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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 Aminean1 wine, in the proportion of one third of a denarius of rennet to one half of a denarius of sacopenum.2 Bears' grease, mixed with equal proportions of wax and bull-suet, is a cure for imposthumes of the parotid glands: some persons add hypocisthis3 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.

1 See B. xiv. c. 4.

2 See B. xx. c. 75.

3 See B. xxvi. c. 31.

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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