“Humanam urinam suum cuique bibere prodest contra viperæ morsus et letalia pharmaca, hydropemque incipientem; prodest etiam ea fovere echinorum marinorum scorpionis itidem marini draconisque ictus. Canina rabidi canis morsibus perfundendis idonea est; lepras quoque et pruritus, nitro addito, exterit. Vetus etiam achoras, furfures, scabiem, fervidasque eruptiones potentius extergit, quin et ulcera depascentia, etiam genitalium coarcet. Purulentis quoque auribus infusa pus condensat, et in malicordio cocta animalcula (quæ forte in aures irrepsirent) ejicit. Pueri innocentis absorta urina anhelantibus confert, cocta vero in æreo vaso cum melle cicatrices albugines et caligines emendat.
“Quin etiam ex ea et ære cyprio idoneum auro ferruminando glutea paratur. Sedimentum urinæ erysipelata illita mitigat. Fervefactum cum cyprino appositumque uteri dolorem demulcet ex utero, strangulata levat, palpebras deterget et oculorum cicatrices expurgat. Taurinum lotium cum myrrha tritum et instillatum dolores aurium lenit.
“Aprinum iisdem viribus præditum est sed peculiariter vesicæ calculos potu comminuit et expellit. Caprinum traditur ad hydropem inter cutem cum spica nardi binisque aquæ cyathis quotidie bibiti urinas ducere et alvum instillatum, vero aurium doloribus mederi. Asinino denique ferunt nephreticos sanari.”—(Dioscorides, idem, vol. i. pp. 227 et seq.)
On p. 228 Dioscorides speaks of the use of a medicine known as “lynx urine,” but which he says was a variety of amber.
THE VIEWS OF GALEN.
Galen disapproved of the pharmaceutical use of human ordure on account of its abominable smell, but he assented to the employment of that of domestic cattle, goats, crocodiles, and dogs; he makes known, moreover, that human ordure was taken internally, as a medicine, by very many persons.
“De Copro, Stercore, Copros, sive Copron, sive Apoptema, apellari velis perinde est. Scito autem hanc substantiam vim habere vel maxime digerentem. Verum stercus humanum ob fœtorem abominandum est, at bubulum, caprinum, crocodilorum terrestrium, et canum, ubi in ossibus duntaxat vescuntur neque graviter olet, et multa experientia non tantum nobis, sed et aliis medicis me natu majoribus comprobatum est. Siquidem Asclepiades cui cognomentum erat Pharmaceon, et alia omnia medicamenta collegit, ut multos impleret libros, et stercore ad multos sæpe affectus utitur non modo medicamentis, quæ focis imponuntur commiscens, sed iis quoque quæ intro in os sumuntur.”—(Galeni Claudii, “Opera Omnia,” edit. of Dr. Carl Gottleib Kuhn, Leipsig, 1826, vol. xii., pp. 290, 291.)
Dog-dung, especially of an animal “sola ossa cani edenda exhibens duobus continuo diebus, ex quibus durum, candidum, ac minime fœtorum stercus proveniebat.” Such dog-dung was administered in angina, dysentery, inveterate ulcers, etc., in milk or other convenient menstruum.—(Idem, vol. xii. p. 291.)
The urine of boys was drunk by patients suffering from the plague in Syria, but the year is not given.—(See idem, vol. xii. p. 285.)
Galen did not believe that calculi had the slightest value for effecting a reduction of calculi.—(Idem, lib. xii. p. 290.)