For urinary calculi and other obstructions of the bladder, dung of ring-doves is taken, with beans; ashes also of wild ring-doves’ feathers, mixed with vinegar and honey; the intestines of those birds, reduced to ashes, and administered in doses of three spoonfuls; a small clod from a swallow’s nest, dissolved in warm water; the dried crop of an ossifrage; the dung of a turtle-dove, boiled in honied wine; or the broth of a boiled turtle-dove.
It is very beneficial also for urinary affections to eat thrushes with myrtle-berries, or grasshoppers grilled on a shallow-pan; or else to take the millepedes, known as “onisci,”[2815] in drink. For pains in the bladder, a decoction of lambs’ feet is used. Chicken-broth relaxes the bowels and mollifies acridities; swallows’ dung, too, with honey, employed as a suppository, acts as a purgative.
CHAP. 22.—REMEDIES FOR DISEASES OF THE FUNDAMENT AND OF THE GENERATIVE ORGANS.
The most efficacious remedies for diseases of the rectum are wool-grease,—to which some add pompholix[2816] and oil of roses— a dog’s head reduced to ashes; or a serpent’s slough, with vinegar. In cases where there are chaps and fissures of those parts, the ashes of the white portion of dogs’ dung are used, mixed with oil of roses; a prescription due, they say, to Æsculapius,[2817] and remarkably efficacious also for the removal of warts. Ashes of burnt mouse-dung, swan’s fat, and cow suet, are also used. Procidence of the rectum is reduced by an application of the juices discharged by snails when punctured. For the cure of excoriation of those parts, ashes of burnt wood-mice are used, with honey; the gall of a hedge-hog, with a bat’s brains and bitches’ milk; goose-grease, with the brains of the bird, alum, and wool-grease; or else pigeons’ dung, mixed with honey. A spider, the head and legs being first removed, is remarkably good as a friction for condylomata. To prevent the acridity of the humours from fretting the flesh, goose-grease is applied, with Punic wax, white lead, and oil of roses; swan’s grease also, which is said to be a cure for piles.
A very good thing, they say, for sciatica, is, to pound raw snails in Aminean[2818] wine, and to take them with pepper; to eat a green lizard, the feet, head, and intestines being first removed; or to eat a spotted lizard, with the addition of three oboli of black poppy. Ruptures and convulsions are treated with sheep’s gall, diluted with woman’s milk. The gravy which escapes from a ram’s lights roasted, is used for the cure of itching pimples and warts upon the generative organs: for other affections of those parts, the ashes of a ram’s wool, unwashed even, are used, applied with water; the suet of a sheep’s caul, and of the kidneys more particularly, mixed with ashes of pumice-stone and salt; greasy wool, applied with cold water; sheep’s flesh, burnt to ashes, and applied with water; a mule’s hoofs, burnt to ashes; or the powder of pounded horse teeth, sprinkled upon the parts. In cases of decidence of either of the testes, an application of the slime discharged by snails is remedial, they say. For the treatment of sordid or running ulcers of those parts, the fresh ashes of a burnt dog’s head are found highly useful; the small, broad kind of snail, beaten up in vinegar; a snake’s slough, or the ashes of it, applied in vinegar; honey in which the bees have died, mixed with resin; or the kind of snail without a shell, that is found in Africa, as already[2819] mentioned, beaten up with powdered frankincense and white of eggs, the application being renewed at the end of thirty days; some persons, however substitute a bulb for the frankincense.
For the cure of hydrocele, a spotted lizard, they say, is marvellously good, the head, feet, and intestines being first removed, and the rest of the body roasted and taken frequently with the food. For incontinence[2820] of urine dogs’ fat is used, mixed with a piece of split alum the size of a bean; ashes, also, of African snails burnt with the shells, taken in drink; or else the tongues of three geese roasted and eaten with the food, a remedy which we owe to Anaxilaüs. Mutton-suet,[2821] mixed with parched salt, has an aperient effect upon inflammatory tumours, and mouse-dung, mixed with powdered frankincense and sandarach, acts upon them as a dispellent: the ashes, also, of a burnt lizard, or the lizard itself, split asunder and applied; or else bruised millepedes, mixed with one third part of turpentine. Some make use of earth of Sinope[2822] for this purpose, mixed with a bruised snail. Ashes of empty snail-shells burnt alone, mixed with wax, possess certain repercussive properties; the same, too, with pigeons’ dung, employed by itself, or applied with oat-meal or barley-meal. Cantharides, mixed with lime, remove inflammatory tumours quite as effectually as the lancet; and small snails, applied topically with honey, have a soothing effect upon tumours in the groin.
CHAP. 23. (9.)—REMEDIES FOR GOUT AND FOR DISEASES OF THE FEET.
To prevent varicose veins, the legs of children are rubbed with a lizard’s blood: but both the party who operates and the patient must be fasting at the time. Wool-grease, mixed with woman’s milk and white lead, has a soothing effect upon gout; the liquid dung also voided by sheep; a sheep’s lights; a ram’s gall, mixed with suet; mice, split asunder and applied; a weasel’s blood, used as a liniment with plantago; the ashes of a weasel burnt alive, mixed with vinegar and oil of roses, and applied with a feather, or used in combination with wax and oil of roses; a dog’s gall, due care being taken not to touch it with the hand, and to apply it with a feather; poultry dung; or else ashes of burnt earth-worms, applied with honey, and removed at the end of a couple of days. Some, however, prefer using this last with water, while others, again, apply the worms themselves, in the proportion of one acetabulum[2823] to three cyathi of honey, the feet of the patient being first anointed with oil of roses. The broad, flat, kind of snail, taken in drink, is used for the removal of pains in the feet and joints; two of them being pounded for the purpose and taken in wine. They are employed, also, in the form of a liniment, mixed with the juice of the plant helxine:[2824] some, however, are content to beat up the snails with vinegar. Some say that salt, burnt in a new earthen vessel with a viper, and taken repeatedly, is curative of gout, and that it is an excellent plan to rub the feet with viper’s fat. It is asserted, too, that similar results are produced by keeping a kite till it is dry, and then powdering it and taking it in water, a pinch in three fingers at a time; by rubbing the feet with the blood of that bird mixed with nettles; or by bruising the first feathers of a ring-dove with nettles. The dung of ring-doves is used as a liniment for pains in the joints; the ashes also of a burnt weasel, or of burnt snails, mixed with amylum[2825] or gum tragacanth.
A very excellent cure for contusions of the joints is a spider’s web; but there are persons who give the preference to ashes of burnt cobwebs or of burnt pigeons’ dung, mixed with polenta and white wine. For sprains of the joints a sovereign remedy is mutton suet, mixed with the ashes of a woman’s hair; a good application, too, for chilblains is mutton suet, mixed with alum, or else ashes of a burnt dog’s head or of burnt mouse-dung. Ulcers, free from discharge, are brought to cicatrize by using the above-named substances in combination with wax; ashes, also, of burnt dormice, mixed with oil; ashes of burnt wood-mice, mixed with honey; ashes of burnt earth-worms, applied with old oil; or else ashes of the snails without a shell that are so commonly found. All ulcers on the feet are cured by the application of ashes of snails, burnt alive; and for excoriations of the feet, ashes of burnt poultry-dung are used, or ashes of burnt pigeons’ dung, mixed with oil. When the feet have been galled by the shoes, the ashes of an old shoe-sole are used, or the lights of a lamb or ram. For gatherings beneath[2826] the nails, a horse’s tooth, powdered, is a sovereign remedy. A light application of a green lizard’s blood, will cure the feet of man or beast when galled beneath.