“Camel’s dung, reduced into ashes, and incorporat with oile, doth curle and frizzle the hair of the head, and taken in drinke, as much as a man may comprehend with three fingers, cureth the dysenterie; so doth it also the falling sickness. Camel’s piss, they say, is passing good for Fullers to scour their cloth withall; and the same healeth any running sores which be bathed therein. It is well known that the barbarous nations keep this stale of theirs until it be five years old, and then a draught thereof to the quantity of one hermine is a good laxative potion.”—(Lib. xxviii. c. 8.)
Goat’s dung good for sore eyes.—(Idem, c. 11.)
For “Skals in the Head” the Romans used “Bul’s Urine.” Stale chamber-lye was also considered good. “The gall of buck goats, tempered with Bul’s stale, killeth lice.” Dog-dung and goat-dung also were prescribed.—(Idem, c. 11.)
Wolf’s dung is mentioned as good for cataract.—(Idem, c. 11.)
Hen’s dung, the white part, prescribed for the cure of poisonous mushrooms; also to cure flatulence (but in any living creature it causes flatulence, says Pliny). Ashes of horse-dung fresh made and burned, the urine of a wild boar, the green dung of an ass, are among the medicaments mentioned for ear-ache (idem, c. 11); also “Urine of a Bul or a Goat, or stale chamber lye made hotte;” also “Calfe’s Pisse, Calfe’s dung.” Goat and horse dung were employed to drive away snakes.—(Idem, c. 110.)
Human urine used in curing the bites of mad dogs.—(Idem, c. 18.)
Pliny notices that the Greeks used the scrapings of the bodies of athletes for emmenagogues, for uterine troubles, for sprains, muscular rheumatism, etc. “We find authors of the very highest repute proclaiming aloud that the seminal fluid is a sovereign remedy for the sting of the scorpion. In the case, too, of a woman afflicted with sterility they recommend the application of a pessary made of the fresh excrement voided by an infant at the moment of its birth.... They have even gone so far, too, as to scrape the very filth from off the walls of the gymnasia, and to assert that this is possessed of certain calorific properties.... The urine has been the subject not only of numerous theories with authors, but of various religious observances as well, its properties being classified under several distinctive heads; thus, for instance, the urine of eunuchs, they say, is highly beneficial as a promoter of fruitfulness in females.” He mentions the urine of children as a sovereign remedy for the poisonous secretion of the asp, which “spits its venom into the eyes of human beings.” Human urine was used in eye troubles, “albugo, films, and marks upon the eyes, white specks upon the pupils, and maladies of the eyelids.” It was also used in the cure of burns, suppuration of the ears, as an emmenagogue, for sun-burn, and for taking out ink-spots. “Male urine cured Gout.” Urine cured “eruptions on the bodies of infants, corrosive sores, running ulcers, chaps upon the body, stings inflicted by serpents, ulcers of the head, and cancerous sores of the generative organs.... Every person’s urine is the best for his own case.”—(Lib. xxviii. c. 18.)
The ashes of camel’s dung were administered internally in epilepsy, and also for dysentery.—(Idem, c. 27.)
Camel’s urine applied to running sores; barbarous nations kept it for five years, and then used it as a purgative.—(Idem.)
The dung of the hippopotamus was used in fumigations, “for the cure of a cold ague.”—(Idem, c. 31.)