Delphi Complete Works of Pliny the Elder

by Pliny the Elder

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  CHAP. 8.

  THE OTHER REMEDIES DERIVED FROM LIVING CREATURES. CLASSIFIED ACCORDING TO THE RESPECTIVE DISEASES. REMEDIES FOR TOOTH-ACHE.

  But to proceed with the remedies for tooth-ache — the magicians tell us, that it may be cured by using the ashes of the head of a dog that has died in a state of madness. The head, however, must be burnt without the flesh, and the ashes injected with oil of cyprus into the ear on the side affected. For the same purpose also, the left eye-tooth of a dog is used. the gum of the affected tooth being lanced with it; one of the vertebræ also of a dragon or of an enhydris, which is a male white serpent. The eye-tooth, too, of this last, is used for scarifying the gums; and when the pain affects the teeth of the upper jaw, they attach to the patient two of the upper teeth of the serpent, and, similarly, two of the lower ones for tooth-ache in the lower jaw. Persons who go in pursuit of the crocodile, anoint themselves with the fat of this animal. The gums are also scarified with the frontal bones of a lizard, taken from it at full moon, and not allowed to touch the ground: or else the mouth is rinsed with a decoction of dogs’ teeth in wine, boiled down to one half.

  Ashes of dogs’ teeth, mixed with honey, are useful for difficult dentition in children, and a dentifrice is similarly prepared from them. Hollow teeth are plugged with ashes of burnt mouse-dung, or with a lizard’s liver, dried. To eat a snake’s heart, or to wear it, attached to the body, is considered highly efficacious. There are some among the magicians, who recommend a mouse to be eaten twice a month, as a preventive of tooth-ache. Earth-worms, boiled in oil and injected into the ear on the side affected, afford considerable relief: ashes, too, of burnt earth-worms, introduced into carious teeth, make them come out easily; and, used as a friction, they allay pains in such of the teeth as are sound: the proper way of burning them is in an earthen potsherd. They are useful, too, boiled with root of the mulberry-tree in squill vinegar, and employed as a collutory for the teeth. The small worm that is found in the plant known as Venus’ bath, is remarkably useful, introduced into a hollow tooth; and as to the cabbage caterpillar, it will make hollow teeth come out, by the mere contact only. The bugs that are found upon mallows, are injected into the ears, beaten up with oil of roses.

  The small grits of sand that are found in the horns of snails, introduced into hollow teeth, remove the pain instantaneously. Ashes of empty snail-shells, mixed with myrrh, are good for the gums; the ashes also of a serpent, burnt with salt in an earthen pot, and injected, with oil of roses, into the ear opposite to the side affected; or else the slough of a snake, warmed with oil and torch-pine resin, and injected into either ear. Some persons add frankincense and oil of roses, a preparation which, of itself, introduced into hollow teeth, makes them come out without pain. It is all a fiction, in my opinion, to say that white snakes cast this slough about the rising of the Dog-star; for such a thing has never been seen in Italy, and it is still more improbable that sloughing should take place at so late a period in the warmer climates. We find it stated also, that this slough, even when it has been kept for some time, mixed with wax, will extract a tooth very expeditiously, if applied thereto: a snake’s tooth, also, attached to the body as an amulet, allays tooth-ache. Some persons think that it is a good remedy to catch a spider with the left hand, to beat it up with oil of roses, and then to inject it into the ear on the side affected.

  The small bones of poultry, preserved in a hole in a wall, the medullary channel being left intact, will immediately cure tooth-ache, they say, if the tooth is touched or the gum scarified therewith, care being taken to throw away the bone the moment the operation is performed. A similar result is obtained by using raven’s dung, wrapped in wool and attached to the body, or else sparrow’s dung, warmed with oil and injected into the ear on the side affected. This last remedy, however, is productive of an intolerable itching, for which reason it is considered a better plan to rub the part with the ashes of young sparrows burnt upon twigs, mixed with vinegar for the purpose.

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  CHAP. 9. (4.)

  REMEDIES FOR OFFENSIVE ODOURS AND SORES OF THE MOUTH.

  To impart sweetness to the breath, it is recommended to rub the teeth with ashes of burnt mouse-dung and honey: some persons are in the habit of mixing fennel root. To pick the teeth with a vulture’ s feather, is productive of a sour breath; but to use a porcupine’s quill for that purpose, greatly strengthens the teeth. Ulcers of the tongue and lips are cured by taking a decoction of swallows, boiled in honied wine; and chapped lips are healed by using goose-grease or poultry-grease, wool-grease mixed with nut-galls, white spiders’ webs, or the fine cobwebs that are found adhering to the beams of roofs. If the inside of the mouth has been scalded with any hot substance, bitches’ milk will afford an immediate cure.

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  CHAP. 10.

  REMEDIES FOR SPOTS UPON THE FACE.

  Wool-grease, mixed with Corsican honey-which by the way is considered the most acrid honey of all-removes spots upon the face. Applied with oil of roses in wool, it causes scurf upon the face to disappear: some persons add butter to it. In cases of morphew, the spots are first pricked with a needle, and then rubbed with dog’s gall. For livid spots and bruises on the face, the lights of a ram or sheep are cut fine and applied warm, or else pigeons’ dung is used. Goose-grease or poultry-grease is a good preservative of the skin of the face. For lichens a liniment is used, made of mouse-dung in vinegar, or of the ashes of a hedge-hog mixed with oil: but, when these remedies are employed, it is recommended first to foment the face with nitre dissolved in vinegar. Maladies of the face are also removed by employing the ashes of the small, broad, snail that is so commonly found, mixed with honey. Indeed, the ashes of all snails are of an inspissative nature, and are possessed of certain calorific and detersive properties: hence it is that they form an ingredient in caustic applications, and are used in the form of a liniment for itch-scabs, leprous sores, and freckles on the face.

  I find it stated that a certain kind of ant known by the name of “Herculanea,” is beaten up, with the addition of a little salt, and used for the cure of these diseases. The buprestis is an insect but rarely found in Italy, and very similar to a scarabæus, with long legs. Concealed among the grass, it is very liable to be swallowed unobserved, by oxen in particular; and the moment it comes in contact with the gall, it causes such a degree of inflammation, that the animal bursts asunder; a circumstance to which the insect owes its name. Applied topically with he-goat suet, it removes lichens on the face, owing to its corrosive properties, as previously stated. A vulture’s blood, beaten up with cedar resin and root of white chamæleon — a plant which we have already mentioned — and covered with a cabbage leaf, when applied, is good for the cure of leprosy; the same, too, with the legs of locusts, beaten up with he-goat suet. Pimples are treated with poultry grease, beaten up and kneaded with onions. One very useful substance for the face is honey in which the bees have died; but a sovereign detergent for that part is swans’ grease, which has also the property of effacing wrinkles. Brand-marks are removed by using pigeons’ dung, diluted in vinegar.

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  CHAP. 11.

  REMEDIES FOR AFFECTIONS OF THE THROAT.

  I find it stated that catarrhs oppressive to the head may be cured by the patient kissing a mule’s nostrils. Affections of the uvula and pains in the fauces are alleviated by using the dung of lambs before they have begun to graze, dried in the shade. Diseases of the uvula are cured with the juices of a snail pierced with a needle; the snail, however, must be then hung up in the smoke. The same maladies are treated also with ashes of burnt swallows, mixed with honey; a preparation which is equally good for affections of the tonsillary glands. Sheep’s milk, used as a gargle, alleviates diseases of the fauces and tonsillary glands. Millepedes, bruised with pigeons’ dung, are taken as a gargle, with raisin wine; and they are applied, externally, with dried figs
and nitre, for the purpose of soothing roughness of the fauces and catarrhs. For such cases, too, snails should be boiled unwashed, the earth only being removed, and then pounded and administered to the patient in raisin wine. Some persons are of opinion that for these pur- poses the snails of Astypalæa are the most efficacious, and they give the preference to the detersive preparation made from them. The parts affected are sometimes rubbed with a cricket, and affections of the tonsillary glands are alleviated by being rubbed with the hands of a person who has bruised a cricket.

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  CHAP. 12.

  REMEDIES FOR QUINZY AND SCROFULA.

  For quinzy we have very expeditious remedies in goose-gall, mixed with elaterium and honey, an owlet’s brains, or the ashes of a burnt swallow, taken in warm water; which last remedy we owe to the poet Ovid. But of all the remedies spoken of as furnished by the swallow, one of the most efficacious is that derived from the young of the wild swallow, a bird which may be easily recognized by the peculiar conformation of its nest. By far the most effectual, however, of them all, are the young of the bank-swallow, that being the name given to the kind which builds its nest in holes on the banks of rivers. Many persons recommend the young of any kind of swallow as a food, assuring us that the person who takes it need be in no apprehension of quinzy for the whole of the ensuing year. The young of this bird are sometimes stifled and then burnt in a vessel with the blood, the ashes being administered to the patient with bread or in the drink: some, however, mix with them the ashes of a burnt weasel, in equal proportion. The same remedies are recommended also for scrofula, and they are administered for epilepsy, once a day, in drink. Swallows preserved in salt are taken for quinzy, in (loses of one drachma, in drink: the nest, too, of the bird, taken internally, is said to be a cure for the same disease.

  Millepedes, it is thought, used in the form of a liniment, are peculiarly efficacious for quinzy: some persons, also, administer eleven of them, bruised in one semi-sextarius of hydromel, through a reed, they being of no use whatever if once touched by the teeth. Other remedies mentioned are, the broth of a mouse boiled with vervain, a thong of dogskin passed three times round the back, and pigeons’ dung mixed with wine and oil. For the cure of rigidity of the muscles of the neck, and of opisthotony, a twig of vitex, taken from a kite’s nest, is attached to the body as an amulet.

  (5.) For ulcerated scrofula, a weasel’s blood is employed, or the animal itself, boiled in wine; but not in cases where the tumours have been opened with the knife. It is said, too, that a weasel, eaten with the food, is productive of a similar effect; sometimes, also, it is burnt upon twigs, and the ashes are applied with axle-grease. In some instances, a green lizard is attached to the body of the patient, a fresh one being substituted at the end of thirty days. Some persons preserve the heart of this animal in a small silver vessel, as a cure for scrofula in females. Old snails, those found adhering to shrubs more particularly, are pounded with the shells on, and applied as a liniment. Asps, too, are similarly employed, reduced to ashes and mixed with bull suet; snakes’ fat also, diluted with oil; and the ashes of a burnt snake, applied with oil or wax. It is a good plan also, in cases of scrofula, to eat the middle of a snake, the extremities being first removed, or to drink the ashes of the reptile, similarly prepared and burnt in a new earthen vessel: they will be found much more efficacious, however, when the snake has been killed between the ruts made by wheels. It is recommended also, to dig up a cricket with the earth about its hole, and to apply it in the form of a liniment; to use pigeons’ dung, either by itself, or with barleymeal, or oatmeal and vinegar; or else to apply the ashes of a burnt mole, mixed with honey.

  Some persons apply the liver of this last animal, crumbled in the hands, due care being taken not to wash it off for three days: it is said, too, that a mole’s right foot is a remedy for scrofula. Others, again, cut off the head of a mole, and after kneading it with earth thrown up by those animals, divide it into tablets, and keep it in a pewter box, for the treatment of all kinds of tumours, diseases of the neck, and the affections known as “apostemes:” in all such cases the use of swine’s flesh is forbidden to the patient. “Taurus” is the name usually given to an earth-beetle, very similar to a tick in appearance, and which it derives from the diminutive horns with which it is furnished: some persons call it the “earth-louse.” From the earth thrown up by these insects a liniment is prepared for scrofula and similar diseases, and for gout, the application not being washed off till the end of three days. This last remedy is effectual for a whole year, and all those other properties are attributed to it which we have mentioned when speaking of crickets. There are some, again, who make a similar use of the earth thrown up by ants; while others attach to the patient as many earth-worms as there are scrofu- lous tumours, the sores drying as the worms dry up.

  Some persons cut off the head and tail of a viper, as already mentioned, about the rising of the Dog-star, which done, they

  burn the middle, and give a pinch of the ashes in three fingers, for thrice seven days, in drink-such is the plan they use for

  the cure of scrofula. Others, again, pass round the scrofulous tumours a linen thread, with which a viper has been suspended by the neck till dead. Millepedes are also used, with one fourth part of turpentine; a remedy which is equally recommended for the cure of all kinds of apostemes.

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  CHAP. 13.

  REMEDIES FOR DISEASES OF THE SHOULDERS.

  The ashes of a burnt weasel, mixed with wax, are a cure for pains in the shoulders. To prevent the arm-pits of young persons from becoming hairy, they should be well rubbed with ants’ eggs. Slave-dealers also, to impede the growth of the hair in young persons near puberty, employ the blood that flows from the testes of lambs when castrated. This blood, too, applied to the arm-pits, the hairs being first pulled out, is a preventive of the rank smell of those parts.

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  CHAP. 14.

  REMEDIES FOR PAINS IN THE VISCERA.

  We give the one general name of “præcordia” to the human viscera; for pains in any part of which, a sucking whelp is applied, being pressed close to the part affected. The malady, it is said, will in such case pass into the animal; a fact which may be satisfactorily ascertained; for on disembowelling it, and sprinkling the entrails with wine, that part of the viscera will be found affected in which the patient himself was sensible of pain: to bury the animal in such a case is a point most religiously observed. The dogs, too, which we call “Melitæi,” applied to the stomach every now and then, allay pains in that region: the malady, it is supposed, passes into the animal’s body, as it gradually loses its health, and it mostly dies.

  (6.) Affections of the lungs are cured by using mice, those of Africa more particularly, the animal being skinned and boiled in salt and oil, and then taken with the food. The same preparation is used also, for the cure of purulent or bloody expectorations.

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  CHAP. 15.

  REMEDIES FOR PAINS IN THE STOMACH.

  One of the very best remedies for affections of the stomach, is to use a snail diet. They must first be left to simmer in water for some time, without touching the contents of the shell, after which, without any other addition, they must be grilled upon hot coals, and eaten with wine and garum; the snails of Africa being the best of all for the purpose. The efficacy of this remedy has been proved in numerous instances of late. Another point, too, to be observed, is to take an uneven number of them. Snails, however, have a juice, it should be remembered, which imparts to the breath an offensive smell. For patients troubled with spitting of blood, they are remarkably good, the shell being first removed, and the contents bruised and administered in water. The most esteemed kinds of all are those of Africa — those which come from Iol, in particular — of Astypalæa, and, after them, those of Ætna, in Sicily, those I mean of moderate size, for the large ones are hard, and destitute of juic
e. The Balearic snails, called “cavaticæ,” from being found in caverns, are much esteemed; and so, too, are those from the islands of Capreæ. Those of Greece, on the other hand, are never used for food, either old or fresh.

  River snails, and those with a white shell, have a strong, rank, juice, and forest snails are by no means good for the stomach, having a laxative effect upon the bowels; the same, too, with all kinds of small snails. Sea-snails, on the other hand, are more beneficial to the stomach; but it is for pains in that region that they are found the most efficacious: the best plan, it is said, is to eat them alive, of whatever kind they may happen to be, with vinegar. In addition to these, there are the snails called “aceratæ,” with a broad shell, and found in numerous localities: of the uses to which they are put we shall speak further on the appropriate occasions. The craw of poultry, dried and sprinkled in the drink, or else used fresh and grilled, has a soothing effect upon pectoral catarrhs and coughs attended with phlegm. Snails, beaten up raw and taken in three cyathi of warm water, allay cough. A piece of dog’s skin, wrapped round any one of the fingers, affords relief to patients suffering from catarrh. A broth made of boiled partridges is strengthening for the stomach.