Chap. 33.] MEDICINAL USES OF MILK. 321 



the following being the usual method of preparing it. Goats' 

 milk, which is used in preference for the purpose, is boiled in 

 a new earthen vessel, and stirred with branches of a fig-tree 

 newly gathered, as many cyathi of honied wine being added to 

 it as there are semisextarii of milk. When the mixture boils, 

 care is taken to prevent it running over, by plunging into it a 

 silver cyathus measure filled with cold water, none of the water 

 being allowed to escape. When taken off the fire, the constitu- 

 ent parts of it divide as it cools, and the whey is thus separated 

 from the milk. Some persons, again, take this whey, which is 

 now very strongly impregnated with wine, and, after boiling 

 it down to one third, leave it to cool in the open air. The 

 best way of taking it, is in doses of one semisextarius, at stated 

 intervals, during five consecutive days ; after taking it, riding 

 exercise should be used by the patient. This whey is admi- 

 nistered in cases of epilepsy, melancholy, paralysis, leprosy, 

 elephantiasis, and diseases of the joints. 



Milk is employed as an injection where excoriations have 

 been caused by the use of strong purgatives ; in cases also 

 where dysentery is productive of chafing, it is similarly em-, 

 ployed, boiled with sea pebbles or a ptisan of barley. Where, 

 however, the intestines are excoriated, cows' milk or ewes' 

 milk is the best. New milk is used as an injection for dysen- 

 tery ; and in an unboiled state, it is employed for affections of 

 the colon and uterus, and for injuries inflicted by serpents. It 

 is also taken internally as an antidote to the venom of cantha- 

 rides, the pine -caterpillar, the buprestis, and the salamander. 

 Cows' milk is particularly recommended for persons who have 

 taken colchicum, hemlock, dorycnium, 75 or the flesh of the sea- 

 hare; and asses' milk, in cases where gypsum, white-lead, 

 sulphur, 76 or quick-silver, have been taken internally. This 

 last is good too for constipation attendant upon fever, and is 

 remarkably useful as a gargle for ulcerations of the throat. It 

 is taken, also, internally, by patients suffering from atrophy, for 

 the purpose of recruiting their exhausted strength ; as also in 

 cases of fever unattended with head-ache. The ancients held 

 it as one of their grand secrets, to administer to children, before 

 taking food, a semisextarius of asses' milk, or for want of that, 

 goats' milk ; a similar dose, too, was given to children troubled 



75 See B. xxi. c. 105. 



76 He perhaps means a sulphate, and not sulphur, which is harmless. 

 VOL. V. Y 



