Chap. 80.] STIMULANTS FOR THE SEXUAL PASSIONS. 365 



infants with goats' milk or Lare's brains, dentition is greatly 

 facilitated. 



CHAP. 79. PROVOCATIVES OF SLEEP. 



Cato was of opinion that hare's flesh, 11 taken as a diet, is 

 provocative of sleep. It is a vulgar notion, too, that this diet 

 confers heauty for nine days on those who use it ; a silly play 12 

 upon words, no doubt, but a notion which has gained far too 

 extensively not to have had some real foundation. According 

 to the magicians, the gall of a she-goat, but only of one that 

 has been sacrificed, applied to the eyes or placed beneath the 

 pillow, has a narcotic effect. Too profuse perspiration is 

 checked by rubbing the body with ashes of burnt goats' horns 

 mixed with oil of myrtle. 



CHAP. 80. STIMULANTS FOR THE SEXUAL PASSIONS. 



Among the aphrodisiacs, we find mentioned, a wild boar's 

 gall, applied externally; swine's marrow, taken inwardly; 

 asses' fat, mixed with the grease of a gander and applied as a 

 liniment ; the virulent substance described by Virgil 13 as dis- 

 tilling from mares when covered ; and the dried testes of a 

 horse, pulverized and mixed with the drink. The right testicle, 

 also, of an ass, is taken in a proportionate quantity of wine, or worn 

 attached to the arm in a bracelet ; or else the froth discharged 

 by that animal after covering, collected in a piece of red cloth 

 and enclosed in silver, as Osthanes informs us. Salpe recom- 

 mends the genitals of this animal to be plunged seven times in 

 boiling oil, and the corresponding parts to be well rubbed 

 therewith. Bialcon 14 says that these genitals should be reduced 

 to ashes and taken in drink ; or else the uriiie that has been 

 voided by a bull immediately after covering : he recommends, 

 also, that the groin should be well rubbed with earth moistened 

 with this urine. 



11 Ajasson explains this by saying that the hare being eaten by the people 

 of ancient Latiiim on festival days^ with plenteous potations, they erro- 

 neously supposed the narcotic eifects of the wine to be produced by the 

 flesh of the hare. 



12 The resemblance of "lepos," "grace," to " lepus," " a hare." See 

 Martial, B. v. Ep. 29. 



13 Georg. iii. 280. He alludes to the " hippomanes." 



14 Hardouin is probably right in his suggestion, that " Dalion " is the 

 correct reading here. 



