Chap. 23.] REMEDIES FOE DISEASES OF THE FEET. 447 



CHAP. 23. (9.) REMEDIES FOE GOUT AND FOR DISEASES OF THE 



FEET. 



To prevent varicose veins, the legs of children are rubbed 

 with a lizard's blood : but both the party who operates and the 

 patient must be fasting at the time. "Wool- grease, mixed with 

 woman's milk and white lead, has a soothing effect upon gout ; 

 the liquid dung also voided by sheep ; a sheep's lights ; a 

 ram's gall, mixed with suet ; mice, split asunder and applied ; 

 a weasel's blood, used as a liniment with plantago; the ashes 

 of a weasel burnt alive, mixed with vinegar and oil of roses, 

 and applied with a feather, or used in combination with wax 

 and oil of roses ; a dog's gall, due care being taken not to touch 

 it with the hand, and to apply it with a feather ; poultry dung ; 

 or else ashes of burnt earth-worms, applied with honey, and 

 removed at the end of a couple of days. Some, however, pre- 

 fer using this last with water, while others, again, apply the 

 worms themselves, in the proportion of one acetabulums^ to 

 three cyathi of honey, the feet of the patient being first anointed 

 with oil of roses. The broad, flat, kind of snail, taken in drink, 

 is used for the removal of pains in the feet and joints ; two of 

 them being pounded for the purpose and taken in wine. They 

 are employed, also, in the form of a liniment, mixed with the 

 juice of the plant helxine:^^ some, however, are content to 

 beat up the snails with vinegar. Some say that salt, burnt 

 in a new earthen vessel with a viper, and taken repeatedly, is 

 curative of gout, and that it is an excellent plan to rub the 

 feet with viper's fat. It is asserted, too, that similar results 

 are produced by keeping a kite till it is dry, and then powder- 

 ing it and taking it in water, a pinch in three fingers at a 

 time ; by rubbing the feet with the blood of that bird mixed 

 with nettles ; or b}'- bruising the first feathers of a ring-dove 

 with nettles. The dung of ring-doves is used as a liniment 

 for pains in the joints; the ashes also of a burnt weasel, or 

 of burnt snails, mixed with amylum''' or gum tragacanth. 



A very excellent cure for contusions of the joints is a spider's 

 web ; but there are persons who give the preference to ashes 

 of burnt cobwebs or of burnt pigeons' dung, mixed with 

 polenta and white wine. Por sprains of the joints a sovereign 



'5 " Acetabuli mensura " seems a preferable reading to " aceto mensura," 

 which makes no sense. 



IS JSee B. xii. c. 56. ^' See B. sviii. c. 17. 



