Physicians who keep more within bounds, recommend the ashes of these insects to be kept for these various purposes in a box made of horn; or else that they should be bruised and injected in a lavement for hardness of breathing and catarrhs. At all events, that, applied externally, they extract foreign substances adhering to the flesh, is a fact well known.
Honey, too, in which the bees have died, is remarkably useful for affections of the ears. Pigeons’ dung, applied by itself, or with barley-meal or oat-meal, reduces imposthumes of the parotid glands; a result which is equally obtained by injecting into the ear an owlet’s brains or liver, mixed with oil, or by applying the mixture to the parotid glands; also, by applying millepedes with one-third part of resin; by using crickets in the form of a liniment; or by wearing crickets attached to the body as an amulet. The other kinds of maladies, and the several remedies for them, derived from the same animals or from others of the same class, we shall describe in the succeeding Book.
Summary.—Remedies, narratives, and observations, six hundred and twenty-one.
Roman authors quoted.—M. Varro,[2678] L. Piso,[2679] Flaccus Verrius,[2680] Antias,[2681] Nigidius,[2682] Cassius Hemina,[2683] Cicero,[2684] Plautus,[2685] Celsus,[2686] Sextius Niger[2687] who wrote in Greek, Cæcilius[2688] the physician, Metellus Scipio,[2689] the Poet Ovid,[2690] Licinius Macer.[2691]
Foreign authors quoted.—Homer, Aristotle,[2692] Orpheus,[2693] Palæphatus,[2694] Democritus,[2695] Anaxilaüs.[2696]
Medical authors quoted.—Botrys,[2697] Apollodorus,[2698] Archidemus,[2699] Aristogenes,[2700] Xenocrates,[2701] Democrates,[2702] Diodorus,[2703] Chrysippus[2704] the philosopher, Horus,[2705] Nicander,[2706] Apollonius[2707] of Pitanæ.
BOOK XXX.
REMEDIES DERIVED FROM LIVING CREATURES.
CHAP. 1. (1.)—THE ORIGIN OF THE MAGIC ART.
In former parts of this work, I have had occasion more than once, when the subject demanded it, to refute the impostures of the magic art, and it is now my intention to continue still further my exposure thereof. Indeed, there are few subjects on which more might be profitably said, were it only that, being, as it is, the most deceptive of all known arts, it has exercised the greatest influence in every country and in nearly every age. And no one can be surprised at the extent of its influence and authority, when he reflects that by its own energies it has embraced, and thoroughly amalgamated with itself, the three other sciences[2708] which hold the greatest sway upon the mind of man.