For the cure of gout, bears’ grease is employed, mixed in equal proportions with bull-suet and wax; some persons add to the composition, hypocisthis[2364] and nut-galls. Others, again, prefer he-goat suet, mixed with the dung of a she-goat and saffron, or else with mustard, or sprigs of ivy pounded and used with perdicium,[2365] or with flowers of wild cucumber. Cow-dung is also used, with lees of vinegar. Some persons speak highly in praise of the dung of a calf which has not begun to graze, or else a bull’s blood, without any other addition; a fox, also, boiled alive till only the bones are left; a wolf boiled alive in oil to the consistency of a cerate; he-goat suet, with an equal proportion of helxine,[2366] and one-third part of mustard; or ashes of goats’ dung, mixed with axle-grease. They say, too, that for sciatica, it is an excellent plan to apply this dung boiling[2367] hot beneath the great toes; and that, for diseases of the joints, it is highly efficacious to attach bears’ gall or hares’ feet to the part affected. Gout, they say, may be allayed by the patient always carrying about with him a hare’s foot, cut off from the animal alive.
Bears’ grease is a cure for chilblains and all kinds of chaps upon the feet; with the addition of alum, it is still more efficacious. The same results are produced by using goat-suet; a horse’s teeth powdered; the gall of a wild boar or hog; or else the lights of those animals, applied with their grease; and this, too, where the soles are blistered, or the feet have been crushed by a substance striking against them. In cases where the feet have been frozen, ashes of burnt hare’s fur are used; and for contusions of the feet, the lights of that animal are applied, sliced or reduced to ashes. Blisters occasioned by the sun are most effectually treated by using asses’ fat, or else beef-suet, with oil of roses. Corns, chaps, and callosities of the feet are cured by the application of wild boars’ dung or swine’s dung, used fresh, and removed at the end of a couple of days. The pastern-bones of these animals are also used, reduced to ashes; or else the lights of a wild boar, swine, or deer. When the feet have been galled by the shoes, they are rubbed with the urine of an ass, applied with the mud formed by it upon the ground. Corns are treated with beef-suet and powdered frankincense; chilblains with burnt leather, that of an old shoe, in particular; and injuries produced by tight shoes with ashes of goat-skin, tempered with oil.
The pains attendant upon varicose veins are mitigated by using ashes of burnt calves’ dung, boiled with lily roots and a little honey: a composition which is equally good for all kinds of inflammations and sores that tend to suppurate. It is very useful, also, for gout and diseases of the joints, when it is the dung of a bull-calf that is used more particularly. For excoriations of the joints, the gall of a wild boar or swine is applied, in a warm linen cloth: the dung, also, of a calf that has not begun to graze; or else goat-dung, boiled in vinegar with honey. Veal-suet rectifies malformed nails, as also goat-suet, mixed with sandarach. Warts are removed by applying ashes of burnt calves’ dung in vinegar, or else the mud formed upon the ground by the urine of an ass.
CHAP. 63.—REMEDIES FOR EPILEPSY.
In cases of epilepsy, it is a good plan to eat a bear’s testes, or those of a wild boar, with mares’ milk or water; or else to drink a wild boar’s urine with honey and vinegar, that being the best which has been left to dry in the bladder. The testes, also, of swine are prescribed, dried and beaten up in sows’ milk, the patient abstaining from wine some days before and after taking the mixture. The lights of a hare, too, are recommended, salted, and taken with one third of frankincense, for thirty consecutive days, in white wine: hare’s rennet also; and asses’ brains, smoked with burning leaves, and administered in hydromel, in doses of half an ounce per day. An ass’s hoofs are reduced to ashes, and taken for a month together, in doses of two spoonfuls; the testes, also, of an ass, salted and mixed with the drink, asses’ milk or water in particular. The secundines, also, of a she-ass are recommended, more particularly when it is a male that has been foaled: placed beneath the nostrils of the patient, when the fits are likely to come on, this substance will effectually repel them.
There are some persons who recommend the patient to eat the heart of a black he-ass in the open air with bread, upon the first or second day of the moon: others, again, prescribe the flesh of that animal, and others the blood, diluted with vinegar, and taken for forty days together. Some mix horse-stale for this purpose, with smithy water fresh from the forge, employing the same mixture for the cure of delirium. Epilepsy is also treated with mares’ milk, or the excrescences from a horse’s legs, taken in honey and vinegar. The magicians highly recommend goats’ flesh, grilled upon a funeral pile; as also the suet of that animal, boiled with an equal quantity of bull’s gall, and kept in the gall-bladder; care being taken not to let it touch the ground, and the patient swallowing it in water, standing aloft.[2368] The smell arising from a goat’s horns or deer’s antlers, burnt, efficiently detects the presence of epilepsy.
In cases where persons are suddenly paralyzed, the urine of an ass’s foal, applied to the body with nard, is very useful, it is said.