Against the wound of a chersydrus[(76)], panaces or laser, or each scruples p. ii. *. Or the juice of a leek is to be taken with a hemina of wine, and savory eaten plentifully. And let goat’s dung boiled in vinegar be laid upon the wound; or barley meal in the same manner with vinegar; or rue, or cat-mint, powdered with salt and mixed with honey. And this is equally efficacious against the bite of a cerastes.
Of a phalangium.
When a phalangium[(77)] has given a wound, beside the chirurgical part of the cure, the patient should be frequently plunged into the warm bath, and an equal quantity of myrrh and stavesacre is to be given in a hemina of passum; or radish-seed, or darnel-root with wine; let there be also applied to the wound bran boiled with vinegar, and he must be ordered to continue quiet.
Of Italian snakes.
But the kinds of serpents mentioned hitherto are foreign, and much more dangerous than ours; especially those, which are in very hot countries. Italy and the colder climates, besides that they are more healthful in other respects, have the advantage in this, that they produce snakes less formidable. Their bites are well enough cured by the herb betony, or bindweed, or centory, or agrimony, or germander, or burdock, or pastinaca fish[(78)], either singly, or any two of them taken together powdered, and thus given to drink in wine, and also applied upon the wound. It is necessary to observe, that the bite of every serpent is more hurtful, when either the animal or the wounded person is fasting, and therefore they are most pernicious when they are hatching; and it is adviseable, when any one is apprehensive of meeting serpents, not to go out, before he has taken some food.
Of poisons.
It is not so easy to relieve those, who have swallowed poison, either in their food or drink. In the first place, because they do not perceive it immediately, as those do, who are bit by a snake; and therefore cannot instantly apply the remedy. In the next place, because the hurt does not begin in the skin, but in the internal parts. However it is best, as soon as one discovers it, immediately to drink largely of oil, and to vomit. And then, when he has emptied his praecordia, to take an antidote in his drink; if that is not to be got, pure wine.
Remedies against cantharides.
Nevertheless there are some peculiar remedies against certain poisons, and chiefly of the milder kind. For if any person has drunk cantharides, he ought to take panaces bruised with milk, or galbanum, with the addition of wine, or milk by itself.