392 pliny's natueal history. [Book XXIX. 



dicinal uses of the dog which are marvellously commended, I 

 shall have occasion to refer to on the appropriate occasions. 



CHAP. 15. KEMEDIES CLASSIFIED ACCOEDING TO THE DIEFERENT 



MALADIES. REMEDIES FOR INJURIES INFLICTED BY SERPENTS. 

 REMEDIES DERIVED FROM MICE. 



We will now resume the order originally proposed.^ For 

 stings inflicted by serpents fresh sheeps'-dung, boiled in wine, 

 is considered a very useful application : as also mice split 

 asunder and applied to the wound. Indeed, these last animals 

 are possessed of certain properties by no means to be despised, 

 at the ascension of the plane.ts more particularly, as already^ 

 stated ; the lobes increasing or decreasing in number, with the 

 age of the moon, as the case may be. The magicians have a 

 story that swine will follow any person who gives them a 

 mouse's liver to eat, enclosed in a fig : they say, too, that it 

 has a similar effect upon man, but that the spell may be de- 

 stroyed by swallowing a cyathus of oil. 



CHAP. 16. REMEDIES DERIVED FROM THE WEASEL. 



There are two varieties of the weasel ; the one, wild,^ larger 

 than the other, and known to the Greeks as the " ictis :" its 

 gall is said to be very efficacious as an antidote to the sting of 

 the asp, but of a venomous nature in other respects.^' The 

 other kind,^'' which prowls about our houses, and is in the 

 habit, Cicero tells us, " of removing its young ones, and 

 changing every day from place to place, is an enemy to ser- 

 pents. The flesh of this last, preserved in salt, is given, in 

 doses of one denarius, in three cyathi of drink to persons who 

 have been stung by serpents : or else the maw of the animal is 

 stuffed with coriander seed and dried, to be taken for the same 

 purpose in wine. The young one of the weasel is still more 

 efficacious for these purposes. 



CHAP. 17. REMEDIES DERIVED FROM BUGS. 



There are some things, of a most revolting nature, but which 



7 Of remedies classified according to the different maladies. 

 « In B, xi. c. 76, » The ferret, most probably. 



3* See c. 33 of this Book. ^^ The common weasel, 



'^ Probably in his work entitled " Admiranda," now lost. Holland says 

 "some take these for our cats." 



