Cliap. 39.] SUMMARY. 419 



There is a third kind, again, odious for its abominable smell, 

 and tapering at the posterior extremities. Used in combina- 

 tion with pisselaeon,^^ it is curative, they say, of ulcers of a 

 desperate nature, and, if kept applied for one-and-twenty days, 

 for scrofulous sores and inflamed tumours. The legs and wings 

 being first removed, it is employed for the cure of bruises, contu- 

 sions, cancerous sores, itch-scabs, and boils — remedies, all of 

 them, quite disgusting even to hear of. And yet, by Hercules 1 

 Diodorus-* tells us that he has administered this remedy inter- 

 nally, with resin and honey, for jaundice and hardness of 

 breathing ; such unlimited power has the medical art to pre- 

 scribe as a remedy whatever it thinks fit I 



Physicians who keep more within bounds, recommend the 

 ashes of these insects to be kept for these various purposes in a 

 box made of horn; or else that they should be bruised and injected 

 in a lavement for hardness of breathing and catarrhs. At all 

 events, that, applied externally, they extract foreign substances 

 adhering to the flesh, is a fact well known. 



Honey, too, in which the bees have died, is remarkably use- 

 ful for affections of the ears. Pigeons' dung, applied by itself, 

 or with barley-meal or oat-meal, reduces imposthumes of the 

 parotid glands ; a result which is equally obtained by injecting 

 into the ear an owlet's brains or liver, mixed with oil, or by • 

 applying the mixture to the parotid glands ; also, by applying 

 millepedes with one-third part of resin ; by using crickets in the 

 form of a liniment ; or by wearing crickets attached to the body 

 as an amulet. The other kinds of maladies, and the several 

 remedies for them, derived from the same animals or from others 

 of the same class, we shall describe in the succeeding Book. 



SuMMAKY. — Remedies, narratives, and observations, six 

 hundred and twenty-one. 



Roman atjthoes quoted. — M. Varro,-^ L. Piso,^^ Flaccus 

 Yerrius,^'' Antias,-^ Nigidius,^^ Cassius Hemina,^" Cicero,'*^ 

 Plautus,^- Celsus,^^ Sextius Niger^^ who wrote in Greek, Caeci- 



23 See B. xxiv. c. 11. ^^ See the end of this Book. 



25 See end of B. ii. "^ See end of B. ii. 27 g^g end of B. ill. 



'^^ See end of B. ii. ^9 g^e end of B. vi. 3" See end of B. xii. 



^' See end of B. vii. '- See end of B. xiv. ^^ See end of B. vii. 



*^ See end of B. xii. 



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