300 PLINY'S NATURAL HISTORY. [Book XXVIII, 



theories with authors, but of various religious observances as 

 well, its properties being classified under several distinctive 

 heads : thus, for instance, the urine of eunuchs, they say, is 

 highly beneficial as a promoter of fruitfulness in females. But 

 to turn to those remedies which we may be allowed to name 

 without impropriety the urine of children who have not 

 arrived at puberty is a sovereign remedy for the poisonous 

 secretions of the asp known as the " ptyas," 18 from the fact 

 that it spits its venom into the eyes of human beings. It is 

 good, too, for the cure of albugo, films and marks upon the 

 eyes, white specks 19 upon the pupils, and maladies of the eye- 

 lids. In combination with meal of fitches, it is used for the 

 cure of burns, and, with a head of bulbed leek, it is boiled 

 down to one half, in a new earthen vessel, for the treatment of 

 suppurations of the ears, or the extermination of worms breed- 

 ing in those organs : the vapour, too, of this decoction acts as 

 an emmenagogue. Salpe recommends that the eyes should 

 be fomented with it, as a means of strengthening the sight ; 

 and that it should be used as a liniment for sun scorches, 

 in combination with white of egg, that of the ostrich being 

 the most effectual, the application being kept on for a couple 

 of hours. 



Urine is also used for taking oat ink spots. Male urine 

 cures gout, witness the fullers for instance, 20 who, for this 

 reason, it is said, are never troubled with that disease. With 

 stale urine some mix ashes of calcined oyster- shells, for the 

 cure of eruptions on the bodies of infants, and all kinds of 

 running ulcers: it is used, too, as a liniment for corrosive sores, 

 burns, diseases of the rectum, chaps upon the body, and stings 

 inflicted by scorpions. The most celebrated inidwives have 

 pronounced that there is no lotion which removes itching sen- 

 sations more effectually ; and, with the addition of nitre, 21 they 

 prescribe it for the cure of ulcers of the head, porrigo, and 

 cancerous sores, those of the generative organs in particular. 

 But the fact is, and there is no impropriety in saying so, that 

 every person's own urine is the best for his own case, due 



18 From the Greek Trruw, " to spit." 



19 Argema." 



30 Who had to use lant, or stale urine, in their business. 

 21 At a future period we shall have to discuss the identity of the 

 "nitrum " of Pliny. See B. xxxi. c. 46. 



