358 PLINY'S NATURAL HISTORY. [Book XXVIII. 



The best glue is that prepared from the ears and genitals of 

 the bull, and there is no better cure in existence for burns. 

 There is nothing, however, that is more extensively adulterated; 

 which is done by boiling up all kinds of old skins, and shoes 

 even, for the purpose. The Bhodian glue is the purest of all, 

 and it is this that painters and physicians mostly use. The 

 whiter it is, the more highly glue is esteemed : that, on the 

 other hand, which is black and brittle like wood, is looked upon 

 as good for nothing. 



CHAP. 72. REMEDIES FOR AFFECTIONS OF THE SINEWS AND FOR 

 CONTUSIONS. 



For pains in the sinews, goats' dung, boiled in vinegar with 

 honey, is considered one of the most useful remedies, and this 

 even where the sinew 98 is threatened with putrefaction. Strains 

 and contusions are healed with wild boars' dung, that has been 

 gathered in spring and dried. A similar method is employed 

 where persons have been dragged by a chariot or lacerated by 

 the wheels, or have received contusions in any other way, the 

 application being quite as effectual, should the dung happen 

 to be fresh. Some think it a better plan, however, to boil it 

 in vinegar ; and if only powdered and taken in vinegar, they 

 vouch for its good effects where persons are ruptured, wounded 

 internally, or suffering from the effects of a fall. 



Others again, who are of a more scrupulous tendency," take 

 the ashes of it in water ; and the Emperor Nero, it is said, was 

 in the habit of refreshing himself with this drink, when he at- 

 tempted to gain the public applause at the three-horse chariot 

 races. 1 Swine's dung, it is generally thought, is the next 

 best to that of the goat. 



CHAP. 73. (18.) REMEDIES FOR HAEMORRHAGE. 



Haemorrhage is arrested by applying deer's rennet with 

 vinegar, hare's rennet, hare's fur reduced to ashes, or ashes of 

 burnt asses' dung. The dung, however, of male animals is the 

 most efficacious for this purpose, being mixed with vinegar, and 

 applied with wool, in all cases of haemorrhage. In the same way, 

 too, the ashes of a horse's head or thigh, or of burnt calves' dung, 

 are used with vinegar ; the ashes also of a goat's horns or dung, 



98 Where the sinew has been wounded and exposed, either vinegar or 

 honey, Ajasson remarks, would be u highly dangerous application. 



99 " Reverentiores." J " Trigario." 



