406 flint's natukal histoet. [Book XXIX. 



There is a small worm^^ in a dog's tongue, known as "lytta"'" 

 to the Greeks : if this is removed from the animal while a 

 pup, it will never become mad or lose its appetite. This worm, 

 after being carried thrice round a fire, is given to persons who 

 have been bitten by a mad dog, to prevent them from becom- 

 ing mad. This madness, too, is prevented by eating a cock's 

 brains ; but the virtue of these brains lasts for one year only, 

 and no more. They say, too, that a cock's comb, pounded, is 

 highly efficacious as an application to the wound ; as also, 

 goose-grease, mixed with honey. The flesh also of a mad 

 dog is sometimes salted, and taken with the food, as a remedy 

 for this disease. In addition to this, young puppies of the 

 same sex as the dog that has inflicted the injury, are drowned 

 in water, and the person who has been bitten eats their liver 

 raw. The dung of poultry, provided it is of a red colour, is 

 very useful, applied with vinegar ; the ashes, too, of the tail 

 of a shrew-mouse, if the animal has survived and been set at 

 liberty; a clod from a swallow's nest, applied with vinegar; 

 the young of a swallow, reduced to ashes ; or the skin or old 

 slough of a serpent that has been cast in spring, beaten up 

 with a male crab in wine : this slough, I would remark, put 

 away by itself in chests and drawers, destroys moths. 



So virulent is the poison of the mad dog, that its very urine 

 even, if trod upon, is injurious, more particularly if the person 

 has any ulcerous sores about him. The proper remedy in such 

 case is to apply horse- dung, sprinkled with vinegar, and warmed 

 in a fig. These marvellous properties of the poison will occa- 

 sion the less surprise, when we remember that, *' a stone bitten 

 by a dog " has become a proverbial expression for discord and 

 variance.''^ Whoever makes water where a dog has previ- 

 ously watered, will be sensible of numbness in the loins, they 

 say. 



^^ This is still the vulgar notion ; but in reality there is no worm, but 

 certain white pustules beneath the tongue, which break spontaneously at 

 the end of twelve days after birth. Puppies are still " wormed," as it is 

 called, as a preventive of hydrophobia, it is said, and of a propensity to 

 gnaw objects which corae in their way. The " worming " consists in the 

 breaking of these pustules. ""^ " Rage " or " madness.'' 



■'^ " For the manner of a dog is to bee angrie with the stone that is 

 thrown at him, without regard to the partie that flung it, whereupon grew 

 the proverb in Greeke, kvojv tiQ top XiQov ayavaKTovaa ('A dog venting 

 bis rage upon a stone.')" — Holland. ■ 



