Delphi Complete Works of Pliny the Elder

by Pliny the Elder

  There is a very marvellous fact, too, that I find stated in reference to the torpedo: if it is caught at the time that the moon is in Libra, and kept in the open air for three days, it will always facilitate parturition, as often as it is introduced into the apartment of a woman in labour. The sting, too, of the pastinaca, attached to the navel, is generally thought to have the property of facilitating delivery: it must be taken, however, from the fish while alive; which done, the fish must be returned to the sea. I find it stated by some authorities that there is a substance called “ostraceum,” which is also spoken of as “onyx” by others; that, used as a fumigation, it is wonderfully beneficial for suffocations of the uterus; that in smell it resembles castoreum, and is still more efficacious, if burnt with this last substance; and that in a calcined state it has the property of healing inveterate ulcers, and cancerous sores of a malignant nature. As to carbuncles and carcinomatous sores upon the secret parts of females, there is nothing more efficacious, it is said, than a female crab beaten up, just after full moon, with flower of salt and applied with water.

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  CHAP. 47.

  METHODS OF REMOVING SUPERFLUOUS HAIR. DEPILATORIES.

  Depilatories are prepared from the blood, gall, and liver of the tunny, either fresh or preserved; as also from pounded liver of the same fish, preserved with cedar resin in a leaden box; a re- cipe which we find given by the midwife Salpe for disguising the age of boys on sale for slaves. A similar property belongs to the pulmo marinus, to the blood and gall of the sea-hare, and to the sea-hare itself, stifled in oil. The same, too, with ashes of burnt crabs or sea scolopendræ, mixed with oil; sea-nettles, bruised in squill vinegar; and brains of the torpedo applied with alum on the sixteenth day of the moon. The thick matter emitted by the small frogs, which we have described when treating of eye-diseases, is a most efficient depilatory, if applied fresh: the same, too, with the frog itself, dried and pounded, and then boiled down to one-third in three heminæ of water, or else boiled in a copper vessel with oil in a like proportion. Others, again, prepare a depilatory from fifteen frogs, in manner already stated under the head of remedies for the eyes. Leeches, also, grilled in an earthen vessel, and applied with vinegar, have the same property as a depilatory; the very odour, too, which attaches to the persons who thus burn them is singularly efficacious for killing bugs. Cases are to be found, too, where persons have used castoreum with honey, for many days together, as a depilatory. In the case, however, of every depilatory, the hairs should always be removed before it is applied.

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  CHAP. 48.

  REMEDIES FOR THE DISEASES OF INFANTS.

  Dentition in infants is promoted, and the gums greatly relieved, by rubbing them with ashes of a dolphin’s teeth, mixed with honey, or else by touching the gums with the tooth itself of that fish. One of these teeth, worn as an amulet, is a preventive of sudden frights; the tooth of the dog-fish being also possessed of a similar property. As to ulcers which make their appearance in the ears, or in any other parts of the body, they may be cured by applying the liquor of river-crabs, with barley-meal. These crabs, too, bruised in oil and employed as a friction, are very useful for other kinds of maladies. A sponge moistened with cold water from time to time, or a frog applied, the back part to the head, is a most efficacious cure for siriasis in infants. When the frog is removed, it will be found quite dry, they say.

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  CHAP. 49.

  METHODS OF PREVENTING INTOXICATION. THE FISH CALLED RUBELLIO: ONE REMEDY. THE EEL: ONE REMEDY. THE GRAPE-FISH: ONE REMEDY.

  A surmullet stifled in wine; the fish called “rubellio;” or a couple of eels similarly treated; or a grapefish, left to putrefy in wine, all of them, produce an aversion to wine in those who drink thereof.

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  CHAP. 50.

  ANTAPHRODISIACS AND APHRODISIACS. THE HIPPOPOTAMUS: ONE REMEDY. THE CROCODILE: ONE REMEDY.

  In the number of antaphrodisiacs, we have the echeneïs; the skin from the left side of the forehead of the hippopotamus, attached to the body in lamb-skin; and the gall of a live torpedo, applied to the generative organs.

  The following substances act as aphrodisiacs — the flesh of river-snails, preserved in salt and given to drink in wine; the erythinus taken as food; the liver of the frog called “diopetes” or “calamites” attached to the body in a small piece of crane’s skin; the eye-tooth of a crocodile, attached to the arm; the hippocampus; and the sinews of a bramble-frog, worn as an amulet upon the right arm. A bramble-frog, attached to the body in a piece of fresh sheep-skin, effectually puts an end to love.

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  CHAP. 51.

  REMEDIES FOR THE DISEASES OF ANIMALS.

  A decoction of frogs in water, reduced to the form of a lini- ment, is curative of itch-scab in horses; indeed, it is said, that a horse, when once treated in this manner, will never again be attacked with the disease. Salpe says that if a live frog is given to dogs in their mess, they will lose the power of barking.

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  CHAP. 52.

  OTHER AQUATIC PRODUCTIONS. ADARCA OR CALAMOCHNOS: THREE REMEDIES. REEDS: EIGHT REMEDIES. THE INK OF THE SÆPIA.

  Among the aquatic productions ought also to be mentioned calamochnos, in Latin known as “adarea,” a substance which collects about small reeds, from a mixture of the foam of fresh and of sea water. It possesses certain caustic properties, and hence it is that it is so useful as an ingredient in “acopa” and as a remedy for cold shiverings; it is used too, for removing freckles upon the face of females. And now we are speaking of adarca, the reed ought equally to be mentioned. The root of that known as the “phragmites,” pounded fresh, is curative of sprains, and, applied topically with vinegar, removes pains in the spine. The calcined bark, too, of the Cyprian reed, known as the “donax,” is curative of alopecy and inveterate ulcers; and its leaves are good for the extraction of foreign bodies adhering to the flesh, and for the cure of erysipelas: should, however, the flower of the panicle happen to enter the ears, deafness is the consequence.

  The ink of the sæpia is possessed of such remarkable potency, that if it is put into a lamp, Anaxilaüs tells us, the light will become entirely changed, and all present will look as black as Æthiopians. The bramble-frog, boiled in water, and given to swine with their drink, is curative of the maladies with which they are affected; an effect equally produced by the ashes of any other kind of frog. If wood is rubbed with the pulmo marinus, it will have all the appearance of being on fire; so much so, indeed, that a walking-stick, thus treated, will light the way like a torch.

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  CHAP. 53. (11.)

  THE NAMES OF ALL THE ANIMALS THAT EXIST IN THE SEA, ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-SIX IN NUMBER.

  Having now completed our exposition of the properties which belong to the aquatic productions, it would appear by no means foreign to my purpose to give a list of the various animated beings which inhabit the seas; so many as these are in number, of such vast extent, and not only making their way into the interior of the land to a distance of so many miles, but also surrounding the exterior of it to an extent almost equal to that of the world itself. These animals, it is generally considered, embrace one hundred and seventy-six different species, and it will be my object to set them forth, each by its distinct name, a thing that cannot possibly be done in reference to the terrestrial animals and the birds.

  For, in fact, we are by no means acquainted with all the wild beasts or all the birds that are to be found in India, Æthiopia, Scythia, or the desert regions of the earth; and even of man himself there are numerous varieties, which as yet we have been unable to make ourselves acquainted with. In addition, too, to the various countries above mentioned, we have Taprobane and other isles of the Ocean, about which so many fabulous stories are related. Surely then, every one must allow that it is quite impossible
to comprise every species of animal in one general view for the information of mankind. And yet, by Hercules! in the sea and in the Ocean, vast as it is, there exists nothing that is unknown to us, and, a truly marvellous fact, it is with those things which Nature has concealed in the deep that we are the best acquainted!

  To begin then with the monsters that are found in this ele- ment. We here find sea-trees, physeters, balænæ, pistrices, tritons, nereids, elephants, the creatures known as seamen, sea-wheels, oreæ, sea-rams, musculi, other fish too with the form of rams, dolphins, sea-calves, so celebrated by Homer, tortoises to minister to our luxury, and beavers, so extensively employed in medicine, to which class belongs the otter, an animal which we nowhere find frequenting the sea, it being only of the marine animals that we are speaking. There are dog-fish, also, drinones, cornutæ, swordfish, saw-fish, hippopotami and crocodiles, common to the sea, the land, and the rivers; tunnies also, thynnides, siluri, coracini, and perch, common to the sea only and to rivers.

  To the sea only, belong also the acipenser, the dorade, the asellus, the acharne, the aphye, the alopex, the eel, the araneus, the boca, the batia, the bacchus, the batrachus, the belonæ, known to us as “aculeati,” the balanus, the corvus, the citharus, the least esteemed of all the turbots, the chalcis, the cobio, the callarias, which would belong to the genus of the aselli were it not smaller; the colias, otherwise known as the fish of Parium or of Sexita, this last from a place of that name in Bætica its native region, the smallest, too, of the lacerti; the colias of the Mæotis, the next smallest of the lacerti; the cybium, (the name given, when cut into pieces, to the pelamis which returns at the end of forty days from the Euxine to the Palus Mæotis); the cordyla — which is also a small pelamis, so called at the time when it enters the Euxine from the Palus Mæotis — the cantharus, the callionymus or uranoscopus, the cinædus, the only fish that is of a yellow colour; the cnide, known to us as the sea-nettle; the different kinds of crabs, the striated chemæ, the smooth chemæ, the chemæ belonging to the genus of pelorides, all differing in the variety of their colours and in the roundness of the shells; the chemæ glycymarides, still larger than the pelorides; the coluthia or coryphia; the various kinds of shellfish, among which we find the pearl oysters, the cochleæ, (belonging to which class are the pentadactyli,) the helices, by some known as actinophori, the spokes on whose shells are used for musical purposes; and, in addition to these, the round cochleæ, the shells of which are used in measuring oil, as also the seacucumber, the cynopos, the cammarus, and the cynosdexia.

  Next to these we have the sea-dragon, a fish which, according to some, is altogether distinct from the dracunculus, and resembles the gerricula in appearance, it having on the gills a stickle which points towards the tail and inflicts a wound like that of the scorpion when the fish is handled — the erythinus, the echeneïs, the sea-urchin, the sea-elephant, a black kind of crayfish, with four forked legs, in addition to two arms with double joints, and furnished, each of them, with a pair of claws, indented at the edge; the faber, also, or zæus, the glauciscus, the glanis, the gonger, the gerres, the galeos, the garos, the hippos, the hippuros, the hirundo, the halipleumon, the hippocampus, the hepar, the ictinus and the iulis. There are various kinds also of lacerti, the springing loligo, the crayfish, the lantern-fish, the lepas, the larinus, the sea-hare, and the sea-lion, with arms like those of the crab, and in the other parts of the body like the cray-fish.

  We have the surmullet also, the sea black-bird, highly esteemed among the rock-fish; the mullet, the melanurus, the mæna, the mæotis, the muræna, the mys, the mitulus, the myiscus, the murex, the oculata, the ophidion, the oyster, the otia, the orcynus — the largest of all the pelamides and one that never returns to the Palus Mæotis, like the tritomus in appearance, and best when old — the orbis, the orthagoriscus, the phager, the phycis a rock-fish, the pelamis, (the largest kind of which is called “apolectum,” and is tougher than the tritomus) the sea-pig, the phthir, the sea-sparrow, the pastinaca, the several varieties of the polyp, the scallop, which is larger and more swarthy in summer than at other times, and the most esteemed of which are those of Mitylene, Tyndaris, Salonæ, Altinum, the island of Chios, and Alexandria in Egypt; the small scallop, the purple, the pegris, the pinna, the pinnotheres, the rhine or squalus of the Latins, the turbot, the scarus a fish which holds the first rank at the present day; the sole, the sargus, the squilla, the sarda — such being the name of an elongated pelamis which comes from the Ocean; the scomber, the salpa, the sorus, the scorpæna, the sea-scorpion, the solas, the sciæna, the sciadeus, the scolopendra, the smyrus, the sæpia, the strombus, the solen, otherwise known as the aulos, donax, onyx or dactylus; the spondylus, the smaris, the starfish, and the sponges. There is the sea-thrush also, famous among the rock-fish, the thynnis, the thranis, by some writers known as the xiphias; the thrissa, the torpedo, the tethea, the tritomus, a large kind of pelamis, which admits of being cut into three cybia; the shells of Venus, the grapefish, and the xiphias.

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  CHAP. 54.

  ADDITIONAL NAMES OF FISHES FOUND IN THE POEM OF OVID.

  To the above enumeration we will add some names given in the poem of Ovid, which are not to be found in any other writer: species, however, which are probably peculiar to the Euxine, on the shores of which he commenced that work towards the close of his life. The fishes thus mentioned by him are the sea-ox, the cercyrus, that dwells among the rocks, the orphus, the red erythinus, the iulus, the tinted mormyr, the chrysophrys a fish of a golden colour, the parus, the tragus, the melanurus remarkable for the beauty of its tail, and the epodes, a flat fish.

  In addition to these remarkable kinds of fishes, the same poet tells us that the channes conceives of itself, that the glaucus never makes its appearance in summer, that the pompilus always accompanies vessels in their course, and that the chromis makes its nest in the water. The helops, he says, is unknown to our waters; from which it would appear that those are in error who look upon it as identical with our acipenser. Many persons have given the preference to the helops before all other fish, in point of flavour.

  There are several fishes also, which have been mentioned by no author; such, for instance, as the one called “sudis” by the Latins, and “sphyrene” by the Greeks, names which indicate the peculiar form of its muzzle. It is one of the very largest kinds, but rarely found, and by no means of inferior flavour. “Perna,” too, is the name given to a kind of shellfish, found in vast numbers in the vicinity of the islands of the Euxine. These fish are found firmly planted in the sand, resembling in appearance the long shank of a hog. Opening wide their shells, where there is sufficient space, they lie in wait for their prey; this opening being not less than a foot in breadth, and the edges of it garnished around with teeth closely set, much resembling the teeth of a comb in form. Within the shell, the meat consists of a vast lump of flesh. I once saw, too, a fish called the “hyæna,” which had been caught off the island of Ænaria.

  In addition to these animals, there are certain excretions thrown up by the sea, which do not merit any further notice, and indeed ought to be reckoned among the sea-weeds, rather than looked upon as animated beings.

  SUMMARY. — Remedies, narratives, and observations, nine hundred and ninety.

  ROMAN AUTHORS QUOTED. — Licinius Macer, Trebius Niger, Sextius Niger who wrote in Greek, the Poet Ovid, Cassius Hemina, Mæcenas, Iacchus, Sornatius.

  FOREIGN AUTHORS QUOTED. — Juba, Andreas, Salpe, Apion, Pelops, Apelles, Thrasyllus, Nicander.

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  BOOK XXXIII. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF METALS.

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  CHAP. 1. (1.)

  METALS.

  WE are now about to speak of metals, of actual wealth, the standard of comparative value, objects for which we diligently search, within the earth, in numerous ways. In one place, for instance, we undermine it for the purpose of obtaining riches, to supply the exigencies of life, s
earching for either gold or silver, electrum or copper. In another place, to satisfy the requirements of luxury, our researches extend to gems and pigments, with which to adorn our fingers and the walls of our houses: while in a third place, we gratify our rash propensities by a search for iron, which, amid wars and carnage, is deemed more acceptable even than gold. We trace out all the veins of the earth, and yet, living upon it, undermined as it is beneath our feet, are astonished that it should occasionally cleave asunder or tremble: as though, forsooth, these signs could be any other than expressions of the indignation felt by our sacred parent! We penetrate into her entrails, and seek for treasures in the abodes even of the Manes, as though each spot we tread upon were not sufficiently bounteous and fertile for us!

  And yet, amid all this, we are far from making remedies the object of our researches: and how few in thus delving into the earth have in view the promotion of medicinal knowledge! For it is upon her surface, in fact, that she has presented us with these substances, equally with the cereals, bounteous and ever ready, as she is, in supplying us with all things for our benefit! It is what is concealed from our view, what is sunk far beneath her surface, objects, in fact, of no rapid formation, that urge us to our ruin, that send us to the very depths of hell. As the mind ranges in vague speculation, let us only consider, proceeding through all ages, as these operations are, when will be the end of thus exhausting the earth, and to what point will avarice finally penetrate! How innocent, how happy, how truly delightful even would life be, if we were to desire nothing but what is to be found upon the face of the earth; in a word, nothing but what is provided ready to our hands!