Chap. 33.] 
MEDICINAL USES OF MILK. 
321 
the following being the usual method of preparing it. Goats' 
milk, which is used in preference for the purpose, is boiled in 
a new earthen vessel, and stirred with branches of a fig-tree 
newly gathered, as many cyathi of honied wine being added to 
it as there are semisextarii of milk. When the mixture boils, 
care is taken to prevent it running over, by plunging into it a 
silver cyathus measure filled with cold water, none of the water 
being allowed to escape. When taken off the fire, the constitu- 
ent parts of it divide as it cools, and the whey is thus separated 
from the milk. Some persons, again, take this whey, which is 
now very strongly impregnated with wine, and, after boiling 
it down to one third, leave it to cool in the open air. The 
best way of taking it, is in doses of one semisextarius, at stated 
intervals, during five consecutive days ; after taking it, riding 
exercise should be used by the patient. This whey is admi- 
nistered in cases of epilepsy, melancholy, paralysis, leprosy, 
elephantiasis, and diseases of the joints. 
Milk is employed as an injection where excoriations have 
been caused by the use of strong purgatives ; in cases also 
where dysentery is productive of chafing, it is similarly em- 
ployed, boiled with sea pebbles or a ptisan of barley. Where, 
however, the intestines are excoriated, cows' milk or ewes' 
milk is the best. E'ew milk is used as an injection for dysen- 
tery ; and in an unboiled state, it is employed for afiections of 
the colon and uterus, and for injuries inflicted by serpents. It 
is also taken internally as an antidote to the venom of cantha- 
rides, the pine- caterpillar, the buprestis, and the salamander. 
Cows' milk is particularly recommended for persons who have 
taken colchicum, hemlock, dorycnium,''^ or the flesh of the sea- 
hare; and asses' milk, in cases where gypsum, white-lead, 
sulphur, or quick-silver, have been taken internally. This 
last is good too for constipation attendant upon fever, and is 
remarkably useful as a gargle for ulcerations of the throat. It 
is taken, also, internally, by patients suflfering from atrophy, for 
the purpose of recruiting their exhausted strength ; as also in 
cases of fever unattended with head- ache. The ancients held 
it as one of their grand secrets, to administer to children, before 
taking food, a semisextarius of asses' milk, or for want of that, 
goats' milk ; a similar dose, too, was given to children troubled 
See B. xxi. c. 105. 
1^ He perhaps means a sulphate, and not sulphur, which is harmless. 
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