322 PLINY'S NATUKAL HISTORY. [Book XXVIIL 



with chafing of the rectum at stool. It is considered a sove- 

 reign remedy for hardness of breathing, to take cows' milk 

 whey, mixed with nasturtium. In cases of ophthalmia, too, the 

 eyes are fomented with a mixture of one semisextarius of 

 milk and four drachmae of pounded sesame. 



Goats' milk is a cure for diseases of the spleen ; but in such 

 case the goats must fast a couple of days, and be fed on ivy- 

 leaves the third ; the patient, too, must drink the milk for three 

 consecutive days, without taking any other nutriment. Milk, 

 under other circumstances, is detrimental to persons suffering 

 from head-ache, liver complaints, diseases of the spleen, and 

 affections of the sinews ; it is bad for fevers, also, vertigo 

 except, indeed, where it is required as a purgative oppression of 

 the head, coughs, and ophthalmia. Sows' milk is extremely use- 

 ful in cases of tenesmus, dysentery, and phthisis ; authors have 

 been found too, to assert that it is very wholesome for females. 



CHAP. 34. TWELVE KEMEDIES DERIVED FKOM CHEESE. 



"We have already 77 spoken of the different kinds of cheese 

 when treating of the mamillae and other parts of animals. 

 Sextius attributes the same properties to mares' milk cheese 

 that he does to cheese made of cows' milk : to the former he 

 gives the names of " hippace." Cheese is best for the sto- 

 mach when not salted, or, in other words, when new cheese is 

 used. Old [salted] cheese has a binding effect upon the 

 bowels, and reduces the flesh, but is more wholesome to 

 the stomach [than new salted cheese]. Indeed, we may pro- 

 nounce of aliments in general, that salt meats reduce the system, 

 while fresh food has a tendency to make flesh. Fresh cheese, 

 applied with honey, effaces the marks of bruises. It acts, 

 also, emolliently upon the bowels ; and, taken in the form of 

 tablets, boiled in astringent wine and then toasted with honey on 

 a platter, it modifies and alleviates griping pains in the bowels. 



The cheese known as " saprurn," 78 is beaten up, in wine, with 

 salt and dried sorb apples, and taken in drink, for the cure of 

 cceliac affections. Goats' milk cheese, pounded and applied to 

 the part affected, is a cure for carbuncle of the generative organs; 

 sour cheese, also, with oxymel, is productive of a similar effect. 

 In the bath it is used as a friction, alternately with oil, for the 

 removal of spots. 



77 In B. xi, c. 97. 78 From the Greek vaTrpbv, "rotten" cheese. 



79 Like our cream cheese, or new milk cheese, probably. 



