CURES IN RABIES, TOOTHACHE, PREGNANCY 281 



" pickled fish applied topically, even where the wound has not 

 been cauterised with hot iron ; this will be found sufficiently 

 effectual as a remedy " ! 



Do you suffer from toothache ? Then you must have 

 omitted to rub your teeth once a year in the brains of a dog- 

 fish, boiled in oil and kept for the purpose ! 



If, however, this and other remedies disappoint you, 

 Dioscorides ^ and Celsus 2 come to your aid with the sting of 

 the pastinaca, which, applied with hellebore or resin, extracts 

 the teeth painlessly ! As a dead certainty, if the ichthyic 

 kingdom fail to give relief, " attach two frogs to the exterior 

 of your jaw " ! 



Health, perfect health, should be the lot of every woman 

 who follows the Plinian precepts in Book XXXII. 46. 



Is she helpless from hysteria ? " Lint, greased with a 

 dolphin's fat, and then ignited," produces an anti-excitant ; 

 or, if the case yield not to treatment instantly, " the flesh of 

 the strombus, left to putrefy in vinegar " is an excellent 

 alternative ! 



If an easy delivery be desired, " first " — the prescription 

 smacks of Mrs. Glasse — " catch your torpedo-fish at the time 

 that the moon is in Libra, keep it in the open air for three days," 

 and then, as soon as it is introduced into the patient's room, 

 the trick is done ! Pregnancy, on the other hand, proves often 

 abortive, if the woman " happens to step over castor eum or 

 over the beaver itself," or misuses a Remom. 



For dyeing the hair black calcined echineis with lard, or 

 horse-leeches boiled in vinegar, are cheap and trustworthy 

 recipes. For depilatories your choice is wide. The blood, 

 gall, and liver of the Tunny, fresh or pickled ; or merely the 

 liver, pounded, but preserved with cedar-resin in a leaden 

 box 3 ; the Pulmo marinus, the Sea-hare, according to 



1 De Materia Medica, II. 22, i, 176 (Kuhn). Cf. P. A. Matthiole, Com- 

 tnentarii in libros sex Pedanii Dioscordis Anazarbei (Venetiis, 1554), Bk. II. 

 c. xix. 



» VI. 9. 



' Salpe the midwife recommends this prescription to disguise the age of 

 boys on sale for slaves (Pliny, XXXII. 47). At the end of the chapter the 

 author seems to awake from his trance of trustfulness, in the words, " in the 

 case of every depilatory, the hairs should always be removed before it is 

 applied ! " 



