512 PLi:srY'3 t^atural histort. [Book XXXI. 



being tightly bandaged with linen cloths, first dipped^^ in 

 vinegar. It is taken internally, with hydromel, to neutralize 

 the effects of opium, and is applied topically, with meal and 

 honey, to sprains and fleshy excrescences. In cases of tooth- 

 ache, it is used as a collutory with vinegar, and is very useful, 

 applied externally, with resin. Eor all these purposes, however, 

 froth of salt^' is found to be more agreeable and still more 

 efficacious. Still, however, every kind of salt is good as an 

 ingredient in acopa,^^ when warming properties are required : 

 the same, too, in the case of detersive applications, when re- 

 quired for plumping out and giving a smooth surface to the 

 skin. Employed topically, salt is curative of itch- scab in sheep 

 and cattle, for which disease it is given them to lick. It is 

 injected, also, with the spittle, into the eyes of beasts of burden. 

 Thus much with reference to salt. 



CHAP. 46. (10.)— THE VAEIOTJS KINDS OP NITEtJM, THE METHODS 

 OF PREPARINO IT, AND THE REMEDIES DERIVED FROM IT : TWO 

 HUNDRED AND TWENTY-ONE OBSERVATIONS THEREON. 



And here we must no longer defer giving an account of 

 nitrum f^ which in its properties does not greatly differ from 

 salt, and deserves all the more to be attentively considered, 

 from the evident fact that the medical men who have written 

 upon it were ignorant of its nature ; of all which authors 

 Theophrastus is the one that has given the greatest attention to 

 the point. It is found in small quantities in Media, in certain 

 valleys there that are white with heat and drought ; the name 

 given to it being '* halmyrax."^^ In Thracia, too, near Philippi, 



^1 "Ita ut batuerentur ante." From the corresponding passage in 

 Dioscorides, where the expression Bairroixfvoi tit; b^og is used, it would 

 appear tliat the proper word here is " baptizarentur ;" or possibly, a lost 

 Gra3C0-Latin word, " bapterentur." Littre suggests " hebetarentur," "the 

 part being first numbed " by the aid of a bandage. 



^' " Spuma salis." Collected from the foam on the sea-shore. 



63 See Note 36, above, p. 507. 



61 Eeckmann, who devotes several pages to a consideration of the " ni- 

 trum " of the ancients, considers it not to be our " nitre," or *' saltpetre," 

 but a general name for impure alkaline salts. See his Hist. Inv. Vol. II. 

 pp. 490 — 503, Bohns Ed. Ajasson, without hesitation, pronounces it to 

 be nitrate of potash, neither more or less than our saltpetre, and quotes a 

 statement from Andreossy, that it is still to be found in great quantities 

 at Mount Ptou-Ampihosem, near the city of Pihosem, called Nitria by 

 St. Jerome. ^^ "Salt bursting from the earth." 



