serpiginous sores if employed with pitch and sulphur, it will effect a thorough cure. The ashes of a kid's leg, applied with woman's milk, have a similar effect upon malignant ulcers; for the cure, too, of carbuncles, a sow's brains are roasted and applied.

CHAP. 75.—REMEDIES FOR THE ITCH.

The itch in man is cured very effectually by using the marrow of an ass, or the urine of that animal, applied with the mud it has formed upon the ground. Butter, too, is very good; as also in the case of beasts of burden, if applied with warmed resin: bull glue is also used, melted in vinegar, and incorporated with lime; or goat's gall, mixed with calcined alum. The eruption called "boa,"³⁰⁵ is treated with cow-dung, a fact to which it is indebted for its name. The itch in dogs is cured by an application of fresh cows' blood, which, when quite dry, is renewed a second time, and is rubbed off the next day with strong lie-ashes.

CHAP. 76.—METHODS OF EXTRACTING FOREIGN SUBSTANCES WHICH ADHERE TO THE, BODY, AND OF RESTORING SCARS TO THEIR NATURAL COLOUR.

Thorns and similar foreign substances are extracted from the body by using cats' dung, or that of she-goats, with wine; the rennet also of any kind of animal, that of the hare more particularly, with powdered frankincense and oil, or an equal quan- tity of mistletoe, or else with bee-glue.³⁰⁶

Ass suet restores scars of a swarthy hue to their natural colour; and they are equally effaced by using calf's gall made warm. Medical men add myrrh, honey, and saffron, and keep the mixture in a copper box; some, too, incorporate with it flower of copper.

CHAP. 77. (19.)—REMEDIES FOR FEMALE DISEASES.

Menstruation is promoted by using hall's gall, in unwashed wool, as a pessary: Olympias of Thebe adds hyssop and nitre. Ashes, too, of deer's horns are taken in drink for the same purpose, and for derangements of the uterus they are applied topically, as also bull's gall, used as a pessary with opium, in the proportion of two oboli. It is a good plan, too, to use fumigations for the uterus, made with deer's hair, burnt. Hinds, they say, when they find themselves pregnant, are in the habit of swallowing a small stone. This stone, when found in their excrements, or in the uterus—for it is to be found there as well—attached to the body as an amulet, is a preventive of abortion. There are also certain small stones, found in the heart and uterus of these animals, which are very useful for women during pregnancy and in travail. As to the kind of pumice-stone which is similarly found in the uterus of the cow, we have already³⁰⁷ mentioned it when treating of the formation of that animal.

A wolf's fat, applied externally, acts emolliently upon the uterus, and the liver of a wolf is very soothing for pains in that organ. It is found advantageous for women, when near delivery, to eat wolf's flesh, or, if they are in travail, to have a person near them who has eaten it; so much so, indeed, that it will act as a countercharm even to any noxious spells which may have been laid upon them. In case, however, a person who has eaten wolf's flesh should happen to enter the room at the moment of parturition, dangerous effects will be sure to follow. The hare, too, is remarkably useful for the complaints of females: the lights of that animal, dried and taken in drink, are beneficial to the uterus; the liver, taken in water with Samian earth, acts as an emmenagogue; and the rennet brings away the after-birth, due care being taken by the patient not to bathe the day before. Applied in wool as a pessary, with saffron and leek-juice, this last acts as an expellent upon the dead fœtus. It is a general opinion that the uterus of a hare, taken with the food, promotes the conception of male offspring, and that a similar effect is produced by using the testes and rennet of that animal. It is thought, too, that a leveret, taken from the uterus of its dam, is a restorative of fruitfulness to women who are otherwise past child-bearing. But it is the blood of a hare's fœtus that the magicians recommend males to drink: while for young girls they prescribe nine pellets of hare's dung, to ensure a durable firmness to the breasts. For a similar purpose, also, they apply hare's rennet with honey; and to prevent hairs from growing again when once removed, they use a liniment of hare's blood.

For inflations of the uterus, it is found a good plan to apply wild boars' dung or swine's dung topically with oil: but a still more effectual remedy is to dry the dung, and sprinkle it, powdered, in the patient's drink, even though she should be in a state of pregnancy or suffering the pains of child-birth. By administering sow's milk with honied wine, parturition is facilitated; and if taken by itself it will promote the secretion of the milk when deficient in nursing women. By rubbing the breasts of females with sow's blood they are prevented from becoming too large. If pains are felt in the breasts, they will be alleviated by drinking asses' milk; and the same milk, taken with honey, has considerable efficacy as an emmenagogue. Stale fat, too, from the same animal, heals ulcerations of the uterus: applied as a pessary, in wool, it acts emolliently upon indurations of that organ; and, applied fresh by itself, or in water when stale, it has all the virtues of a depilatory.

An ass's milt, dried and applied in water to the breasts, promotes the secretion of the milk; and used in the form of a fumigation, it acts as a corrective upon the uterus. A fumigation made with a burnt ass's hoof; placed beneath a woman, accelerates parturition, so much so, indeed, as to expel the dead fœtus even: hence it is that it should only be employed in cases of miscarriage, it having a fatal effect upon the living fœtus. Asses' dung, applied fresh, has a wonderful effect, they say, in arresting discharges of blood in females: the same, too, with the ashes of this dung, which, used as a pessary, are very good for the uterus. If the skin is rubbed with the foam from a horse's mouth for forty days together, before the first hair has made its appearance, it will effectually prevent the growth thereof: a decoction, too, made from deer's antlers is productive of a similar effect, being all the better if they are used quite fresh. Mares' milk, used as an injection, is highly beneficial to the uterus.

Where the fœtus is felt to be dead in the uterus, the lichens or excrescences from a horse's legs, taken in fresh water, will act as an expellent: an effect produced also by a fumigation made with the hoofs or dry dung of that animal. Procidence of the uterus is arrested by using butter, in the form of an injection; and indurations of that organ are removed by similarly employing ox-gall, with oil of roses, turpentine being applied externally in wool. They say, too, that a fumigation, made from ox-dung, acts as a corrective upon procidence of the uterus, and facilitates parturition; and that conception is promoted by the use of cows' milk. It is a well-known fact that sterility is often entailed by suffering in child-birth; an evil which may be averted, Olympias of Thebes assures us, by rubbing the parts, before sexual intercourse, with bull's gall, serpents' fat, verdigrease, and honey. In cases, too, where menstruation is too abundant, the external parts should be sprinkled with a solution of calf's gall, the moment before the sexual congress; a method which acts emolliently also upon indurations of the abdomen. Applied to the navel as a liniment, it arrests excessive discharges, and is generally beneficial to the uterus. The proportions generally adopted are—one denarius of gall, one-third of a denarius of opium, and as much oil of almonds as may appear to be requisite; the whole being applied in sheep's wool. The gall, too, of a bull-calf is beaten up with half the quantity of honey, and kept in readiness for the treatment of uterine diseases. If a woman about the time of conception eats roasted veal with the plant aristolochia,³⁰⁸ she will bring forth a male child, we are assured. Calf's marrow, boiled in wine and water with the suet, and applied as a pessary, is good for ulcerations of the uterus; the same, too, with foxes' fat and cats' dung, the last being applied with resin and oil of roses.

It is considered a remarkably good plan to subject the uterus to fumigations made with burnt goats' horns. The blood of the wild goat, mixed with sea-palm,³⁰⁹ acts as a depilatory. The gall of the other kinds of goat, used as an injection, acts emolliently upon callosities of the uterus, and ensures conception immediately after menstruation: it possesses also the virtues of a depilatory, the application being left for three days upon the flesh after the hair has been removed. The midwives assure us that she-goats' urine, taken in drink, and the dung, applied topically, will arrest uterine discharges, however much in excess. The membrane in which the kid is enclosed in the uterus, dried and taken in wine, acts as an expel- lent upon the after-birth. For affections of the uterus, it is thought a desirable plan to fumigate it with burnt kids' hair; and for discharges of blood, kids' rennet is administered in drink, or seed of henbane is applied. According to Osthanes, if a woman's loins are rubbed with blood taken from the ticks upon a black wild bull, she will be inspired with an aversion to sexual intercourse: she will forget, too, her former love, by taking a he-goat's urine in drink, some nard being mixed with it to disguise the loathsome taste.

CHAP. 78.—REMEDIES FOR THE DISEASES OF INFANTS.

For infants there is nothing more useful than butter,³¹⁰ either by itself or in combination with honey; for dentition more particularly, for soreness of the gums, and for ulcerations of the mouth. A wolf's tooth, attached to the body, prevents infants from being startled, and acts as a preservative against the maladies attendant upon dentition; an effect equally produced by making use of a wolf's skin. The larger teeth, also, of a wolf, attached to a horse's neck, will render him proof against all weariness, it is said. A hare's rennet, applied to the breasts of the nurse, effectually prevents diarrhœa in the infant suckled by her. An ass's liver, mixed with a little panax, and dropped into the mouth of an infant, will preserve it from epilepsy and other diseases to which infants are liable; this, however, must be done for forty days, they say. An ass's skin, too, thrown over infants, renders them insensible to fear. The first teeth shed by a horse, attached as an amulet to infants, facilitate dentition, and are better still, when not allowed to touch the ground. For pains in the spleen, an ox's milt is administered in honey, and applied topically; and for running ulcers it is used as an application, with honey. A calf's milt, boiled in wine, is beaten up, and applied to incipient ulcers of the mouth.

The magicians take the brains of a she-goat, and, after passing them through a gold ring, drop them into the mouth of the infant before it takes the breast, as a preservative against epilepsy and other infantile diseases. Goats' dung, attached to infants in a piece of cloth, prevents them from being restless, female infants in particular. By rubbing the gums of infants with goats' milk or hare's brains, dentition is greatly facilitated.

CHAP. 79.—PROVOCATIVES OF SLEEP.

Cato was of opinion that hare's flesh,³¹¹ taken as a diet, is provocative of sleep. It is a vulgar notion, too, that this diet confers beauty for nine days on those who use it; a silly play³¹² upon words, no doubt, but a notion which has gained far too extensively not to have had some real foundation. According to the magicians, the gall of a she-goat, but only of one that has been sacrificed, applied to the eyes or placed beneath the pillow, has a narcotic effect. Too profuse perspiration is checked by rubbing the body with ashes of burnt goats' horns mixed with oil of myrtle.

CHAP. 80.—STIMLANTS FOR THE SEXUAL PASSIONS.

Among the aphrodisiacs, we find mentioned, a wild boar's gall, applied externally; swine's marrow, taken inwardly; asses' fat, mixed with the grease of a gander and applied as a liniment; the virulent substance described by Virgil³¹³ as distilling from mares when covered; and the dried testes of a horse, pulverized and mixed with the drink. The right testicle, also, of an ass, is taken in a proportionate quantity of wine, or worn attached to the arm in a bracelet; or else the froth discharged by that animal after covering, collected in a piece of red cloth and enclosed in silver, as Osthanes informs us. Salpe recom- mends the genitals of this animal to be plunged seven times in boiling oil, and the corresponding parts to be well rubbed therewith. Balcon³¹⁴ says that these genitals should be reduced to ashes and taken in drink; or else the urine: that has been voided by a bull immediately after covering: lie recommends, also, that the groin should be well rubbed with earth moistened with this urine.

Mouse-dung, on the other hand, applied in the form of a liniment, acts as an antaphrodisiac. The lights of a wild boar or swine, roasted, are an effectual preservative against drunkenness; they must, however, be eaten fasting, and upon the same day. The lights of a kid, too, are productive of the same effect.

CHAP. 81. (20.)—REMARKABLE FACTS RELATIVE TO ANIMALS.

In addition to those already mentioned, there are various other marvellous facts related, with reference to these animals. When a horse-shoe becomes detached from the hoof, as often is the case, if a person takes it up and puts it by, it will act as a remedy for hiccup the moment he calls to mind the spot where he has placed it. A wolf's liver, they say, is similar to a horse's hoof in appearance; and a horse, they tell us, if it follows in the track of a wolf, will burst³¹⁵ asunder beneath its rider. The pastern-bones of swine have a certain tendency to promote discord, it is said. In cases of fire, if some of the dung can be brought away from the stalls, both sheep and oxen may be got out all the more easily, and will make no attempt to return. The flesh of a he-goat will lose its rank smell, if the animal has eaten barley-bread, or drunk an infusion of laser³¹⁶ the day on which it was killed. Meat that has been salted while the moon was on the wane, will never be attacked by worms. In fact, so great has been the care taken to omit no possible researches, that a deaf hare, we find, will grow fat³¹⁷ sooner than one that can hear!

As to the remedies for the diseases of animals—If a beast of burden voids blood, an injection must be used of swine's dung mixed with wine. For the maladies of oxen, a mixture of suet is used with quicksilver, and wild garlic boiled; the whole eaten up and administered in wine. The fat, too, of a fox is employed. The liquor of boiled horse-flesh, administered in their drink, is recommended for the cure of diseased swine: and, indeed, the maladies of all four-footed beasts may be effec- tually treated by boiling a she-goat whole, in her skin, along with a bramble-frog. Poultry, they say, will never be touched by a fox, if they have eaten the dried liver of that animal, or if the cock, when treading the hen, has had a piece of fox's skin about his neck. The same property, too, is attributed to a weazel's gall. The oxen in the Isle of Cyprus cure themselves of gripings in the abdomen, it is said, by swallowing³¹⁸ human excrements: the feet, too, of oxen will never be worn to the quick, if their hoofs are well rubbed with tar before they begin work. Wolves will never approach a field, if, after one has been caught and its legs broken and throat cut, the blood is dropped little by little along the boundaries of the field, and the body buried on the spot from which it was first dragged. The share, too, with which the first furrow in the field has been traced in the current year, should be taken from the plough, and placed upon the hearth of the Lares, where the family is in the habit of meeting, and left there till it is consumed: so long as this is in doing, no wolf will attack any animal in the field.

We will now turn to an examination of those animals which, being neither tame nor wild, are of a nature peculiar to them- selves.

SUMMARY.—Remedies, narratives, and observations, one thousand six hundred and eighty-two.

ROMAN AUTHORS QUOTED.—M. Varro,³¹⁹ L. Piso,³²⁰ Fabianus,³²¹ Va- lerius Antias,³²² Verrius Flaccus,³²³ Cato the Censor,³²⁴ Servius Sul- picius,³²⁵ Licinius Macer,³²⁶ Celsus,³²⁷ Massurius,³²⁸ Sextius Niger³²⁹ who wrote in Greek, Bithus³³⁰ of Dyrrhachium, Opilius³³¹ the physician, Granius³³² the physician.

FOREIGN AUTHORS QUOTED.—-Democritus,³³³ Apollonius³³⁴ who wrote the "Myrosis," Melitus,³³⁵ Artemon,³³⁶ Sextilius,³³⁷ Au- tæus,³³⁸ Homer, Theophrastus,³³⁹ Lysimachus,³⁴⁰ Attalus,³⁴¹ Xenocrates,³⁴² Orpheus³⁴³ who wrote the "Idiophya," Archelaüs³⁴⁴ who wrote a similar work, Demetrius,³⁴⁵ Sotira,³⁴⁶ Laïs,³⁴⁷ Ele- phantis,³⁴⁸ Salpe,³⁴⁹ Olympias³⁵⁰ of Thebes, Diotimus³⁵¹ of Thebes, Iollas,³⁵² Andreas,³⁵³ Marcion³⁵⁴ of Smyrna, Æschines³⁵⁵ the physician, Hippocrates,³⁵⁶ Aristotle,³⁵⁷ Metrodorus³⁵⁸ of Scepsos, Icetidas³⁵⁹ the physician, Apelles³⁶⁰ the physician, Hesiod,³⁶¹ Dalion,³⁶² Cæcilius,³⁶³ Bion³⁶⁴ who wrote "On Powers,"³⁶⁵ Anaxilaiis,³⁶⁶ King Juba.³⁶⁷

1 The trees and plants.

2 On the contrary, this and the four following Books are full of the most extravagant assertions, which bear ample testimony to his credulity, not- withstanding the author's repeated declarations that he does not believe in Magic. As Ajasson says, he evidently does not know what he ought to have inserted in his work, and what to reject as utterly unworthy of belief. His faults, however, were not so much his own as those of his age. Want of space, equally with want of inclination, compels us to forego the task of entering into an examination of the system of Animal Therapeaties upon. which so much labour has been waste by our author.

3 See B. viii. c. 97, et seq., and B. xxv. c. 89, et seq.

4 See B. xxviii. c. 3.

5 This practice is mentioned with reprobation by Celsus and Tertullian. It was continued, however, in some degree through the middle ages, and Louis XV. was accused by his people of taking baths of infants' blood to repair his premature decrepitude.

6 In recent times, Guettard, a French practitioner, recommended human marrow as an emollient liniment.

7 Hence, as Ajasson remarks, the ignorance of anatomy displayed by the ancients.

8 For further particulars as to Osthanes, see B. xxix. c. 80, and B. xxx. cc. 5 and 6; also cc. 19 and 77 of the present Book. The reading, however, is very doubtful.

9 "Oculorum suffusiones." As Ajasson says, the remedy here mentioned reminds us of the more harmless one used by Tobias for the cure of the blindness of his father Tobit.

10 He gives a great many, however, which are equally abominable.

11 "Piacula."

12 We may here discover the first rudiments of the doctrine of Animal Magnetism.

13 In accordance with the republican doctrines of Cato of Utica, Brutus, Cassius, and Portia.

14 Holland remarks, "Looke for no better divinitie in Plinie, a meere Pagan, Epicurean, and professed Atheist." See B. vii. cc. 53, 54.

15 Whether or not, they cannot, as Ajasson remarks, be regarded as remedies derived from the human body, being no part of the human body.

16 "Homini acceptun fieri oportere conveniat." This passage is pro- bably corrupt.

17 Beginning with an address to Janus and Vesta, imploring their intercession with the other divinities, and concluding with an appeal to Janus.

18 "Impetritis."

19 "Qui favere linguis jubeat." "Favete linguis" were the words used in enjoining strict silence.

20 By him who is offering up the prayer.

21 A trick adroitly performed by the priests, no doubt.

22 Given by Livy, in Books viii. and x.

23 To death, in battle, for the good of their country.

24 Preserved by Valerius Maximus, B. viii. c. 1. Tertullian and Saint Augustin doubt the authenticity of the story. She is said to have carried water in a sieve from the river Tiber to the temple of Vesta.

25 "Forum Boarium;" in the Eighth Region of the City.

26 Of Gaul, as Plutarch informs us, who mentions also the Greek victims. The immolation of the Gauls is supposed to have happened in the beginning of the reign of Vespasian.

27 Originally the "Decemviri Sacris Faciundis," whose number was increased by Sylla to fifteen. They had the management of the Games of Apollo, and the Secular Games.

28 In B. ii. c. 54.

29 It has been suggested that Tullus Hostilius was acquainted with some of the secrets of electricity, and that he met his death while trying experiments with a lightning conductor. See B. ii. c. 54.

30 Ajasson thinks that there is an equivoque here upon the word "tem- plum," which signified not only a building, but certain parts of the heavens, and corresponding lines traced on the earth by the augur's staff.

31 This story is mentioned by Plutarch, in the Life of Publicola.

32 In which case it was considered necessary to repeat the words, "Accipio omen," "I accept the omen."

33 "Qui fruges excantassit."

34 "Qui malum carmen incantassit."

35 Ajasson is of opinion that this name was either Favra or Fona, Acca, Flora, or Valesia or Valentia.

36 "As in saying thus, The Devill take thee, or The Ravens peck out thine eyes, or I had rather see thee Pie peckt, and such like."—Holland.

37 It is a superstition still practised to pierce the shell of an egg after eating it, "lest the witches should come." Holland gives the following Note—"Because afterwards no witches might pricke them with a needle in the name and behalfe of those whom they would hurt and mischeefe, according to the practice of pricking the images of any person in wax; used in the witchcraft of these daies." We learn from Ajasson that till recently it was considered a mark of ill-breeding in France not to pierce the shell after eating the egg. See also Brand's Popular Antiquities, Vol. III. p. 19, Bohn's Ed.

38 See the Eighth Eclogue of Virgil.

39 "That is to say, Arse verse, out of Afranius, as Festus noteth, which in the old Tuscane language signifieth, Averte ignem, Put backe the fire." —Holland.

40 Odyss. xix. 457. It is not Ulysses, but the sons of Autolycus that do this. Their bandages, however, were more likely to be effectual.

41 De Enthusiasmo.

42 See B. xvii. c. 47.

43 In passing along the Velabrum, on the occasion of his Gallic triumph, the axle of the carriage having broke.

44 See Ovid's Fasti, B. i. 1. 175, et seq., and Epist. de Ponto. B. iv. El. 4. 1. 23, et seq.

45 See B. xi. c. 103.

46 Hence the saying, "De mortuis nil nisi bonum."

47 "Defunctorum memoriam a nobis non sollicitari."

48 It is still a saying, and perhaps a belief, that "There is luck in odd numbers."

49 This has been a practice from the earliest times to the present day. See Brand's Popular Antiquities, Vol. III. p. 123, Bohn's Ed.

50 In France and England, at the present day, this notion, or rather, perhaps, the memory of it, is universally to he found. If the right ear tingles, some one is speaking well of us; if the left ear, the reverse.

51 King Attalus Philometor. See end of B. viii.

52 "Two."

53 This passage, it is pretty clear, ought to follow the preceding one, though in the Latin it is made to precede.

54 The thumb was turned upwards as a mark of favour, downwards, as a mark of disfavour.

55 "Repositorium."

56 It was not yet the custom to bring in several courses, each served up on a separate table.

57 Good manners possibly, more than superstition, may have introduced this practice.

58 Or Pluto. He alludes to the Feralia, or feasts celebrated, in the month of February, in honour of the dead.

59 Or household god.

60 The "Nundinæ, "held every ninth day; or rather every eighth day, recording to our mode of reckoning.

61 Gronovius suggests a reading which would make this to mean that it is "ominous to touch money with the forefinger." It does not appear to be warranted, however.

62 Twenty-eighth, according to our reckoning.

63 Probably from their ominous resemblance to the Parce, or Fates, with their spindles.

64 "Frugum."

65 "Princeps civitatis."

66 "Rho" and "Alpha."

67 In B. vii. c. 2.

68 In B. vii. c. 2, he speaks of these people—"the serpent-born"—as natives of Parium, a town of the Hellespont. Ajasson suggests that they may have been a branch of the Thamirades, a sacerdotal family of Cyprus.

69 "Dolium."

70 See B. viii. c. 38.

71 Ajasson has thought it worth while to contradict this assertion.

72 Meaning, of course, in case such an accident should befall the party. The passage appears, however, to be corrupt.

73 "Hasta velitaris."

74 In B. vii. c. 2.

75 It is the shoulder-blade of Pelops that is generally mentioned in the ancient Mythology. Pliny omits to say of what medicinal virtues it was possessed.

76 In B. vii. c. 2.

77 It certainly does seem to be possessed of some efficacy for the removal of spots and stains, but for no other purpose probably.

78 In some parts of France, the peasants spit in the hand when in terror of spectres at night. In our country, prize-fighters spit in the band before beginning the combat, and costermongers spit on their morning's handsel, or first earned money, for good luck.

79 "In sinum."

80 See Juvenal, Sat. v. 1. 112.

81 Ajasson remarks that the human spittle contains hydrochlorate of soda and potash; the remedial virtues of which, however, would be infinitely small.

82 A quibble, Ajasson remarks. Did Pliny ever test it himself? He would seem to imply it.

83 "Levatur illico in percusso culpa."

84 This is still the case with pugilists, and persons requiring to use strong exertion. It is based, however, on a mere superstition, as Ajasson remarks.

85 "Malum terram." See B. xxv. c. 54, and B. xxvi. c. 56. Littré translates "malum," "apple," in the former passage; but here he calls it "curse of the earth."

86 "Rubetas." See B. viii. c. 48, B. xi. cc. 19, 76, and 116, and B. xxv. c. 76.

87 This divinity was identical with Mutinus or Tutinus, and was worshipped under the form of a phallus, the male generative organ. As the guardian of infants, his peculiar form is still unconsciously represented in the shape of the coral bauble with which infants are aided in cutting their teeth.

88 Hence the expression "præfiscini," "Be it said without envy," supposed to avert the effects of the envious eye, fascination, or enchantment.

89 "Resipiscere" seems to be a preferable reading to "respicere," adopted by Sillig. This passage is evidently in a very corrupt state; but it is most probable that reference is made to the attendant who stood behind the general in his triumph, and reminded him that he was a man—or, according to Tzetzes, bade him look behind him. Pliny speaks of a servant attending the triumphant general, with a golden crown, in B. xxxiii. c. 4. Hardouin attempts another explanation, but a very confused and improbable one.

90 See end of the present Book.

91 Properly meaning "a cluster of grapes."

92 Ajasson remarks that there is a considerable degree of truth in this assertion. He gives a long list of French works on the subject.

93 This superstition still exists among the lower classes of this country, with reference to the beneficial effects of stroking neck diseases with the hand of a man who has been hanged.

94 Made of "spartum." See B. xix. cc. 6, 7.

95 Of which the Persian Magi were the most noted professors.

96 The "constat" here, whether it belongs to the magicians, or to Pliny himself, is highly amusing, as Ajasson remarks.

97 Sillig appears to be right in his conjecture that the "vel" here should be omitted.

98 See B. xv. c. 5.

99 "Ceroma." A mixture of oil and wax.

100 Properly, "poppy juice."

101 Or "clara lectio," "reading aloud," as Celsus calls it, recommending it for persons of slow digestion.

102 "Gestatio." Exercise on horseback, in a carriage drawn by horses, or in a litter. See B. xxvi. c. 7.

103 See B. xxxi. c. 33. A sea voyage, to Madeira, for instance, is still recommended for consumptive patients.

104 Change of locality is still recommended for diseases of the spleen, as they are called.

105 "Strigilium."

106 Except monkeys and some domesticated animals, Ajasson remarks.

107 "Non prandentium."

108 Callisthenes the physician is the person supposed to be alluded to. Lucullus did not seem to be of opinion that a man "must be a fool or a physician at forty."

109 "Ut in quâ homo alius exsiliret ex homine." The true meaning of this it seems impossible, with certainty, to ascertain: though a more indelicate one than that given might be easily suggested.

110 On the contrary, some authorities say that it is apt to cause dimness of sight.

111 See Ovid, Met. ix. 273, et seq.

112 Much more probably, because they were considered to be significant of anything but seriousness and attention.

113 Exemplified in the case of the Egyptians, Herodotus says.

114 The remedy would seem to be worse than the evil.

115 See end of B. vii.

116 In B. viii. c. 58.

117 A knot tied very hard, and in which no ends were to be seen.

118 This excretion was, till lately, thought of great importance, as indicative of the health of the patient.

119 From the Greek πτυὼ, "to spit."

120 "Argema."

121 Who had to use lant, or stale urine, in their business.

122 At a future period we shall have to discuss the identity of the "nitrum" of Pliny. See B. xxxi. c. 46.

123 This was also one of the Pythagorean precepts.

124 Works and Days, 1. 727, et seq.

125 The use of the word "prodidere" shows that treatises had been written on these abominable subjects. Laïs, Elephantis, and Salpe were probably the "meretrices" to whom he here alludes. See c. 23, and the end of this Book.

126 There is probably no foundation for this assertion.

127 "Rana." He means the "rubeta" probably, or "bramble-frog," so often mentioned by him. See Note 84, p. 290.

128 "Salivam."

129 See B. xx. c. 2.

130 See B. xxx. c. 10. Latreille has written a very able treatise on the Buprestis of the ancients, and considers it to belong to the family of Cantharides. Alnnales du Museum d'histoire Naturelle, Vol. xix. p. 129, et seq.

131 Convolvulus dorycnium; see B. xxi. c. 105, and B. xxiii. c. 18.

132 "Œsypum." See B. xxx. c. 23.

133 Possibly the Epic writer of that name, mentioned by Ovid, Seneca, Quintilian, and Velleius Paterculus.

134 "Fascia." Either a stomacher, or a fillet for the head.

135 The mention of lightning here, Hardouin seems to look upon as an interpolation.

136 In B. vii. c. 13.

137 Columella describes this practice in verse, in B. x., and in B. xi. c. 3. Ælian also mentions it.

138 See B. vii. c. 13. Tacitus tells the same wonderful story.

139 See the end of this Book.

140 See B. vii. c. 13.

141 See B, vii. c. 13.

142 Pliny has omitted the milk of the camel, which, according to Tavernier, is an excellent cure for dropsy.

143 See B. viii. c. 44.

144 One peculiarity not mentioned by Pliny, is, that its skin, like that of the sea-calf, was said to be proof against the effects of lightning.

145 In 13. viii. c. 44.

146 "Glaucomata." Littré considers, on the authority of M. Sichel, that "Glaucoma" and "suffusio" are different names for the same disease—cataract.

147 See B. xxxvi. c. 27.

148 "Spinæ" seems a preferable reading to "ruinæ," adopted by Sillig.

149 "Nodum Atlantion." From the Greek ἄτλας, "much enduring," Julius Pollux says, because it was fitted for supporting burdens. The "hinc"—"hence," of Pliny here appears to be a non sequitur.

150 We shall have occasion to make enquiry as to the identity of the "alumen" of Pliny on a future occasion.

151 "Vanas species."

152 See B. xviii. c. 14.

153 "Pila."

154 Identified by Ajasson with the chamses, or common crocodile of the Nile.

155 See B. viii. c. 38. Identified by Ajasson with the souchos of Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire. It is equally amphibious with the other; and the account of its habits given by Pliny is probably founded on the fact that Upper Egypt, which it inhabits, is covered with a more aromatic vegetation than the other parts of that country.

156 See B. xii. c. 51.

157 See B. xviii. C. 17.

158 It is a timid animal, but Pliny's authorities have exaggerated its timidity.

159 This change of colour is in reality owing to change of locality.

160 A. Gellius tells the same story, B x. c. 12.

161 And therefore harmloss

162 See B xxii. c. 21.

163 See B. viii. c. 51. Flies and gnats are, in reality, its food.

164 One of the few pieces of wit in which Pliny is found to indulge.

165 See B. viii. c. 33. Probably the Lacerta onaran of Cuvier.

166 See B. xxiv. c. 62.

167 In B. viii. c. 40.

168 See B. viii. c. 57.

169 Except, of course, when the mother is in a state of disease.

170 See B. xi. c. 96. Dalechamps remarks that Pliny is in error here: this name being properly given to infants which have been put to the breast too soon after child-birth. And so it would appear from the context.

171 The "biestings."

172 Amalthæa.

173 Dioscorides says "river pebbles."

174 In B. xxv. c. 53.

175 From the Greek σχιστὸν, "divided" milk or "curds."

176 See B. xxi. c. 105.

177 He perhaps means a sulphate, and not sulphur, which is harmless.

178 In B. xi. c. 97.

179 From the Greek σαπρὸν, "rotten" cheese.

180 Like our cream cheese, or new milk cheese. probably.

181 The people of Germany and Scythia, for instance.

182 In this passage also it is generally supposed that he refers to the nomadic life of barbarous nations, in which multitudes of sheep and cattle constituted the chief wealth. It is, however, not improbable that he means to say that among the Romans it was only the wealthy who could afford to use it.

183 βούτυρον, "cow cheese."

184 Qy. whether for "aquæ" "water," we should not read "acidi" here, "sour milk," as at the beginning of the next Chapter Beckmann suggests "aceti," "vinegar."—Hist. Inv. I. 505, Bohn's Ed.

185 Beckmann says on this passage, "what Pliny says respecting oxygala is attended with difficulties: and I am fully persuaded that his words are corrupted, though I find no variations marked in MSS. by which this con- jecture can be supported."—Hist. Inv. I. 505. He suggests another arrangement of the whole passage, but without improving it, for the difficulty would appear to be totally imaginary; as it is quite clear that by "oxygala," or "sour milk," Pliny means the thickest part of the curd, which is first removed and then salted, forming probably a sort of cream cheese. Though his meaning is clear, he may very possibly give an erroneous description of the process.

186 The remark of Holland on this passage is curious—"Some would amend this place, and for 'magis,' 'more,' put 'minus,' 'less,' in a contrary sense; but I suppose he writeth in regard of barbarous people, who make more account of such ranke butyr; like as the uncivile Irish in these daies."

187 He has forgotten to do so, however.

188 From the Latin "axis," an "axle," and ungo," "to anoint."

189 Hence it was a notion in the sixteenth century, that pitch and hogs' lard is a cure for syphilis, by promoting salivation.

190 "Farina salsamentariæ testæ."

191 See B. xxxvi. c. 27.

192 "Sebum"—Suet or tallow.

193 Or Flamen Dialis. Festus gives another reason: lest the Flamen should travel to a distance, and so neglect his duties.

194 The "Equus October," sacrificed to Mars on the Campus Martius in October. This sacrifice was attended with some very ridiculous ceremonies.

195 This, as already observed, was probably a fallacy.

196 See B. iv. c. 6.

197 His meaning is, that the excitement produced by religious feeling neutralizes that antipathy which, under ordinary circumstances, is manifested towards the system by bull's blood.

198 See B. xxxiii. c. 6.

199 See B. viii. c. 50.

200 In B. viii. c. 50.

201 Or "hundred skins." Called the mirefeuillet in French.

202 In B. viii. c. 50.

203 See B. xxiv. c. 91.

204 See B. xx. c. 63.

205 The Anthemis pyrethrum of Linnæus, Spanish camomile or pellitory.

206 Possibly the Musmon of B. viii. c. 49. See also B. xxx. c. 52.

207 See B. xxiii. cc. 13, 14.

208 See B. xx. c. 67.

209 See B. viii. c. 76.

210 In B. viii. c. 76.

211 A remedy of which H. Cloquet highly approves, on chemical grounds.

212 Cloquet says that the application would be useless.

213 In B. viii. c. 34.

214 Cloquet and Ajasson admit the truth of this statement: the latter suggests that it may be owing to electricity.

215 It is no longer reckoned among the poisons.

216 Juice of carpathum, a substance which does not appear to have been identified; but supposed by Bruce to have been a gum called sassa , with which aloes are adulterated in Abyssinia, a thing that Galen tells us was done with the carpathum of the ancients. The sea-hare is the Aplysia depilans of Gmelin. It is not poisonous. See B. ix. c. 72, and B. xxxii. c. 3.

217 A composite poison, probably, the ingredients of which are now un- known.

218 See Chap. 21 of this Book,

219 See B. xx. c. 53.

220 See B. xi. c. 96.

221 On the contrary, cows' biestings are highly thought of in some parts of England; and a very delicate dish is made of them, baked.

222 "Onager."

223 See B. viii. c. 16, and B. xvi. c. 9.

224 See B. viii. c. 1.5.

225 See B. viii. c. 1.5.

226 See B. xxv. c. 107, and B. xxvi. c. 75.

227 See B. xxiii. cc. 13, 14.

228 "Toxica"—properly, those poisons in which the barbarous nations dipped their arrows.

229 See B. xxii. c. 21.

230 Or, sting-ray.

231 See B. xxix. c. 16.

232 This substance still maintains its reputation, as preservative of the hair.

233 See B. xii. c. 37. and B. xxvi. c. 30

234 See B. xxii. c. 30.

235 See B. xxv. c. 67.

236 If they are occasioned by irritation, Ajasson thinks that Pliny's re- medy may he of some utility.

237 A cosmetic for "beautifying the eye-brows."

238 "Collyria."

239 This is the translation suggested by Dalechamps for "lumbulis."

240 "Seers by night."

241 "Sanie."

242 See B. xiv. c. 4.

243 See B. xx. c. 75.

244 See B. xxvi. c. 31.

245 See B. viii. c. 66.

246 See B. xi. c. 70. Ajasson remarks that this bone is only found in animals that have undergone much fatigue, and that it results from the consolidation of certain tendinous fibres which form the ligament of the heart.

247 "Capitum visus" seems to be a more probable reading than "capi- tum usus" given by Sillig. Be it what it may, the meaning of the passage is doubtful.

248 See B. xxi. c. 105.

249 See Ælian, Var. Hist. xiv. 18.

250 There surely must be a wrong reading here, or he cannot intend this to be understood literally.

251 See B. xi. c. 96.

252 One of the mistresses of Louis XV. not only did this, but (in a spirit of great charity and consideration, of course) gave the milk to the poor after she had thus used it.

253 "Ad desideria mulierum."

254 See c. 28 of this Book.

255 See Beckmann's Hist. Inx. II. 92–3, Bohn's Ed., where this subject is treated at considerable length.

256 "Rutilandis capillis."

257 "Earn mori tradunt," The reading here is very doubtful.

258 "Subulo."

259 Asses' milk is still recommended for pulmonary phthisis.

260 See B. viii. c. 16.

261 This would appear to be a Greek word in reality.

262 "Tunica."

263 See B. xx. c. 2.

264 See B. xxv. c. 67. Mares' milk is not a purgative; and goats' milk, as Ajasson remarks, is somewhat astringent. Juice of Cyclamen, on the other hand, or sow-bread, is highly purgative.

265 See B. xviii. c. 14.

266 In Chap. 57 of this Book.

267 "Protropum." See B. xiv. cc. 9. 11.

268 A kind of black pudding. Dupinet, the old French translator, says that in his time the people of the Alpine regions still called this dish sanchet.

269 He uses "tænia" probably, as a general name for intestinal worms.

270 In c. 49 of this Book.

271 In c. 57 of this Book.

272 "Sapa." Grape-juice boiled down to two-thirds: see B. xiv. c. 11.

273 In reality, these are biliary calculi, found in the gall-bladder of the animal. They are called "bezoar" stones, from a Persian word signifying "destructive to poison."

274 See B, viii. c. 77.

275 In c. 49 of this Book.

276 Ajasson remarks that arsenic should be used with the greatest care in such a case.

277 "Rubi." He probably means the bramble-berry.

278 See B. xviii. c. 14.

279 "Onager."

280 Arising, by sympathy, from sores in other parts of the body.

281 See B. xxvi. c. 31. Bears' grease is of no use whatever for the care of gout.

282 See B. xix. c. 31. B. xxi. cc. 62, 104, and B. xxii. cc. 19, 20.

283 See B. xxi. c. 56.

284 This mode of cure, Ajasson says, is still employed in the East, where the preparation is known by the name of moza.

285 "Potum vero ex aqua sublime." The true reading and the meaning are equally doubtful.

286 Spoken of as "polea" in c. 57.

287 In B. viii. c. 50. Because the animal itself was supposed to be free from fever.

288 Or "quotidian," daily fever.

289 A rather singular episode in his narrative. It looks like a gloss.

290 Under this name, as Ajasson remarks, the affections now called "hysteria" are included.

291 "Veternum."

292 Another instance of smoking, though not a very tempting one.

293 See B. xviii. c. 29.

294 "Rupicapra."

295 "Subulo."

296 From the Greek.

297 See B. xix. c. 27, B. xx. c. 15, and B. xxv. c. 64.

298 "Eruptionibus pituitæ."

299 Where the sinew has been wounded and exposed, either vinegar or honey, Ajasson remarks, would be a highly dangerous application.

300 "Reverentiores."

301 "Trigario"

302 See B. xii. c. 51.

303 See B. xxv. c. 101.

304 "Bad habit." Asort of cancer, or malignant ulcer.

305 See B. xxiv. c. 35.

306 "Prcholis." See 1. xi. c. 6.

307 In 1. xi. c. 79,

308 See B. xxv. cc. 79, 84, 91.

309 See B. xiii. c. 49.

310 There is probably some truth in these statements as to the utility of butter and honey for infants.

311 Ajasson explains this by saying that the hare being eaten by the people of ancient Latium on festival days, with plenteous potations, they erroneously supposed the narcotic effects of the wine to be produced by the flesh of the hare.

312 The resemblance of "lepos," "grace," to "lepus," "a hare." See Martial, B. v. Ep. 29.

313 Georg. iii. 28. He alludes to the "hippomanes."

314 Hardouin is probably right in his suggestion that "Dalion" is the correct reading here.

315 He has already stated, in c. 44, that a horse will become torpid if it follows in the track of a wolf; for which statement, according to Ajasson, there appears to be some foundation.

316 See B. xix. c. 15.

317 This is not unlikely; for it has no alarms to make it grow thin.

318 See B. viii. c. 41, as to a similar practice on the part of the panther.

319 See end of B. ii.

320 See end of B. ii.

321 For Fabianus Papirius, see end of B. ii. For Falbianus Sabinus, see end of B. xviii.

322 See end of B. ii.

323 See end of B. iii.

324 See end of B. iii.

325 Servius Sulpicius Lemonia Rufus, a contemporary and friend of Cicero. He was Consul with M. Claudius Marcellus, B.C. 51, and died B.C. 43, at the siege of Mutina. He left about 180 treatises on various subjects; but beyond the fact that he is often quoted by the writers whose works form part of the Digest, none of his writings (with the exception of two letters to Cicero) have come down to us.

326 See end of B. xix.

327 See end of B. vii.

328 See end of B. vii.

329 See end of B. xii.

330 From the mention made of him in Chap. 23, he was probably a physician. Nothing further is known of him.

331 Aurelius Opilius, the freedman of an Epicurean. He taught philosophy, rhetoric, and grammar at Rome. but finally withdrew to Smyrna. One of his works, mentioned by A. Gellius, was entitled "Musæ," and the name of another was "Pinax."

332 From the mention made of his profound speculations in Chap. 9, Fabricius has reckoned him among the medical writers of Rome. It has also been suggested that he may have been the Granius Flaccus mentioned by Censorinus as the author of the "Indigitamenta," or Register of the Pontiffs.

333 See end of B. ii.

334 Probably Apollonius Mus, or Myronides, a physician who flourished in the first century B.C., who is mostly identified with Apollonius Herophileius. His "Myrosis" here mentioned is probably the work "On Unguents" mentioned by Athenæus, B. xv.

335 Nothing whatever is known of him. It has been suggested that the name may have been "Melitus." A contemporary of Socrates, an orator and tragic writer, was so named.

336 Beyond the mention of him in c. 2 of this Book, nothing is known relative to this medical writer no great loss, perhaps, if we may judge from the extract there given.

337 Though mentioned among the foreign writers, the name is evidently Roman. Nothing relative to him is ;known.

338 See end of B. xii.

339 See end of B. iii.

340 Probably the writer mentioned at the end of B. viii.

341 See end of B. viii.

342 See end of B. xx.

343 See end of B. xx. The "Idiophya" was probably a work "On the, Peculiar Animals," which passed as the composition of the mythic Orpheus.

344 A Greek poet, said to have been born at Chersonesus, a town in Egypt. Some of his Epigrams are still extant in the Anthology, and it has been suggested that he flourished either in the time of Ptolemy Soter, of Peculiar Euergetes II., or of Ptolemy Philadelphus. His work "On Peculiar Animals," here mentioned, was probably written in verse.

345 See end of B. viii.

346 A female writer on medical subjects. In addition to her work mentioned in Chap. 23 of this Book, Labbe speaks of a work of hers in MS. "On Menstruation," preserved in the Library at Florence.

347 The female who is mentioned in Chap. 23 of this Book as having written on Abortion, or the Diseases peculiar to Females, was probably a different person from either of the two famous courtesans of that name. Nothing whatever is known of her.

348 The writer of certain amatory poems, much admired by the Emperor Tiberius, generally supposed, from the grammatical form of the name, to have been a female. Galen quotes a work "On Cosmetics," as written by a person of this name.

349 A native of Lemnos, who wrote on the Diseases of Women. Nymphodorus, as quoted by Athenæus, states that she also wrote verses on Sportive subjects.

350 See end of B. xx.

351 Beyond the mention made of him in c. 23, nothing further is known relative to this writer. Theophrastus, in his work on Sudorifics, speaks of a person of this name as having written on Perspiration.

352 See end of B. xii.

353 See end of B. xx.

354 Beyond the mention made of him in c. 7 of this Book, nothing is known of this writer. Hardouin suggests that he may have been identical with the Micton mentioned at the end of B. xx.

355 He is spoken of as a native of Athens, in c. 10 of this Book. Beyond this, nothing is known of him.

356 See end of B. vii.

357 See end of B. ii.

358 See end of B. iii.

359 Or more probably, Hicetidas. Nothing is known of this writer.

360 A native of Thasos. He is also mentioned by Galen.

361 See end of B. vii.

362 See end of B. vi.

363 Probably a physician, of whom Athenæus speaks as being a native of Argos, and writer of a treatise on Fish.

364 Probably a different writer from the one of that name mentioned at the end of B. vi.

365 περὶ δυνάμεων.

366 See end of B. xxi.

367 See end of 13. v.

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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Pliny the Elder, The Natural History John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S., H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A., Ed.