Chap. U.] BEMEDIES DEPENDING UPON THE WILL. 
2^5 
in the sinews, sprains, and nodosities of the joints. The 
scrapings obtained from the baths are stiil more efficacious for 
these purposes, and hence it is that they form an ingredient in 
maturative preparations. Such scrapings as are impregnated 
with wrestlers' oil,^^ used in combination with mud, have a 
mollifying effect upon the' joints, and are more particularly 
efficacious as a calorific and resolvent ; but in other respects 
their properties are not so strongly developed. 
The shameless and disgusting researches that have been 
made will quite transcend all belief, when we find authors of 
the very highest repute proclaiming aloud that the maki 
seminal fluid is a sovereign remedy for the sting of the scor- 
pion ! In the case too, of women afflicted with sterility, they 
recommend the application of a pessary, made of the first 
excrement that is voided by an infant at the mcinent of its 
birth; the name they give it is meconium. "^^ They have 
even gone so far, too, as to scrape the very filth from off the 
Myalls of the gymnasia, and to assert that this is also possessed 
of certain calorific properties. These scrapings are used as a 
resolvent for inflamed tumours, and are applied topically to 
ulcers upon aged people and children, and to excoriations and 
burns. 
CHAP. 14. EEMEDIES DEPENDING UPON THE HUMAN WILL. 
It would be the less becoming then for me to omit all 
mention of the remedies which depend upon the human will. 
Total abstinence from food or drink, or from wine only, from 
flesh, or from the use of the bath, in cases where the health 
requires any of these expedients, is looked upon as one of the 
most eflectual modes of treating diseases. To this class of 
remedies must be added bodily exercise, exertion of the voice, 
anointings, and frictions according to a prescribed method: 
for powerful friction, it should be remembered, has a binding 
effect upon the body, while gentle friction, on the other hand, 
acts as a laxative ; so too, repeated friction reduces the 
body, while used in moderation it has a tendency to make 
flesh. But the most beneficial practice of all is to take walking 
" Ceroraa.** A mixture of oil and wax. 
Properly, poppy juice.*' 
^9 Or " clara lectio," "reading aloud," as Celsus calls it, recommending 
it for persons of slow digestion. 
