346 PLINY'S NATURAL HISTORY. [Book XXVIII. 



to the patient's shirt, 61 on either side ; after which, the patient 

 must put it on and let the pieces fall at his feet, and must 

 then pick them up, and dry them in the shade. While this 

 last is doing, the diseased liver of the patient will gradually 

 contract, they say, and he will eventually be cured. The 

 lights, too, of a fox are very useful for this purpose, dried on 

 hot ashes and taken in water ; the same, too, with a kid's 

 milt, applied to the part affected. 



CHAP. 58. (14.) REMEDIES FOR BOWEL COMPLAINTS. 



To arrest looseness of the howels, deer's blood is used ; the 

 ashes also of deer's horns ; the liver of a wild boar, taken fresh 

 and without salt, in wine ; a swine's liver roasted, or that of a 

 he-goat, boiled in five semisextarii of wine ; a hare's rennet 

 boiled, in quantities the size of a chick-pea, in wine, or, if 

 there are symptoms of fever, in water. To this last some 

 persons add nut-galls, while others, again, content themselves 

 with hare's blood boiled by itself in milk. Ashes, too, of 

 burnt horse-dung are taken in water for this purpose ; or else 

 ashes of the part of an old bull's horn which lies nearest the 

 root, sprinkled in water ; the blood, too, of a he-goat boiled 

 upon charcoal ; or a decoction made from a goat's hide boiled 

 with the hair on. 



For relaxing the bowels a horse's rennet is used, or else the 

 blood, marrow, or liver of a she-goat. A similar effect is pro- 

 duced by applying a wolf's gall to the navel, with elaterium; 62 

 by taking mares' milk, goats' milk with salt and honey, or a 

 she-goat's gall with juice of cyclaminos, 63 and a little alum in 

 which last case some prefer adding nitre and water to the 

 mixture. Bull's gall, too, is used for a similar purpose, beaten 

 up with wormwood and applied in the form of a suppository ; or 

 butter is taken, in considerable doses. 



Cceliac affections and dysentery are cured by taking cow's 

 liver ; ashes of deer's horns, a pinch in three fingers swallowed 

 in water ; hare's rennet, kneaded up in bread, or, if there is 

 any discharge of blood, taken with polenta ; 64 or else boar's 



61 " Tunica." 62 See B. xx. c. 2. 



63 See B. xxv. c. 67. Mares' milk is not a purgative ; and goats' milk, 

 as Ajasson remarks, is somewhat astringent. Juice of Cyclamen, on the 

 other hand, or sow-bread, is highly purgative. 



64 See B. xviii. c. 14. 



