Chap. 30.] EEMEDIES FOB FEVERS. 453 



water to drink, the ashes of a burnt weasel, or the dried flesh 

 even of a hedgehog, who could possibly do it, supposing even 

 the effects of the remedy were certain ? I should be inclined, 

 too, to rank the ashes of the eyes of a horned owl in the num- 

 ber of those monstrous prescriptions with which the adepts in 

 the magic art abuse the credulity of mankind. 



It is in cases, too, of fever, more particularly, that the ac- 

 knowledged rules of medicine run counter to the prescriptions 

 of these men : for they have classified the various modes of 

 treating the disease in accordance with the twelve signs of the 

 Zodiac, and relatively to the revolutions of the sun and moon, 

 a system which deserves to be utterly repudiated, as I shall 

 prove by a few instances selected from many. They recom- 

 mend, for example, when the sun is passing through Gemini, 

 that the patient should be rubbed with ashes of the burnt 

 combs, ears, and claws of cocks, beaten up and mixed with 

 oil. If, again, it is the moon that is passing through that 

 sign, it is the spurs and wattles .of cocks that must be simi- 

 larly employed. When either of these luminaries is passing 

 through Virgo, grains of barley must be used ; and when 

 through Sagittarius, a bat's wings. When the moon is pass- 

 ing through Leo, it is leaves of tamarisk that must be employed, 

 and of the cultivated tamarisk, they add : if, again, the sign, 

 is Aquarius, the patient must use an application of box-wood 

 charcoal, pounded. 



Of the remedies, however, that we find recommended by 

 them, I shall be careful to insert those only the efficacy 

 of which has been admitted, or, at least, is probable in any 

 degree ; such, for instance, as the use of powerful odours, as 

 an excitant for patients suffering from lethargy ; among which, 

 perhaps, may be reckoned the dried testes of a weasel, or the 

 liver of that animal, burnt. They consider it a good plan, 

 too, to attach a sheep's lights, made warm, round the head of 

 the patient. 



CHAP. 30. REMEDIES FOR FEVERS. 



In the treatment of quartan fevers, clinical medicine is, so to 

 say, pretty nearly powerless ; for which reason we shall insert 

 a considerable number of remedies recommended by professors 

 of the magic art, and, first of all, those prescribed to be worn 

 as amulets : the dust, for instance, in which a hawk has bathed 



