CHAP. 44.—SEVEN REMEDIES DERIVED FROM IRON.
Iron is employed in medicine for other purposes besides that of making incisions. For if a circle is traced with iron, or a pointed weapon is carried three times round them, it will preserve both infant and adult from all noxious influences: if nails, too, that have been extracted from a tomb, are driven into the threshold of a door, they will prevent night-mare.[1691] A slight puncture with the point of a weapon, with which a man has been wounded, will relieve sudden pains, attended with stitches in the sides or chest. Some affections are cured by cauterization with red-hot iron, the bite of the mad dog more particularly; for even if the malady has been fully developed, and hydrophobia has made its appearance, the patient is instantly relieved on the wound being cauterized.[1692] Water in which iron has been plunged at a white heat, is useful, as a potion, in many diseases, dysentery[1693] more particularly.
CHAP. 45.—FOURTEEN REMEDIES DERIVED FROM RUST.
Rust itself, too, is classed among the remedial substances; for it was by means of it that Achilles cured Telephus, it is said, whether it was an iron weapon or a brazen one that he used for the purpose. So it is, however, that he is represented in paintings detaching the rust with his sword.[1694] The rust of iron is usually obtained for these purposes by scraping old nails with a piece of moistened iron. It has the effect of uniting wounds, and is possessed of certain desiccative and astringent properties. Applied in the form of a liniment, it is curative of alopecy. Mixed with wax and myrtle-oil, it is applied to granulations of the eyelids, and pustules in all parts of the body; with vinegar it is used for the cure of erysipelas; and, applied with lint, it is curative of itch, whitlows on the fingers, and hang-nails. Used as a pessary with wool, it arrests female discharges. Diluted in wine, and kneaded with myrrh, it is applied to recent wounds, and, with vinegar, to condylomatous swellings. Employed in the form of a liniment, it alleviates gout.[1695]
CHAP. 46.—SEVENTEEN REMEDIES DERIVED FROM THE SCALES OF IRON. HYGREMPLASTRUM.
The scales of iron,[1696] which are procured from a fine point or a sharp edge, are also made use of, being very similar in effect to rust, but more active; for which reason they are employed for defluxions of the eyes. They arrest bleeding, also, more particularly from wounds inflicted with iron; and they act as a check upon female discharges. They are applied, too, for diseases of the spleen, and they arrest hæmorrhoidal swellings and serpiginous ulcers. They are useful also for affections of the eyelids, gradually applied in the form of a fine powder. But their chief recommendation is, their great utility in the form of a hygremplastrum[1697] or wet plaster, for cleansing wounds and fistulous sores, consuming all kinds of callosities, and making new flesh on bones that are denuded. The following are the ingredients: of pitch, six oboli, of Cimolian chalk,[1698] six drachmæ, two drachmæ of pounded copper, the same quantity of scales of iron, six drachmæ of wax, and one sextarius of oil. To these is added some cerate, when it is wanted to cleanse or fill up wounds.
CHAP. 47. (16.)—THE ORES OF LEAD.
The nature of lead next comes to be considered. There are two kinds of it, the black and the white.[1699] The white is the most valuable: it was called by the Greeks “cassiteros,”[1700] and there is a fabulous story told of their going in quest of it to the islands of the Atlantic, and of its being brought in barks made of osiers, covered with hides.[1701] It is now known that it is a production of Lusitania and Gallæcia.[1702] It is a sand found on the surface of the earth, and of a black colour, and is only to be detected by its weight. It is mingled with small pebbles, particularly in the dried beds of rivers. The miners wash this sand, and calcine the deposit in the furnace. It is also found in the gold mines that are known as “alutiæ,”[1703] the stream of water which is passed through them detaching certain black pebbles, mottled with small white spots and of the same weight[1704] as gold. Hence it is that they remain with the gold in the baskets in which it is collected; and being separated in the furnace, are then melted, and become converted into white lead.[1705]
Black lead is not procured in Gallæcia, although it is so greatly abundant in the neighbouring province of Cantabria; nor is silver procured from white lead, although it is from black.[1706] Pieces of black lead cannot be soldered without the intervention of white lead, nor can this be done without employing oil;[1707] nor can white lead, on the other hand, be united without the aid of black lead. White lead was held in estimation in the days even of the Trojan War, a fact that is attested by Homer, who calls it “cassiteros.”[1708] There are two different sources of black lead: it being procured either from its own native ore, where it is produced without the intermixture of any other substance, or else from an ore which contains it in common with silver, the two metals being fused together. The metal which first becomes liquid in the furnace, is called “stannum;”[1709] the next that melts is silver; and the metal that remains behind is galena,[1710] the third constituent part of the mineral. On this last being again submitted to fusion black lead is produced, with a deduction of two-ninths.