464 PLINY'S KATITKAL HISTORY. [Book XXX, 



tates delivery ; care must be taken, however, to remove it 

 immediately after. It is administered, too, in wine, mixed 

 with frankincense : taken in any other form, it is productive 

 of abortion. A staff, by the aid of which a person has parted 64 

 a frog from a snake, will accelerate parturition. Ashes of the 

 troxallis, 65 applied with honey, act as an emmenagogue ; the 

 same, too, with the spider that descends as it spins its thread 

 from aloft ; it must be taken, however, in the hollow of the 

 hand, crushed, and applied accordingly : if, on the contrary, 

 the spider is taken while ascending, it will arrest menstru- 

 ation. 



The stone aetites, 66 that is found in the eagle's nest, preserves 

 the fostus against all insidious attempts at producing abortion. 

 A vulture's feather, placed beneath the feet of the woman, 

 accelerates parturition. It is a well-known fact, that pregnant 

 women must be on their guard against ravens' eggs, for if a 

 female in that state should happen to step over one, she will 

 be sure to miscarry by the mouth. 67 A hawk's dung, taken in 

 honied wine, would appear to render females fruitful. Goose- 

 grease, or that of the swan, acts emolliently upon indurations 

 and abscesses of the uterus. 



CHAP. 45. METHODS OF PRESERVING THE BREASTS FROM INJURY. 



Goose-grease, mixed up with oil of roses and a spider, pro- 

 tects the breasts after delivery. The people of Phrygia and 

 Lycaonia have made the discovery, that the grease of the otis 68 

 is good for affections of the breasts, resulting from recent de- 

 livery : for females affected with suffocations of the uterus, 

 they employ a liniment made of beetles. The shells of par- 

 tridges' eggs, burnt to ashes and mixed with cadmia 69 and 

 wax, preserve the firmness 70 of the breasts. It is generally 

 thought, that if the egg of a partridge or * * * is passed 

 three times round a woman's breasts, they will never become 

 flaccid ; and that, if these eggs are swallowed, they will be 

 productive of fruitfulness, and promote the plentiful secretion 



64 Ajasson has wasted ten lines of indignation upon the question where, 

 sucli a staff is to be found ! 



65 See c. 16 of this Book. 66 See B. xxxvi. c. 39. 



67 An impossibility. See B. x. c. 15, for the stories about the raven on 

 which this notion was based. 



68 See B, x. cc. 29, 50. 9 See B. xxxiv. cc. 22, 23. 

 See B. xxviii. c. 77- 



