A pipe is called “a ten-finger”[3078] pipe when the sheet of metal is ten fingers in breadth before it is rolled up; a sheet one half that breadth giving a pipe “of five fingers.”[3079] In all sudden changes of inclination in elevated localities, pipes of five fingers should be employed, in order to break the impetuosity of the fall: reservoirs,[3080] too, for branches should be made as circumstances may demand.
CHAP. 32.—HOW MINERAL WATERS SHOULD BE USED.
I am surprised that Homer has made no[3081] mention of hot springs, when, on the other hand, he has so frequently introduced the mention of warm baths: a circumstance from which we may safely conclude that recourse was not had in his time to mineral waters for their medicinal properties, a thing so universally the case at the present day. Waters impregnated with sulphur are good for the sinews,[3082] and aluminous waters are useful for paralysis and similar relaxations of the system. Those, again, which are impregnated with bitumen or nitre, the waters of Cutilia,[3083] for example, are drunk as a purgative.[3084]
Many persons quite pride themselves on enduring the heat of mineral waters for many hours together; a most pernicious practice, however, as they should be used but very little longer than the ordinary bath, after which the bather should be shampooed[3085] with cold water, and not leave the bath without being rubbed with oil. This last operation, however, is commonly regarded as altogether foreign to the use of mineral baths; and hence it is, that there is no situation in which men’s bodies are more exposed to the chances of disease, the head becoming saturated with the intensity of the odours exhaled, and left exposed, perspiring as it is, to the coldness of the atmosphere, while all the rest of the body is immersed in the water.[3086]
There is another mistake, also, of a similar description, made by those who pride themselves upon drinking enormous quantities of these waters;[3087] and I myself have seen persons, before now, so swollen with drinking it that the very rings on their fingers were entirely concealed by the skin, owing to their inability to discharge the vast quantities of water which they had swallowed. It is for this reason, too, that these waters should never be drunk without taking a taste of salt every now and then. The very mud,[3088] too, of mineral springs may be employed to good purpose; but, to be effectual, after being applied to the body, it must be left to dry in the sun.
It must not be supposed, however, that all hot waters are of necessity medicated, those of Segesta in Sicily, for example, of Larissa, Troas, Magnesia, Melos, and Lipara. Nor is the very general supposition a correct one, that waters, to be medicinal, must of necessity discolour copper or silver; no such effect being produced by those of Patavium,[3089] or there being the slightest difference perceptible in the smell.
CHAP. 33.—THE USES OF SEA-WATER. THE ADVANTAGES OF A SEA-VOYAGE.
Sea-water also is employed in a similar manner for the cure of diseases. It is used, made hot, for the cure of pains in the sinews, for reuniting fractured bones, and for its desiccative action upon the body: for which last purpose, it is also used cold. There are numerous other medicinal resources derived from the sea; the benefit of a sea-voyage, more particularly, in cases of phthisis, as already[3090] mentioned, and where patients are suffering from hæmoptosis, as lately experienced, in our own memory, by Annæus Gallio,[3091] at the close of his consulship:[3092] for it is not for the purpose of visiting the country, that people so often travel to Egypt, but in order to secure the beneficial results arising from a long sea-voyage. Indeed, the very sea-sickness that is caused by the rocking of the vessel to and fro, is good for many affections of the head, eyes, and chest, all those cases, in fact, in which the patient is recommended to drink an infusion of hellebore. Medical men consider sea-water, employed by itself, highly efficacious for the dispersion of tumours, and, boiled with barley-meal, for the successful treatment of imposthumes of the parotid glands: it is used also as an ingredient in plasters, white plasters more particularly, and for emollient[3093] poultices. Sea-water is very good, too, employed as a shower-bath; and it is taken internally, though not without[3094] injury to the stomach, both as a purgative and as an expellent, by vomit and by alvine evacuation, of black bile[3095] or coagulated blood, as the case may be.
Some authorities prescribe it, taken internally, for quartan fevers, as also for tenesmus and diseases of the joints; purposes for which it is kept a considerable time, to mellow with age, and so lose its noxious[3096] properties. Some, again, are for boiling it, but in all cases it is recommended to be taken from out at sea, and untainted with the mixture of fresh water, an emetic also being taken before using it. When used in this manner, vinegar or wine is generally mixed with the water. Those who give it unmixed, recommend radishes with oxymel to be eaten upon it, in order to provoke vomiting. Sea-water, made hot, is used also as an injection; and there is nothing in existence preferred to it as a fomentation for swellings of the testes, or for chilblains before they ulcerate. It is similarly employed, also, for the cure of prurigo, itch-scab, and lichens. Lice and other foul vermin of the head, are removed by the application of sea-water, and lividities of the skin are restored to their natural colour; it being a remarkably good plan, in such cases, after applying the sea-water, to foment the parts with hot vinegar.
It is generally considered, too, that sea-water is highly efficacious for the stings of venomous insects, those of the phalangium and scorpion, for example, and as an antidote to the poisonous secretions of the asp, known as the “ptyas;”[3097] in all which cases it is employed hot. Fumigations are also made of it, with vinegar, for the cure of head-ache; and, used warm as an injection, it allays griping pains in the bowels and cholera. Things that have been heated in sea-water are longer than ordinary in cooling. A sea-water bath is an excellent corrective for swelling[3098] of the bosoms in females, affections of the thoracic organs, and emaciation of the body. The steam also of sea-water boiled with vinegar, is used for the removal of hardness of hearing and head-ache. An application of sea-water very expeditiously removes rust upon iron; it is curative also of scab in sheep, and imparts additional softness to the wool.