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 castoreum or 
over the beaver itself,’’ or misuses a Remora. 
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 
box3; the Pulmo marinus, the Sea-hare, according to 
1 De Materia Medica, Il. 22, 1, 176 (Kithn). C£ P. A. Matthiole, Com- 
mentarit in libros sex Pedanti Dioscordis Anazarbei (Venetiis, 1554), Bk. II. 
c. xix. 
2 VI. 9. 
3 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!” 
