116 PLINY'3 NATUEAL HISTOET. [Book XXXIII. 



the brain; and, sprinkled in the form of a powder, it is extremely 

 efficacious for the cure of recent wounds and bites of dogs which 

 have been some time inflicted. For the cure of burns it is re- 

 markably good, mixed with grease, litharge,^® ceruse, and wax. 

 The method of preparing it, is to burn it, enclosed in a 

 coat of cow- dung, in a furnace ; which done, it is quenched 

 with woman's milk, and pounded with rain-water in a mortar.^' 

 While this is doing, the thick and turbid part is poured off 

 from time to time into a copper vessel, and purified with nitre. -^^ 

 The lees of it, which are rejected, are recognized by their 

 being full of lead and falling to the bottom. The vessel into 

 which the turbid part has been poured off, is then covered 

 with a linen cloth and left untouched for a night ; the portion 

 that lies upon the surface being poured off the following day, 

 or else removed with a sponge. The part that has fallen to 

 the bottom of the vessel is regarded as the choicest^^ part, and 

 is left, covered with a linen cloth, to dry in the sun, but not 

 to become parched. This done, it is again pounded in a 

 mortar, and then divided into tablets. But the main thing of 

 all is, to observe such a degree of nicety in heating it, as not 

 to let it become lead.^^ Some persons, when preparing it on 

 the fire, use grease^^ instead of dung. Others, again, bruise it 

 in water and then pass it through a triple strainer of linen 

 cloth ; after which, they reject the lees, and pour off the 

 remainder of the liquid, collecting all that is deposited at the 

 bottom, and using it as an ingredient in plasters and eye-salves. 



CHAP. 35. — THE SCOEIA OF SILVEE. SIX EEMEDIES DEErVEDFEOM IT. 



The scoria of silver is called by the Greeks *' helcysma."^* 



28 " Spuma argenti." See the next Chapter. 



29 According to Dioscorides, it was prepared as a cosmetic by enclosing 

 it in a lump of dough, and then burning it in the coals till reduced to a 

 cinder. It was then extinguished with milk and wine, and again placed 

 upon coals, and blown till ignition. 



^" As to the "nitrum" of the ancients, see B, xxxi. c. 46. 



51 " Flos"— literally the " flower." 



32 u Yvom this passage we may infer that the metal antimony was occa- 

 sionally seen by the ancients, though not recognized by them as distinct 

 from lead." — Dana's System of Mineralogy, p. 418. New York, 1850. 



^^ Pliny has here mistaken the sense of the word ariap, which in the 

 passage of Dioscorides, B. v. c. 99, borrowed probably from the same 

 source, evidently means dough, and not grease. 



•^^ From 6Xkw, "to drag" — in consequence of its viscous consistency, 

 Hardouin says. 



