“SAXON LEECHDOMS.”
In “Saxon Leechdoms,” is arranged the medical lore of the early centuries of the Saxon occupancy and conquest of England.
“Alexander of Tralles (A.D. 550) ... guarantees, of his own experience and the approval of almost all the best doctors, dung of a wolf with bits of bone in it” for colic.—(“Saxon Leechdoms,” lib. i. c. 18.)
“Bull’s dung was good for dropsical men; cow’s dung for women” (vol. i. c. 12, quoting Pliny, lib. xxviii. c. 68).
Swine-dung was applied to warts (vol. i. p. 101).
“For bite of any serpent, melt goat’s grease and her turd and wax, and mingle together; work it up, so that a man may swallow it whole” (vol. i. p. 355, quoting Sextus Flacitus).
For dropsy, “Let him drink buck’s mie ... best is the mie.... For sore of ears, apply goat’s mie to the ear.... Against churnels, mingle a goat’s turd with honey ... smear therewith.”
“For thigh pains,” “for sore joints,” “for cancer,” “against swellings,” “tugging of sinews,” “carbuncle,” “smear with goat’s dung” (vol. i. pp. 355, 357).
“For every sore ... let one drink bull’s urine in hot water; soon it healeth.... For a breach or fracture ... lay bull’s dung warm on the breach.... For waters burning or fires, burn bull’s dung and shed thereon.” (Idem, p. 369.) The word “shed” as here employed means to urinate, apparently.
“For swerecothe or quinsy,” the Saxons used an external application of the white “thost” or dung of a dog which had been gnawing a bone before defecation (vol. ii. p. 49).