Chap. 14.] EEMEDIES DEPENDING UPON THE WILL. 295 



in the sinews, sprains, and nodosities of the joints. The 

 scrapings obtained from the baths are stiii more efficacious for 

 these purposes, and hence it is that they form an ingredient in 

 maturative* preparations. Such scrapings as are impregnated 

 with wrestlers' oil,^'' used in combination with mud, have a 

 mollifying effect upon the joints, and are more particularly 

 efficacious as a calorific and resolvent ; but in other respects 

 their properties are not so strongly developed. 



The shameless and disgusting researches that have been 

 made will quite transcend all belief, when we find authors of 

 the very highest repute proclaiming aloud that the male 

 seminal fluid is a sovereign remedy for the sting of the scor- 

 pion ! In the case too, of women afflicted with sterility, they 

 recommend the application of a pessary, made of the first 

 excrement that is voided by an infant at the moment of its 

 birth; the name they give it is ** meconium. "^^ They have 

 even gone so far, too, as to scrape the very filth from off the 

 walls of the gymnasia, and to assert that this is also possessed 

 of certain calorific properties. These scrapings are used as a 

 resolvent for inflamed tumours, and are applied topically to 

 ulcers upon aged people and children, and to excoriations and 

 burns. 



CHAP. 14. EEMEDIES DEPENDING UPON THE HUMAN WILL. 



It would be the less becoming then for me to omit all 

 mention of the remedies which depend upon the human will. 

 Total abstinence from food or drink, or from wine only, from 

 flesh, or from the use of the bath, in cases where the health - 

 requires any of these expedients, is looked upon as one of the 

 most effectual modes of treating diseases. To this class of 

 remedies must be added bodily exercise, exertion of the voice, ^ 

 anointings, and frictions according to a prescribed method : 

 for powerful friction, it should be remembered, has a binding 

 effect upon the body, while gentle friction, on the other hand, 

 acts as a laxative ; so too, repeated friction reduces the 

 body, while used in moderation it has a tendency to make 

 flesh. But the most beneficial practice of all is to take walking 



3^ "Ceroma." A mixture of oil and wax. 

 '^ Properly, " poppy juice." 



S9 Or " clara lectio," "reading aloud," as Celsus calls it, recommending 

 it for persons of slow digestion. 



