Scatalogic Rites of All Nations / A dissertation upon the employment of excrementitious remedial agents in religion, therapeutics, divination, witchcraft, love-philters, etc., in all parts of the globe

by John Gregory Bourke

CERUMEN OR EAR-WAX.

Pliny speaks of its use in medicine (lib. xxviii. cap. 7); Galen does also. Flemming recommended its internal use in colic and cramps; and externally as an application to wounds.—(“De Remediis,” etc., p. 22.)

Paullini was of the opinion that a good salve for sore eyes could be prepared from cerumen (pp. 42, 43).

“The excrement of the ears, like unto a yellow oyntment, is a great comfort in the pricking of the sinews.”—(Von Helmont, “Oritrika,” English translation, London, 1662, p. 247.)

Galen thought that ear-wax was efficacious in the cure of whit-nails; the other “sordes” were also employed, but he would not write about them, on account of the difficulty of obtaining them,—such as the perspiration flowing in the bath, or scraped from the body after severe exercise; and, finally, the fatty matter of wool was of medicinal value, and seemed to have the same properties as butter.—(Galen, “Opera Omnia,” lib. xii. p. 309, Kuhn’s edition, Leipzig, 1829.)