388 PLINY'S NATURAL HISTORY. [Book XXIX. 



the bowels, but excessive menstruation as well. In eases, 

 again, where the discharges are greatly in excess, eggs are 

 taken raw, with meal, in water. The yolks, too, are employed 

 alone, boiled hard in vinegar and roasted with ground pepper, 

 when wanted to arrest diarrhoea. 



For dysentery, there is a sovereign remedy, prepared in the 

 following manner : an egg is emptied into a new earthen vessel, 

 which done, in order that all the proportions may be equal, 

 fill the shell, first with honey, then with oil, and then with 

 vinegar ; beat them up together, and thoroughly incorporate 

 them : the better the quality of the several ingredients, the 

 more efficacious the mixture will be. Others, again, instead 

 of oil and vinegar, use the same proportions of red resin and 

 wine. There is also another way of making up this prepara- 

 tion : the proportion of oil, and of that only, remains the same, 

 and to it they add two sixtieth parts of a denarius of the 

 vegetable which we have spoken of under the name of "rhus," 78 

 and five oboli of honey. All these ingredients are boiled down 

 together, and no food is eaten by the patient till the end of 

 four hours after taking the mixture. Many persons, too, have 

 a cure for griping pains in the bowels, by beating up two eggs 

 with four cloves of garlick, and administering them, warmed 

 in one semi-sextarius of wine. 



Not to omit anything in commendation of eggs, I would 

 here add that glair of egg, mixed with quicklime, unites 

 broken 79 glass. Indeed, so great is the efficacy of the substance 

 of an egg, that wood dipped in it will not take fire, and cloth 

 with which it has come in contact will not ignite. 80 On this 

 occasion, however, it is only of the eggs of poultry that I have 

 been speaking, though those of the various other birds as well 

 are possessed of many useful properties, as I shall have to 

 mention on the appropriate occasions. 



CHAP. 12. SFIRPENTS' EGGS. 



In addition to the above, there is another kind of egg, 81 held 



7S See B. xxiv. c. 54. 



79 This is the fact, and it is similarly used for mending china. White 

 of egg, mixed with whiskey or spirits of wine, will answer the purpose 

 equally well. 



80 Ajasson remarks that there is some slight truth in this assertion. 



81 Pliny alludes here to the beads or rings of glass which were used by 

 the Druids as charms to impose on the credulity of their devotees, under 



