PEOPLE
We are assured that the hand of a person carried off by premature death
cures by a touch scrofulous sores, diseased parotid glands, and throat
affections; some however say that the back of any dead person's left hand
will do this if the patient is of the same sex. A piece bitten off from wood
struck by lightning by a person with hands thrown behind his back, if it
is applied to an aching tooth, is a remedy we are told for the pain. Some
prescribe fumigation of the tooth with a human tooth from one of the
same sex, and to use as an amulet a dog-tooth taken from an unburied
corpse. Earth taken out of a skull acts, it is said, as a depilatory for the
eye-lashes, while any plant that has grown in the skull makes, when
chewed, the teeth fall out, and ulcers marked round with a human bone
do not spread. Some mix in equal quantities water from three wells, pour
a libation from new earthenware, and give the rest to be drunk, at the rise
of temperature, by sufferers from tertian ague. These also wrap up in wool
and tie round the neck of quartan patients a piece of a nail taken from a
cross, or else a cord taken from a crucifixion, and after the patient's neck
has been freed they hide it in a hole where the sunlight cannot reach.
VARIOUS UNLUCKY AND LUCKY ACTS
To sit in the presence of pregnant women, or when medicine is being
given to patients, with the fingers interlaced comb-wise, is to be guilty
of sorcery, a discovery made, it is said, when Alcmena was giving birth
to Hercules. The sorcery is worse if the hands are clasped round one
knee or both, and also to cross the knees first in one way and then in the
other. For this reason our ancestors forbade such postures at councils
of war or of officials, on the ground that they were an obstacle to the
transaction of all business. They also forbade them, indeed, to those
attending sacred rites and prayers; but to uncover the head at the sight
of magistrates they ordered, not as a mark of respect, but (our authority
is Varro) for the sake of health, for the habit of baring the head gives it
greater strength. When something has fallen into the eye, it does good
to press down the other; when water gets into the right ear, to jump with
the left leg, leaning the head towards the right shoulder; if into the left
ear, to jump in the contrary way; if saliva provokes a cough, for another
person to blow on the forehead; if the uvula is relaxed, for another to
hold up the top of the head with his teeth; if there is pain in the neck, to
rub the back of the knees, and to rub the neck for pain in the back of the
knees; to plant the feet on the ground for cramp in feet or legs when in
bed; or if the cramp is on the left side to seize with the right hand the big
toe of the left foot and vice versa; to rub the extremities with pieces of
fleece to stop shivers or violent nose-bleeding; . . . with linen or papyrus
the tip of the genitals and the middle of the thigh to check incontinence
of urine; for weakness of the stomach to press together the feet or dip the
hands into very hot water. Moreover, to refrain from talking is healthful
for many reasons. Maecenas Melissus, we are told, imposed a three-year
silence on himself because of spitting of blood after convulsions. But if
any danger threatens those thrown down, climbing, or prostrate, and
as a guard against blows, to hold the breath is an excellent protection, a
discovery which, I have stated, we owe to an animal. To drive an iron nail
into the place first struck by the head of an epileptic in his fall is said to
be deliverance from that malady. For severe pain in the kidneys, loins
or bladder, it is supposed to be soothing if the patient voids his urine
while lying on his face in the tub of the bath. To tie up wounds with the
Hercules knot makes the healing wonderfully more rapid, and even to
tie daily the girdle with this knot is said to have a certain usefulness, for
Demetrius wrote a treatise in which he states that the number four is one
of the prerogatives of Hercules, giving reasons why four cyathi or sextarii
at a time should not be drunk. For ophthalmia it is good to rub behind
the ears, and for watery eyes the forehead. From the patient himself it is
a reliable omen that, as long as the pupils of his eyes reflect an image, a
fatal end to an illness is not to be feared.
MEDICAL USES OF URINE
Our authorities attribute to urine also great power, not only natural
but supernatural; they divide it into kinds, using even that of eunuchs
to counteract the sorcery that prevents fertility. But of the properties it
would be proper to speak of I may mention the following: the urine
of children not yet arrived at puberty is used to counteract the spittle
of the ptyas, an asp so called because it spits venom into men's eyes;
for albugo, dimness, scars, argema, and affections of the eyelids; with
flour of vetch for burns; and for pus or worms in the ear if boiled down
to one half with a headed leek in new earthenware. Its steam too is an
emmenagogue. Salpe would foment the eyes with urine to strengthen
them, and would apply it for two hours at a time to sun-burn, adding the
white of an egg, by preference that of an ostrich. Urine also takes out ink
blots. Men's urine relieves gout, as is shown by the testimony of fullers,
who for that reason never, they say, suffer from this malady. Old urine
is added to the ash of burnt oyster-shells to treat rashes on the bodies of
babies, and for all running ulcers. Pitted sores, burns, affections of the
anus, chaps, and scorpion stings, are treated by applications of urine. The
most celebrated midwives have declared that no other lotion is better
treatment for irritation of the skin, and with soda added for sores on
the head, dandruff, and spreading ulcers, especially on the genitals. Each
person's own urine, if it be proper for me to say so, does him the most
good, if a dog-bite is immediately bathed in it, if it is applied on a sponge
or wool to the quills of an urchin that are sticking in the flesh, or if ash
kneaded with it is used to treat the bite of a mad dog, or a serpent's bite.
Moreover, for scolopendra bite a wonderful remedy is said to be for the
wounded person to touch the top of his head with a drop of his own urine,
when his wound is at once healed.
SALIVA
The saliva too of a fasting woman is judged to be powerful medicine
for bloodshot eyes and fluxes, if the inflamed corners are occasionally
moistened with it, the efficacy being greater if she has fasted from food
and wine the day before. I find that a woman's breast-band tied round
the head relieves headache.
REMEDIES FROM THE LION
Lion fat with rose oil preserves fairness of complexion and keeps the face
free from spots; it also cures frost-bite and swollen joints. The lying Magi
promise those rubbed with this fat a readier popularity with peoples and
with kings, especially when the fat is that between the brows, where no
fat can be. Similar promises are made about the possession of a tooth,
especially one from the right side, and of the tuft beneath the muzzle.
The fall, used with the addition of water as a salve, improves vision, and
if lion fat is added a slight taste cures epilepsy, provided that those who
have taken it at once aid its digestion by running. The heart taken as a
food cures quartans; the fat with rose oil cures quotidians. Wild beasts
run away from those smeared with it, and it is supposed to protect even
from treachery.
REMEDIES FROM THE CAMEL
They say that a camel's brain, dried and taken in vinegar, cures epilepsy,
as does the gall taken with honey, this being also a remedy for quinsy;
that the tail when dried is laxative, and that the ash of the burnt dung
makes the hair curl. This ash applied with oil is also good for dysentery,
as is a three-finger pinch taken in drink, and also for epilepsy. They say
that the urine is very useful to the fullers, and for running ulcers - it
is a fact that foreigners keep it for five years, and use heminadoses as a
purgative - and that the tail hairs plaited into an amulet for the left arm
cure quartan fevers.
HIPPOPOTAMUS
There is a kind of relationship between the crocodile and the hippopotamus,
for they both live in the same river and both are amphibious. The
hippopotamus, as I have related, was the discoverer of bleeding, and is
most numerous above the prefecture of Sais. His hide, reduced to ash
and applied with water, cures superfi cial abscesses; the fat and likewise
the dung chilly agues by fumigation, and the teeth on the left side, if the
gums are scraped with them, aching teeth. The hide from the left side of
his forehead, worn as an amulet on the groin, is an antaphrodisiac; the
same reduced to ash restores hair lost through mange. A drachma of a
testicle is taken in water for snake bite. The blood is used by painters.
FOR THE TEETH
Loose teeth are made tight by the ash of deer's horn, which relieves their
pain, whether used as dentifrice or in a mouth wash. Some consider
more efficacious for all the same purposes the unburnt horn ground to
powder. Dentifrices are made in either way. A grand remedy too is a wolf's
head reduced to ash. It is certain that bones are generally found in the
excrements of wolves. Used as an amulet these have the same effect, and
hare's rennet relieves toothache if poured through the ear. Hare's head
reduced to ash makes a dentifrice, and with nard added corrects a bad
odour from the mouth. Some prefer to add as well ash from the burnt
heads of mice. There is found in the flank of a hare a bone like a needle,
with which they recommend aching teeth to be scraped. The ignited
pastern bone of an ox, applied to teeth that are loose and aching, tightens
them; the ash of the same with myrrh makes a dentifrice. The bones also
of pigs' feet, when burnt, have the same effect, as have the bones from the
sockets round which the hip-bones move. It is well known that by these,
when inserted into the throat of draught cattle, worms are cured, that
by them, when burnt, teeth are tightened, as they are, when loosened
through a blow, by ass's milk, by the ash of an ass's teeth, or by the lichen
of a horse poured with oil through the ear. Th is lichen is not the same as
hippomanes, which being pernicious on several grounds I omit, but an
excrescence on the knees of horses and above their hoofs. Moreover, in
the heart of horses is found a bone like very large canine teeth; with this
they prescribe the painful tooth to be scraped, or with the tooth, corresponding
to the place of the aching tooth, extracted from the jawbone
of a dead horse. Anaxilaus has informed us that the fluid coming from
mares when covered, if ignited on lamp wicks, shows weird appearances of
horses' heads, and similarly with asses. But hippomanes has such virulent
and magical properties that, added to the molten bronze for a figure of
an Olympian mare, it maddens any stallions brought near with a raving
sexual lust. Teeth are also healed by workman's glue boiled down in the
water, applied, and shortly after taken off, the teeth immediately to be
rinsed in wine in which the rind of sweet pomegranates has been boiled.
It is also thought efficacious to rinse the teeth in goat's milk or bull's gall.
The ash from a freshly-killed she-goat's pastern bones makes a popular
dentifrice, and so that I need not repeat myself, the same is true of nearly
all female farm quadrupeds.
TREATMENT FOR BABIES
For babies nothing is more beneficial than butter, either by itself or with
honey, especially when they are troubled with teething, sore gums, or
ulcerated mouth. The tooth of a wolf tied on as an amulet keeps away
childish terrors and ailments due to teething, as does also a piece of wolf's
skin. Indeed the largest teeth of wolves tied as an amulet even on horses
are said to give them unwearied power of speed. Hare's rennet applied
to the mothers' breasts checks the diarrhea of babies. Ass's liver mixed
with a moderate amount of panaces and let drip into the mouth protects
babies from epilepsy and other diseases; the treatment, it is prescribed,
should continue for forty days. Ass's hide laid on babies keeps them free
from fears. The first teeth of horses to fall out make the cutting of teeth
easy for babies who wear them as an amulet, a more efficacious one if the
teeth have not touched the ground. Ox spleen in honey is administered
internally and externally for painful spleen; for running sores with honey
. . . a calf's spleen boiled in wine, beaten up, and applied to little sores in
the mouth. The brain of a she-goat, passed through a golden ring, is given
drop by drop by the Magi to babies, before they are fed with milk, to
guard them from epilepsy and other diseases of babies. Restless babies,
especially girls, are quietened by an amulet of goat's dung wrapped in a
piece of cloth. Rubbing the gums with goat's milk or hares' brains makes
easy the cutting of teeth.
BELIEFS ABOUT ANIMALS
In addition, wonderful things are reported of the same animals: that
if a horse casts his shoe, as often happened, and some one picks it up
and puts it away, it is a cure of hiccoughs in those who remember where
they have put it; that a wolf's liver is like a horse's hoof; that horses
burst themselves which, carrying a rider, follow the tracks of wolves;
that there is a kind of quarrelsome force in the pastern bones of pigs;
that if, in case of fire, a little dung is brought out of the stables, sheep
and oxen are more easily pulled out and do not run back; that the flesh
of he-goats does not taste strong if on the day they are killed they have
eaten barley bread or drunk diluted laser; that no meat, salted when the
moon is on the wane, is eaten by maggots. So much care has been taken
to leave nothing out, that I find that a deaf hare fattens more quickly,
and that there are also medicines made for animals: it is prescribed
that if draught cattle suffer from hemorrhage, there should be injected
pig's dung in wine; and that for the diseases of oxen suet, native sulphur,
and a decoction of wild garlic, should all be pounded and given in wine,
or else fox fat; that horse flesh thoroughly boiled and taken in drink
cures the diseases of pigs, while those of all quadrupeds are cured by a
she-goat boiled whole with the hide and a bramble toad; that chickens
are not touched by foxes if they have eaten dried fox-liver, or if the cocks
have trodden the hens wearing a piece of fox skin round their necks;
similarly with a weasel's gall; that the oxen in Cyprus eat human excrement
to cure themselves of colic; that the hooves of oxen are not chafed
underneath if the bases of their horns are first rubbed with liquid pitch;
that wolves do not enter a field if one is caught, his legs broken, a knife
driven into the body, the blood sprinkled a little at a time around the
boundaries of that field, and the body itself buried in that place at which
the dragging of it began; or if the share, with which that year the first
furrow of that field was cut, is knocked from the plough and burnt on
the hearth of the Lares where the family assemble, a wolf will harm no
animal in that field so long as the custom is kept up. We will now turn
to animals in a peculiar class by themselves, which are not either tame
or wild.
REMEDIES: FROM BIRDS
A help against snake-bite is also flesh of doves or swallows freshly torn
away, and the feet of a horned owl burnt with the herb plumbago. Speaking
of this bird I will not omit a specimen of Magian fraud, for besides their
other monstrous lies they declare that an horned owl's heart, placed on
the left breast of a sleeping woman, makes her tell all her secrets, and
that men carrying it into battle are made braver by it. From the horned
owl's egg they prescribe recipes for the hair. Now who, I ask, could have
ever looked at a horned owl's egg, when it is portent to have seen the bird
itself? Who in any case could have tried it, particularly on the hair? The
blood, indeed of a horned owl's chick is guaranteed even to curl the hair.
Of much the same kind would seem to be also their stories about the bat:
that if carried alive three times round the house and then fastened head
downwards through the window, it acts as a talisman, and is specifically
such to sheepfolds if carried round them three times and hung up by the
feet over the threshold. Its blood also with thistle the Magi praise as one
of the sovereign remedies for snake-bite.
MAD DOGS AND HYDROPHOBIA
If a person has been bitten by a mad dog, protection from hydrophobia is
given by an application to the wound of ash from the burnt head of a dog.
Now all reduction to ash (that I may describe it once for all) should be
carried out in the following way: a new earthen vessel is covered all over
with clay and so put into a furnace. The same method is also good when
the ash is to be taken in drink. Some have prescribed as a cure eating a
dog's head. Others too have used as an amulet a worm from a dead dog,
or placed in a cloth under the cup the sexual fluid of a bitch, or have
rubbed into the wound the ash from the hair under the tail of the mad
dog itself. Dogs run away from one who carries a dog's heart, and indeed
do not bark if a dog's tongue is placed in the shoe under the big toe, or at
those who carry the severed tail of a weasel which has afterwards been
set free. Under the tongue of a mad dog is a slimy saliva, which given in
drink prevents hydrophobia, but much the most useful remedy is the liver
of the dog that bit in his madness to be eaten raw, if that can be done, if
it cannot, cooked in any way, or a broth must be made from the boiled
flesh. There is a little worm on the tongue of dogs which the Greeks call
lytta (madness), and if this is taken away when they are baby puppies
they neither go mad nor lose their appetite. It is also carried three times
round fire and given to those bitten by a mad dog to prevent their going
mad. The brains of poultry are an antidote, but to swallow them gives
protection for that year only. They say that it is also efficacious to apply
to the wound a cock's comb pounded up, or goose grease with honey.
The flesh of dogs that have gone mad is also preserved in salt to be used
for the same purposes given in food. Puppies too of the same sex as the
bitten patient are immediately drowned and their livers swallowed raw.
An application in vinegar of poultry dung, if it is red, is also of advantage,
or the ash of a shrew-mouse's tail (but the mutilated animal must be set
free alive), an application in vinegar of a bit of earth from a swallow's nest,
of the chicks of a swallow reduced to ash, or the skin or cast slough of
snakes, pounded in wine with a male crab; for by it even when put away
by itself in chests and cupboards they kill moths. So great is the virulence
of this plague that even the urine of a mad dog does harm if trodden on,
especially to those who are suffering from sores. A remedy is an application
of horse dung sprinkled with vinegar and warmed in a fig. Less surprised
at all this will be one who remembers that "a dog will bite a stone thrown
at him" has become a proverb to describe quarrelsomeness. It is said that
he who voids his own urine on that of a dog will suffer numbness in his
loins. The lizard called seps by some and chalcis by others, if taken in wine
is a cure for its own bites.
EYELASHES
A crow's brain taken in food is said to make eyelashes grow, and also
wool grease and myrrh applied with a warmed probe. We are assured
that the same result is obtained by taking the ash of flies and of mouse
dung in equal quantities, so that the weight of the whole amounts to half a
denarius, then adding two-sixths of a denarius of antimony and applying
all with wool grease; or one may use baby mice beaten up in old wine
to the consistency of an anodyne salve. When inconvenient hairs in the
eyelashes have been plucked out they are prevented from growing again
by the gall of a hedgehog, the fluid part of a spotted lizard's eggs, the
ash of a salamander, the gall of a green lizard in white wine condensed
by sunshine to the consistency of honey in a copper vessel, the ash of a
swallow's young added to the milky juice of tithymallus and the slime
of snails.
REMEDIES FOR THE TEETH
Toothache is also cured, the Magi tell us, by the ash of the burnt heads
without any flesh of dogs that have died of madness, which must be
dropped in cypress oil through the ear on the side where the pain is; also
by the left eye-tooth of a dog, the aching tooth being scraped round with
it; by one of the vertebrae of the draco or of the enhydris, the serpent being
a white male. With this eye-tooth they scrape all round the painful one,
or they make an amulet of two upper teeth, when the pain is in the upper
jaw, using lower teeth for the lower jaw. With its fat they rub hunters
of the crocodile. They also scrape teeth with bones extracted from the
forehead of a lizard at a full moon, without their touching the earth. They
rinse the mouth with a decoction of dog's teeth in wine, boiled down to
one-half. The ash of these teeth with honey helps children who are slow
in teething. A dentifrice also is made with the same ingredients. Hollow
teeth are stuffed with the ash of mouse dung or with dried lizard's liver.
A snake's heart, eaten or worn as an amulet, is considered efficacious.
There are among them some who recommend a mouse to be chewed up
twice a month to prevent aches. Earthworms, boiled down in oil and
poured into the ear on the side where there is pain, afford relief. These
also, reduced to ash and plugged into decayed teeth, force them to fall out
easily, and applied to sound teeth relieve any pain in them. They should
be burnt, however, in an earthen pot. They also benefit if boiled down
in squill vinegar with the root of a mulberry tree, so as to make a wash
for the teeth. The maggot also, which is found on the plant called Venus'
Bath, plugged into hollow teeth, is wonderfully good. But they fall out
at the touch of the cabbage caterpillar, and the bugs from the mallow
are poured into the ears with rose oil. The little grains of sand, that are
found in the horns of snails, if put into hollow teeth, free them at once
from pain. Empty snail shells, reduced to ash and myrrh added, are good
for the gums, as is the ash of a serpent burnt with salt in an earthen pot,
poured with rose oil into the opposite ear, or the slough of a snake with
oil and pitch-pine resin warmed and poured into either ear - some add
frankincense and rose oil-and if put into hollow teeth it also makes
them fall out without trouble. I think it an idle tale that white snakes
cast their slough about the rising of the Dog Star, since the casting has
been seen in Italy before the rising, and in warm regions it is much less
probable for sloughing to be so late. But they say that this slough, even
when dry, combined with wax forces out teeth very quickly. A snake's
tooth also, worn as an amulet, relieves toothache. There are some who
think that a spider also is beneficial, the animal itself, caught with the left
hand, beaten up in rose oil, and poured into the ear on the side of the pain.
The little bones of hens have been kept hanging on the wall of a room with
the gullet intact; if a tooth is touched, or the gum scraped, and the bone
thrown away, they assure us that the pain at once disappears, as it does
if a raven's dung, wrapped in wool, is worn as an amulet, or if sparrows'
dung is warmed with oil and poured into the ear nearer the pain. This
however causes unbearable itching, and so it is better to rub the part with
vinegar and the ash of a sparrow's nestlings burnt on twigs.
COLDS, ETC.
I find that a heavy cold clears up if the sufferer kisses a mule's muzzle.
Pain in the uvula and in the throat is relieved by the dung, dried in shade,
of lambs that have not yet eaten grass, uvula pain by applying the juice of
a snail transfixed by a needle, so that the snail itself may be hung up in
the smoke, and by the ash of swallows with honey. This also gives relief
to aff ections of the tonsils. Gargling with ewe's milk is a help to tonsils
and throat, as is a multipede beaten up, gargling with pigeon's dung and
raisin wine, and also an external application of it with dried fig and soda.
Sore throat and a running cold are relieved by snails-they should be
boiled unwashed, and with only the earth taken off crushed and given
to drink in raisin wine; some hold that the snails of Astypalaea are the
most efficacious-by their ash, and also by rubbing with a cricket or if
anybody touches the tonsils with hands that have crushed a cricket.
MAGICAL CURES
For brain-fever appears to be beneficial a sheep's lung wrapped warm
round the patient's head. But who could give to one delirious the brain
of a mouse to be taken in water, or the ash of a weasel, or even the dried
flesh of a hedgehog, even if the treatment were bound to be successful?
As for the eyes of the horned owl reduced to ash, I should be inclined
to count this remedy as one of the frauds with which magicians mock
mankind, and it is especially in fevers that true medicine is opposed
to the doctrines of the quacks. For they have actually divided the art
according to the passing of the sun, and also that of the moon, through
the twelve signs of the Zodiac. That the whole theory should be rejected
I will show by a few examples. If the sun is passing through Gemini, they
recommend the sick to be rubbed with the combs, ears, and claws of cocks,
burnt and pounded with oil; if it is the moon, the cocks' spurs and wattles
must be used. If either sun or moon is passing through Virgo, grains of
barley must be used; if through Sagittarius, a bat's wing; if the moon is
passing through Leo, leaves of tamarisk, and they add that it must be the
cultivated shrub; if through Aquarius, boxwood charcoal, pounded. Of
these remedies I shall include only those recognized, or at least thought
probable: for example, to rouse the victims of lethargus by pungent smells,
among which perhaps I would put the dried testicles of a weasel or the
fumes of his burnt liver. For these patients also they consider it useful
to wrap round the head the warm lung of a sheep.
BURNS
Burns are treated with ash of a dog's head, the ash of dormice and oil,
sheep dung and wax, the ash of mice; with the ash of snails so well that
not even a scar is to be seen, with viper fat, and with the ash of pigeon's
dung applied in oil.
FRACTURES
For fractures of the joints a specific is the ash of a sheep's thighs with
wax - this medicament is more efficacious if there are burnt with the
thighs the sheep's jawbones and a deer's horn, and the wax is softened with
rose oil - specific for broken bones is a dog's brain, spread on a linen cloth,
over which is placed wool, occasionally moistened underneath (with oil).
In about fourteen days it unites the broken parts, as does quite as quickly
the ash of a field-mouse with honey, or that of earth-worms, which also
extracts fragments of bone.
SCARS AND SKIN DISEASES
Scars are restored to the natural colour by the lungs of sheep, particularly
of rams, by their suet in soda, by the ash of a green lizard, by a snake's
slough boiled down in wine, and by pigeon's dung with honey; the last in
wine does the same for both kinds of white vitiligo; for vitiligo cantharides
also with two parts of rue leaves. These must be kept on in the sun until
the skin is violently irritated; then there must be fomentation and rubbing
with oil, followed by another application. This treatment should be
repeated for several days, but deep ulceration must be guarded against. For
vitiligo of all kinds they also recommend the application of flies with root
of eupatoria, or the white part of hens' dung kept in old oil in a horn box,
or bat's blood, or hedgehog's gall in water. Itch scab however is relieved
by the brain of a horned owl with saltpeter, but best of all by dog's blood,
and pruritus by the small, broad, kind of snail, crushed and applied.
REMEDIES FOR SLEEP
Sleep is induced by wool grease with a morsel of myrrh diluted in two
cyathi of wine, or else with goose grease and myrtle wine, by the cuckoo
bird in a piece of hare's fur worn as an amulet, or by a heron's beak worn
as an amulet on the forehead in a piece of ass's hide. It is thought too that
the beak of the heron by itself rinsed in wine has the same effect. Sleep is
kept away, on the contrary, by a dried bat's head worn as an amulet.
APHRODISIACS, ETC.
A lizard drowned in a man's urine is antaphrodisiac to him who passed it,
but the Magi claim that it is a love-philtre. Antaphrodisiac too are snails,
and pigeon's dung taken with oil and wine. Aphrodisiac for men are the
right parts of a vulture's lung, worn as an amulet in a piece of crane's
skin; aphrodisiac also are the yolks of five pigeons' eggs mixed with a
denarius by weight of pig fat and swallowed in honey, sparrows or their
eggs in food, or the right testicle of a cock worn as an amulet in a piece of
ram's-skin. They say that rubbing with ibis ash, goose grease and iris oil
prevent miscarriage when there has been conception; that desire on the
contrary is inhibited if a fighting cock's testicles are rubbed with goose
grease and worn as an amulet in a ram's skin, as it also is if with a cock's
blood any cock's testicles are placed under the bed. Women unwilling to
conceive are forced to do so by hairs from the tail of a she-mule, pulled
out during the animal copulation and entwined during the human. A
man who passes his urine on a dog's is said to become less sexually
active. A wonderful thing again (if it is true) is told about the ash of the
spotted lizard: if wrapped in a linen cloth and held in the left hand it is
aphrodisiac; if transferred to the right hand it is antaphrodisiac. Another
wonder: the blood of a bat, collected on a flock of wool and placed under
the heads of women, moves them to lust, as does the tongue of a goose,
taken either in food or in drink.
