Cr;ap. 27-] VINEGAR. 479 



as a gargle, it is found by many to be very wholesome to the 

 stomach, particularly convalescents and persons suffering from 

 sun-stroke ; used as a fomentation, too, this mixture is ex- 

 tremely beneficial to the eyes. Vinegar is used remedially 

 when a leech has been swallowed ; 20 and it has the property of 

 healing leprous sores, 21 scorbutic eruptions, running ulcers, 

 wounds inflicted by dogs, scorpions, and scolopendra3, and the 

 bite of the shrew-mouse. It is good, too, as a preventive of the 

 itching sensations produced by the venom of all stinging ani- 

 mals, and as an antidote to the bite of the millepede. 



Applied warm in a sponge, in the proportion of three sex- 

 tarii to two ounces of sulphur or a bunch of hyssop, vinegar 

 is a remedy for maladies of the fundament. To arrest the 

 haemorrhage which ensues upon the operation 22 of lithotomy, 

 and, indeed, all other operations of a similar nature, it is usual 

 to apply vinegar in a sponge, and at the same time to admin- 

 ister it internally in doses of two cyathi, the very strongest 

 possible being employed. Vinegar has the effect also of 

 dissolving coagulated blood ; for the cure of lichens, it is used 

 both internally and externally. Used as an injection, it ar- 

 rests looseness of the bowels and fluxes of the intestines ; it is 

 similarly employed, too, for procidence of the rectum and uterus. 



Vinegar acts as a cure for inveterate coughs, defluxions of 

 the throat, hardness of breathing, and looseness of the teeth : 

 but it acts injuriously upon the bladder and the sinews, when 

 relaxed. Medical men were for a long time in ignorance how 

 beneficial vinegar is for the sting of the asp ; for it was only 

 recently that a man, while carrying a bladder 23 of vinegar, hap- 

 pening to be stung by an asp upon which he trod, found to his 

 surprise that whenever he put down the bladder he felt the sting, 

 but that when he took it up again, he seemed as though he 

 had never been hurt ; a circumstance which at once suggested 

 to him the remedial properties of the vinegar, upon drinking 

 some of which he experienced a cure. It is with vinegar, too, 



20 There is little doubt that it would be advantageous to employ vinegar 

 in such a case ; the animal would be compelled to withdraw its hold, and 

 vomiting would be facilitated. Strong salt and water, Fee thinks, would 

 be still more efficacious. 



21 It would be of no use whatever, Fee thinks, in any of these cases. 



22 An operation which, though known to the Greeks and Romans, ap- 

 pears to have been completely lost sight of in the middle ages. 



K Or leather bag, "utrem." 



