116 PLIJTT'S NATUHAL HISTORY. [Book XXXIII. 



the brain; and, sprinkled in the form of a powder, it is extremely 

 efficacious for the cure of recent wounds and bites of dogs which 

 have been some time inflicted. For the cure of bums it is re- 

 markably good, mixed with grease, litharge, 2 " ceruse, and wax._ 

 The method of preparing it, is to burn it, enclosed in a 

 coat of cow-dung, in a furnace ; which done, it is quenched 

 with woman's milk, and pounded with rain-water in a mortar. 29 

 While this is doing, the thick and turbid part is poured off 

 from time to time into a copper vessel, and purified with nitre.- 50 

 The lees of it, which are rejected, are recognized by their 

 being full of lead and falling to the bottom. The vessel into 

 which the turbid part has been poured off, is then covered 

 with a linen cloth and left untouched for a night; the portion 

 that lies upon the surface being poured off the following day, 

 or else removed with a sponge. The part that has fallen to 

 the bottom of the vessel is regarded as the choicest 31 part, and 

 is left, covered with a linen cloth, to dr}' in the sun, but not 

 to become parched. This done, it is again pounded in a 

 mortar, ane 1 then divided into tablets. But the main thing of 

 all is, to o t >servc such a degree of nicety in heating it, as not 

 to let it oecome lead. 32 Some persons, when preparing it on 

 the fire, use grease^ instead of dung. Others, again, bruise it 

 in water and then pass it through a triple strainer of linen 

 cloth ; after which, they reject the lees, and pour off the 

 remainder of the liquid, collecting all that is deposited at tin* 

 bottom, and using it as an ingredient in plasters and eye-salve's. 



C1IAP. 35. TUE PCOIUA OF SILVKH. SIX KEMKDIES DEKIVKDrilOM 1 T. 



The scoria of silver is called by the Greeks " helcysimi." 3 * 



28 " Spurna argenti." See the next Chapter. 



~* According to Dioscoridcs, it was prepared os a cosmetic by enclo.MKg 

 it in a lump of dough, and then burning it in the coals till reduced to a 

 cinder. It \vas then extinguished with milk and wine, and again placed 

 upon coals, and blown till ignition. 



30 As to the "nitrum" of the ancients, sec B. xxxi. c. 4G. 



M Flos" literally the " flower." 



32 " From this passage we may infer that the metal antimony was occa- 

 sionally seen by the ancients, though not recognized by thrm as distinct 

 from lead." Dana's System of Mineralogy, p. 418. New York, 1^,">0. 



^ 1'liny has here mistaken the sense of the word artap, which in the 

 passage of I>ioscorides, B. v. c. 99, borrowed probably from the same 

 source, evidently means dough, and not grease. 



34 From f\Kw, "to drag" in consequence of its viscous consistency, 

 Hardouin says. 



