STRANGE MEDICINES. 761 



juice it heals disepses of the ear, or, with oil, is a remedy for tooth- 

 ache. If a child be epileptic, " draw the brain of a mountain-goat 

 through a golden-ring ; give it to the child to swallow before it tastes 

 milk ; it will be healed." " To get sleep, a goat's horn laid under the 

 head turneth waking into sleep." A goat's horn, roasted and pounded 

 with acid, reduces the inflammation of erysipelas. Goat's grease and 

 blood mingled with barley-meal forms a soothing poultice, while pills 

 of goat's grease and a draught of its blood are recommended for 

 dropsy. 



Many and indescribably disgusting are the o + her remedies derived 

 from the goat. A Brahman, reverentially swallowing a little of each 

 product of the sacred cow, would shrink with loathing from the 

 leechdoms of the early English, so important a place do they assign 

 to preparations of the excrement of divers animals, but chiefly of bulls, 

 of swine, of dogs, and of goats. These, and many other foul ingre- 

 dients are compounded in every conceivable manner, and prescribed 

 not merely for medicinal baths and plasters for external use, but as 

 most unsavory physic for the inner man. 



A less nasty remedy was bull's marrow, administered in wine to 

 check spasms, while its gall was prescribed for divers diseases ; more- 

 over, it was well known that snakes would flee from any place where 

 a bull's horn, burned to ashes, had been sprinkled. 



The brain, lung, and liver of the boar are largely prescribed, 

 while for nausea " boar's suet boiled down, and with boar's foam added 

 thereto, is so sure a remedy that the patient will wonder, and will 

 ween that it be some other leechdom that he drank." A pleasant 

 cure for sleeplessness is to lay a wolf's head under the pillow ; while 

 wolf's flesh, well seasoned, counteracts devil sickness and an ill-sight. 

 A draught of wolf's milk, mingled with wine and honey, was a potent 

 remedy for women in dire suffering ; while an ointment made from 

 the right eye of a wolf was the best prescription that the Saxon oculist 

 could command. The head-bone or skull of a wolf, when burned 

 thoroughly and finely pounded, would heal racking pain in the joints, 

 and the ashes of a swine's jaw are to be laid on the bite of a mad 

 dog. 



Truly valuable was lion's suet, of which it is stated "it relieveth 

 every sore." Elephant bone or ivory, pounded with honey, is an in- 

 fallible cosmetic, removing all blemishes from the face. " For the 

 kingly disease, jaundice, the head of a mad dog, pounded and mingled 

 for a drink with wine, healeth. For cancer, the head of a mad dog, 

 burned to ashes and spread on the sore, healeth the cancer-wounds ; 

 while, for laceration by a mad dog, a hound's head burned to ashes, 

 and thereon applied, casteth out all the venom and the foulness, and 

 healeth the maddening bites." " For pain of teeth, burn to ashes the 

 tusks of a hound ; sprinkle the dust in wine, and let the man drink. 

 The teeth shall be whole." 



