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 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.