PISH IN MEDICINE. 79 



sinian beefsteaks, highly apocryphal, but is no doubt 

 veracious, and finds its parallel in the modem mode of 

 castrating carp in order to fatten them for the table. 

 To mention but one more instance of fish pharmacy, 

 the livers of mursenas and pastinacas were found efiec- 

 tual antidotes against the wounds of these fish, whe- 

 ther inflicted by their spines or teeth : awkward wounds 

 they were ; for though it may be a fable that Circe pro- 

 cured her store of subtle poisons from this source, the 

 personal experience of Willughby, who was bitten by a 

 mursena, and reports on the severity of the bite, is no 

 invention. Gillius says of the weapon of the pastinaca 

 skate, that it is the very ' pest of the sea ;' to which 

 Pliny adds, that it acts with all the force of iron and the 

 deadliness of the most malignant poison, not only against 

 animals, but even against trees, which, when wounded 

 by it, die outright, and almost immediately. Potent 

 then indeed was the wound, but a homoeopathic remedy, 

 more potent still, was at hand. Similia similibus cu- 

 rantur, says Hahnemann, and lo ! a proof. ' A rustic, 

 wounded by one of these pastinaca, which he was endea- 

 vouring to secrete under his dress, presented himself to 

 Eondolet with the weapon stUl sticking in his flesh,^ and 

 as no good surgeon will maunder over sores he is to 

 salve and dress, 



Ov irpos larpov aotpov 

 Sprjveiv irraSas cVi TOjiavn nrifiart, 



the professor having removed it as carefully as he could, 

 burnt some of the liver of the fish, and then appHed the 

 powder to the wound ; this procuring immediate ease, 

 and ' convincing him that the pastinaca contained within 

 its body both poison and antidote' (when in fact it con- 

 tains neither), 'he immersed the weapon in vinegar, 

 smeared it with hepatic fish-paste, and replaced it over 

 the lacerated part.' The cure was sudden and complete : 



