294 plint's natural history. [Book XXVIII. 



of speecli — that is quite certain.^* For the cure of inguinal 

 tumours, some persons take the thrum of an old web, and after 

 tying seven or nine knots in it, mentioning at each knot the 

 name of some widow woman or other, attach it to the part 

 affected. To assuage the pain of a wound, they recommend 

 the party to take a nail or any other substance that has been 

 trodden under foot, and to wear it, attached to the body with 

 the thrum of a web. To get rid of warts, some lie in a 

 footpath with the face upwards, when the moon is twenty days 

 old at least, and after fixing their gaze upon it, extend their 

 arms above the head, and rub themselves with anything 

 within their reach. If a person is extracting a com at the 

 moment that a star shoots, he will experience an immediate 

 cure,^^ they say. By pouring vinegar upon the hinges of a 

 door, a thick liniment is formed, which, applied to the fore- 

 head, will alleviate headache : an effect equally produced, we 

 are told, by binding the temples with a halter with which a 

 man has been hanged. When a fish-bone happens to stick in 

 the throat, it will go down immediately, if the person plunges 

 his feet into cold water ; but where the accident has happened 

 with any other kind of bone, the proper remedy is to apply 

 to the head some fragments of bones taken from the same dish. 

 In cases where bread has stuck in the throat, the best plan is 

 to take some of the same bread, and insert it in both ears. 



CHAP. 13. REMEDIES DERIVED FROM THE HUMAN EXCRETIONS. 



In Greece, where everything is turned to account, the 

 owners of the gymnasia have introduced the very excretions^^ 

 even of the human body among the most efficient remedies ; 

 so much so, indeed, that the scrapings from the bodies of the 

 athletes are looked upon as possessed of certain properties of 

 an emollient, calorific, resolvent, and expletive nature, re- 

 sulting from the compound of human sweat and oil. These 

 scrapings are used, in the form of a pessary, for inflammations 

 and contractions of the uterus : similarly employed, they act 

 as an emmenagogue, and are useful for reducing condylomata 

 and inflammations of the rectum, as also for assuaging pains 



9* The " constat " here, whether it belongs to the magicians, or to Pliny 

 himself, is highly amusing, as Ajasson remarks. 



95 Sillig appears to be right in his conjecture that the "vel" here 

 should be omitted. ^^ See B. xv. c. 5. 



