278 
PLI^^Y*S NATURAL HISTORY. [Book XXVIII. 
liue wheat has been given them which has lain for a night in 
the spot where a human being has been slain or burnt ! 
Tar from us, far too from our writings, be such prescrip- 
tions^ as these ! It will be for us to describe remedies only, 
and not abominations cases, for instance, in which the miik 
of a nursing woman may have a curative effect, cases where 
the human spittle may be useful, or the contact^^ of the human 
body, and other instances of a similar nature. We do not look 
upon life as so essentially desirable that it must be prolonged 
at any cost, be it what it may — and you, who are of that 
opinion, be assured, whoever you may be, that you will die 
none the less, even though you shall have lived in the midst 
of obscenities or abominations ! 
Let each then reckon this as one great solace to his mind, 
that of all the blessings which J^Tature has bestowed on man, 
there is none greater than the death^^ which comes at a season- 
able hour ; and that the very best feature in connexion with it 
is, that every person has it in his own power to procure it for 
hiraself.^^ 
CHAP. 3. (2.) WHETHER WORDS ARE POSSESSED OF ANY 
HEALING EFFICACY. 
In reference to the remedies derived from man, there arises 
first of all one question, of the greatest importance and always 
attended with the same uncertainty, whether words, charms, 
and incantations, are of any eflicacy or not?^* For if such 
is the case, it will be only proper to ascribe this ef&cacy to 
man himself though the wisest of our fellow-men, I should 
remark, taken individually, refuse to place the slightest faith 
in these opinions. And yet, in our every-day life, we practi- 
cally show, each passing hour, that we do entertain this belief, 
' He gives a great many, however, which are equally abominable. 
i« " Piacula.'' 
We may here discover the first rudiments of the doctrine of Animal 
Magnetism. 
1- In accordance with the republican doctrines of Cato of Utica, Brutus, 
Cassius, and Portia. 
Holland remarks, "Looke for no better divinitie in Plinie, a meere 
Pagan, Epicurean, and professed Atheist.*' See B. vii. cc. 53, 64. 
^'^ Whether or not, they cannot, as Ajasson remarks, be regarded as 
remedies derived from the human body, being no part of the human body. 
^5 " Homini acceptum fieri oportere conveniat," This passage is pro- 
bably corrupt. 
