S38 PLINY'S NATURAL HISTORY. [Book XXVIII. 



and sloughs of serpents, care being taken to warm the ears be- 

 fore the application, and all the remedies being wrapped in 

 wool. Veal-suet, too, is used, with goose-grease and extract of 

 ocimum ; or else veal marrow, mixed with bruised cummin 

 and injected into the ears. For pains in the ears, the liquid 

 ejected by a boar in copulation is used, due care being taken to 

 receive it before it falls to the ground. For fractures of the 

 ears, a glutinous composition is made from the genitals of a 

 calf, which is dissolved in water when used ; and for other 

 diseases of those organs, foxes' fat is employed, goat's gall 

 mixed with rose-oil warmed, or else extracted juice of leeks : 

 in all cases where there is any rupture, these preparations are 

 used in combination with woman's milk. Where a patient is 

 suffering from hardness of hearing, ox- gall is employed, with 

 the urine of a he or she-goat ; the same, too, where there is 

 any suppuration. 



Whatever the purpose for which they are wanted, it is the 

 general opinion that these substances are more efficacious when 

 they have been smoked in a goat's horn for twenty days. 

 Hare's rennet, too, is highly spoken of, taken in Aminean 41 

 wine, in the proportion of one third of a denarius of rennet to 

 one half of a denarius of sacopenum. 42 Bears' grease, mixed 

 with equal proportions of wax and bull-suet, is a cure for 

 imposthumes of the parotid glands : some persons add hy- 

 pocisthis 43 to the composition, or else content themselves with 

 employing butter only, after first fomenting the parts affected 

 with a decoction of fenugreek, the good effects of which are 

 augmented by strychnos. The testes, too, of the fox, are very 

 useful for this purpose ; as also bull's blood, dried and reduced 

 to powder. She-goats' urine, made warm, is used as an injec* 

 tion for the ears ; and a liniment is made of the dung of those 

 animals, in combination with axle- grease. 



CHAP. 49. REMEDIES FOR TOOTH- ACHE. 



The ashes of deer's horns strengthen loose teeth and allay 

 tooth-ache, used either as a friction or as a gargle. Some persons, 

 however, are of opinion that the horn, unburnt and reduced to 

 powder, is still more efficacious for all these purposes. Denti- 

 frices are made both from the powder and the ashes. Another 



41 See B. xiv. c. 4. ** See B. xx. c. 75. 



43 See B. xxvi. c. 31. 



