310 
PLINTHS NATURAL HISTORY. [Book XXVIII- 
whip with which he guides his horse. In addition to all this, 
so full of quirks and subtleties are the vain conceits of the 
magicians, they recommend the hysena to be captured while 
the moon is passing through the sign of Gemini, and every 
hair of it to be preserved, if possible. They say, too, that the 
skin of the head is highly efficacious, if attached to a person 
suffering from head-ache ; that the gall, applied to the fore- 
head, is curative of ophthalmia ; and that if the gall is boiled 
down with three cyathi of Attic honey and one ounce of saffron, 
it will be a most effectual preservative against that disease, 
the same preparation being equally good for the dispersion of 
films on the eyes and cataract. If, again, this preparation is 
kept till it is old, it will be all the better for improving the 
sight, due care being taken to preserve it in a box of Cyprian 
copper : they assert also, that it is good for the cure of argema, 
eruptions and excrescences of the eyes, and marks upon those 
organs. Eor diseases^^ of the crystalline humours of the eyes, 
it is recommended to anoint them with the gravy of hyaena's 
liver roasted fresh, incorporated with clarified honey. 
We learn also, from the same sources, that the teeth of the 
hysena are useful for the cure of tooth-ache, the diseased tooth 
being either touched with them, or the animal's teeth being 
arranged in their regular order, and attached to the patient ; 
that the shoulders of this animal are good for the cure of pains 
in the arms and shoulders ; that the teeth, extracted from the 
left side of the jaw, and wrapped in the skin of a sheep or he- 
goat, are an effectual cure for pains in the stomach ; that the 
lights of the animal, taken with the food, are good for cceliac 
affections ; that the lights, reduced to ashes and applied with oil, 
are also soothing to the stomach ; that the marrow of the back- 
bone, used with old oil and gall, is strengthening to the sinews ; 
that the liver, tasted thrice just before the paroxysms, is good 
for quartan fevers ; that the ashes of the vertebrae, applied in 
hyaena's skin with the tongue and right foot of a sea-calf and a 
bull's gall, the whole boiled up together, are soothing for gout; 
that for the same disease hyaena's gall is advantageously em- 
ployed in combination with stone of Assos;^^ that for cold shiver- 
ings, spasms, sudden fits of starting, and palpitations of the 
" Glaucomata." Littre considers, on the authority of M. Sichel, that 
Glaucoma " and " suffusio are different names for the same disease — 
cataract. *6 ggg B. xxxvi. c. 27. 
