I 



Cliup. 47 ] KEMOVAL OF SUPERFLUOUS HAIR. 65 



to the patient to smell at with pitch and vinegar, or else it is 

 made up into tablets and used as a pessary. For the purpose 

 also of bringing away the afterbirth it is found a useful plan 

 to employ castoreum with panax,^^ in four cyathi of wine; 

 and in cases where the patient is suffering from cold, in doses 

 of three oboli. If, however, a female in a state of pregnancy 

 should happen to step over castoreum, or over the beaver itself, 

 abortion, it is said, will be the sure result : so, too, if casto- 

 reum is only held over a pregnant woman's head, there will be 

 great danger of miscarriage. 



There is a very marvellous fact, too, that I find stated in 

 reference to the torpedo :^'^ if it is caught at the time that the 

 moon is in Libra, and kept in the open air for three days, it 

 will always facilitate parturition, as often as it is introduced 

 into the apartment of a woman in labour. The sting, too, of 

 the pastinaca,^^ attached to the navel, is generally thought to 

 have the property of facilitating delivery : it must be taken, 

 however, from the fish while alive ; which done, the fish must 

 be returned to the sea. I find it stated by some authorities that 

 there is a substance called '' ostraceum," which is also spoken 

 of as " onyx "^^ by others ; that, used as a fumigation, it is 

 wonderfully beneficial for suffocations of the uterus ; that in 

 smell it resembles castoreum, and is still more efficacious, if 

 burnt with this last substance ; and that in a calcined state it 

 has the property of healing inveterate ulcers, and cancerous 

 sores of a malignant nature. As to carbuncles and carcino- 

 matous sores upon the secret parts of females, there is nothing 

 more efficacious, it is said, than a female crab beaten up, just 

 after full moon, with flower of salt^' and applied with water. 



CHAP. 47. METHODS OF REMOVING SUPERFLUOUS HAIR. 



DEPILATORIES. 



Depilatories are prepared from the blood, gall, and liver of the 

 tunny, either fresh or preserved ; as also from pounded liver of 

 the same fish, preserved with cedar resin^* in a leaden box; a re- 



89 See B. xii. c. 57. so See B. ix. cc. 24, 48, 74, 75. 



^1 Or sting-ray. See B. ix. c. 72. 



^ The callosity is here meant, Hardouin supposes, which covers the 

 purple in the shell. See Chapter 41 of this Book. 

 ^'^ " Salis flore." See B. xxxi. c. 42. 

 ^* " Cedrium." See B. xvi. c. 21, and B, xxiv. c. 11. 



