Ancient Rome and Modern Italy 49 



v. 



animal's proverbial swiftness is thought to affect in some occult 

 way the coming through of the first teeth. 272 Once a person be- 

 gins to think in terms of sympathetic magic, all things appear to 

 be possible. In any case, the Romans had already set the pre- 

 cedent for using them in dentition as also the brains of pigs and 

 sheep, and the milk of goats. Yet these are animals which, one 

 might fancy, were not likely to speed up anything. 273 



As a fricative to ease dentition the Italians may now employ a 

 tooth of a wild boar, fox, dog, or bear, or an ancient tooth from 

 another child, or even a piece of amber, as well as also those vari- 

 ous amulets that baby could use "on his own" as suspended from 

 his neck. 274 If one would bring in the second set of teeth "as 

 strong as a wall", the first, as they come out, should be put away 

 carefully in a crack of some wall. 275 



The teachings neither of church nor of science can dissuade many 

 members of the lower classes in Italy from accrediting to certain 

 objects which to an imaginative person can suggest in some way 

 the organs of sex a special magic potency. Cowries, i.e., shells of 

 the Cyprea species, and cockles bear enough resemblance to the 

 female pudenda to give them a mystic value. 276 Faith in them as 

 amuletic charms was in evidence, we believe, as far back in the 

 history of man as the Iron Age. 277 Sicilians will put together a 

 necklace of them for a teething baby. 278 The shells appeared 

 among the baubles of necklaces in classical times, and figured, no 

 doubt, as a prophylactic against evils of a magic nature and at the 

 same time as a smooth, round object just suited to ease a baby's 

 teething. 



Next to dentition the invasion of parasitical worms is supposed 

 to upset otherwise healthy Italian babies as much as any other 

 ordinary ailment. 279 The use of certain remedies has been tradi- 

 tional during thousands of years. The vermifuges interest us most 

 when something magical or supernatural can be detected in their 

 use. Our earliest Latin reference to them seems to be in the De 

 Agricultura of Cato, the Censor, whose long life covered the years 

 from 234 to 149 B.C. Already in his time the pomegranate tree 

 provided anthelmintics. It still does in Italy. 280 Wormwood also 

 has a long history behind it in that character. 281 Authorities in 

 pharmacology note that derivatives from either pomegranate or 

 wormwood may prove to be rather drastic remedies. Garlic 282 and 



