CHAP. 51.—REMEDIES FOR INTOXICATION.
The eggs of an owlet, administered to drunkards three days in wine, are productive of a distaste for that liquor. A sheep’s lights roasted, eaten before drinking,[2886] act as a preventive of inebriety. The ashes of a swallow’s beak, bruised with myrrh and sprinkled in the wine, act as a preservative against intoxication: Horus,[2887] king of Assyria, was the first to discover this.[2888]
CHAP. 52.—PECULIARITIES RELATIVE TO CERTAIN ANIMALS.
In addition to these, there are some other peculiar properties attributed to certain animals, which require to be mentioned in the present Book. Some authors state that there is a bird in Sardinia, resembling the crane and called the “gromphena;”[2889] but it is no longer known even by the people of that country, in my opinion. In the same province, too, there is the ophion, an animal which resembles the deer in the hair only, and to be found[2890] nowhere else. The same authors have spoken also of the “subjugus,”[2891] but have omitted to state what animal it is, or where it is to be found. That it did formerly exist, however, I have no doubt, as certain remedies are described as being derived from it. M. Cicero speaks of animals called “biuri,”[2892] which gnaw the vines in Campania.
CHAP. 53. (16.)—OTHER MARVELLOUS FACTS CONNECTED WITH ANIMALS.
There are still some other marvellous facts related, with reference to the animals which we have mentioned. A dog will not bark at a person who has any part of the secundines of a bitch about him, or a hare’s dung or fur. The kind of gnats called “muliones,”[2893] do not live more than a single day. Persons when taking honey from the hives, will never be touched by the bees if they carry the beak of a wood-pecker[2894] about them. Swine will be sure to follow the person who has given them a raven’s brains, made up into a bolus. The dust in which a she-mule has wallowed, sprinkled upon the body, will allay the flames of desire. Rats may be put to flight by castrating a male rat, and setting it at liberty. If a snake’s slough is beaten up with some spelt, salt, and wild thyme, and introduced into the throat of oxen, with wine, at the time that grapes are ripening, they will be in perfect health for a whole year to come: the same, too, if three young swallows are given to them, made up into three boluses. The dust gathered from the track of a snake, sprinkled among bees, will make them return to the hive. If the right testicle of a ram[2895] is tied up, he will generate females only. Persons who have about them the sinews taken from the wings or legs of a crane, will never be fatigued with any kind of laborious exertion. Mules will never kick when they have drunk wine.
Of all known substances, it is a mule’s[2896] hoofs only that are not corroded by the poisonous waters of the fountain Styx: a memorable discovery made by Aristotle,[2897] to his great infamy, on the occasion when Antipater sent some of this water to Alexander the Great, for the purpose of poisoning him.
We will now pass on to the aquatic productions.
Summary.—Remedies, narratives, and observations, eight hundred and fifty-four.