Chap. 29 ] REMEDIES DEBITED TKOM TKM CHAMiELEOK. 317 
a wooden vessel, have the effect, if we choose to believe him, 
of making their owner invisible to others ; that the possession, 
also, of the right shoulder of this animal will ensure victory over 
all adversaries or enemies, provided always the party throws 
the sinews of the shoulder upon the ground and treads them 
under foot. As to the left shoulder of the chamseleon, I should 
be quite ashamed to say to what monstrous purposes Democri- 
tus devotes it; how that dreams may be produced by the 
agency thereof, and transferred to any person we may think 
proper ; how that these dreams may be dispelled by the em- 
ployment of the right foot ; and how that lethargy, which has 
been produced by the right foot of this animal, may be removed 
by the agency of the left side. 
So, too, head-ache, he tells us, may be cured by sprinkling 
wine upon the head, in which either flank of a chamseleon has 
been macerated. If the feet are rubbed with the ashes of the 
left thigh or foot, mixed with sow's milk, gout, he says, will 
be the result. It is pretty generally believed, however, that 
cataract and diseases of the crystalline humours of the eyes 
may be cured by anointing those organs with the gall for three 
consecutive days ; that serpents may be put to flight by drop- 
ping some of it into the fire ; that weasels may be attracted by 
water into which it has been thrown ; and that, applied to the 
body, it acts as a depilatory. The liver, they say, applied with 
the lungs of a bramble- frog, is productive of a similar effect : 
in addition to which, we are told that the liver counteracts the 
effects of philtres ; that persons are cured of melancholy by 
drinking from the warm skin of a chamaeleon the juice of 
the plant known by that name ; and that if the intestines of 
the animal and their contents — we should bear in mind that 
in reality the animal lives without food^^ — are mixed with 
apes' urine, and the doors of an enemy are besmeared with the 
mixture, he will, through its agency, become the object of 
universal hatred. 
We are told, too, that by the agency of the tail, the 
course of rivers and torrents may be stopped, and serpents 
struck with torpor ; that the tail, prepared with cedar and 
myrrh, and tied to a double branch of the date-palm, will 
divide waters that are smitten therewith, and so disclose every- 
^2 See B. viii. c. 61. Flies and gnats are, in reality, its food. 
