Chap. 45.] THE NATURE OF SALT. 511 



Every kind of salt is useful for the cure of quinzy ; but, in 

 addition to this, it is necessary to make external applications 

 simultaneously with oil, vinegar, and tar. Mixed with 

 wine, it is a gentle aperient to the bowels, and, taken in a 

 similar manner, it acts as an expellent of all kinds of intestinal 

 worms. Placed beneath the tongue, it enables convalescents 

 to support the heat 57 of the bath. Burnt more than once upon 

 a plate at a white heat, and then enclosed in a bag, it alleviates 

 pains in the sinews, about the shoulders and kidneys more 

 particularly. Taken internally, and similarly burnt at a white 

 heat and applied in bags, it is curative of colic, griping pains 

 in the bowels, and sciatica. Beaten up in wine and honey, 

 with meal, it is a remedy for gout ; a malady for the especial 

 behoof of which the observation should be borne in mind, 

 that there is nothing better for all parts of the body than sun 

 and salt : 58 hence 59 it is that we see the bodies of fishermen as 

 hard as horn gout, however, is the principal disease for the 

 benefit of which this maxim should be remembered. 



Salt is useful for the removal of corns upon the feet, and of 

 chilblains : for the cure of burns also, it is applied with oil, or 

 else chewed. It acts as a check also upon blisters, and, in cases 

 of erysipelas and serpiginous ulcers, it is applied topically with 

 vinegar or with hyssop. For the cure of carcinoma it is 

 employed in combination with Taminian 60 grapes; and for 

 phagedasnic ulcers it is used parched with barley-meal, a 

 linen pledget steeped in wine being laid upon it. In cases of 

 jaundice, it is employed as a friction before the fire, with oil 

 and vinegar, till the patient is made to perspire, for the purpose 

 of preventing the itching sensations attendant upon that dis- 

 ease. When persons are exhausted with fatigue, it is usual to 

 rub them with salt and oil. Many have treated dropsy with 

 salt, have used external applications of salt and oil for the 

 burning heats of fever, and have cured chronic coughs by laying 

 salt upon the patient's tongue. Salt has been used, also, as 

 an injection for sciatica, and has been applied to ulcers of a 

 fungous or putrid nature. 



To bites inflicted by the crocodile, salt is applied, the sores 



57 In c. 23, he has said much the same of cold water. 



58 " Sale et sole." 



59 This passage would come more naturally after the succeeding one. 



60 See B. xxiii, c. 13. 



