Chap. 27.] EEMEDIES PERIYED FROM THE HY^NA. 
311 
heart, it is a good plan to eat some portion of a hyaena's heart 
cooked, care being taken to reduce the rest to ashes, and to 
apply it with the hrains of the animal to the part affected ; 
that this last composition, or the gall applied alone, acts as 
a depilatory, the hairs being first plucked out which are 
wanted not to grow again; that by this method superfluous hairs 
of the eyelids may be removed ; that the flesh of the loins, 
eaten and applied with oil, is a cure for pains in the loins ; and 
that sterility in females may be removed by giving them the 
eye of this animal to eat, in combination with liquorice and dill, 
conception within three days being warranted as the result. 
Persons afflicted with night-mare and dread of spectres, will 
experience relief, they say, by attaching one of the large teeth 
of a hyaena to the body, with a linen thread. In fits of delirium 
too, it is recommended to fumigate the patient with the smoke' 
of one of these teeth, and to attach one in front of his chest, 
with the fat of the kidneys, or else the liver or skin. They 
assert also that a pregnant woman will never miscarry, if she 
wears suspended from her neck, the white flesh from a hyaena^ s 
breast, with seven hairs and the genitals of a stag, the whole 
tied up in the skin of a gazelle. The genitals, they say, eaten 
with honey, act as a stimulant upon a person, according to 
the sex, and this even though it should be the case of a man 
who has manifested an aversion to all intercourse with females. 
JS'ay, even more than all this, we are assured that if the 
genitals and a certain joint of the vertebrae are preserved in 
a house with the hide adhering to them, they will ensure peace 
and concord between all members of the family ; hence it is 
that this part is known as the joint of the spine,''^^ or At- 
lantian^^ knot.'^ This joint, which is the first, is reckoned among 
the remedies for epilepsy. 
The fumes of the burnt fat of this animal will put ser- 
pents to flight, they say ; and the jawbone, pounded with anise 
and taken with the food, is a cure for shivering fits. A fumi- 
gation made therewith has the eflect of an emmenagogue ; and 
such are the frivolous and absurd conceits of the professors of 
the magic art, that they boldly assert that if a man attaches to 
^7 " Spinse '* seems a preferable reading to ruinge," adopted by Sillig, 
Nodum Atlantion." From the Greek arXag, much enduring,'' 
Julius Pollux says, because it was fitted for supporting burdens. The 
" hinc " — " hence," of Pliny here appears to be a non sequitur. 
