322 
PLTNX'S KATtJEAL HISTORY. 
[Book XXVIII. 
with chafing of the rectum at stool. It is considered a sove- 
reign remedy for hardness of breathing, to take cows' milk 
whey, mixed with nasturtium. In cases of ophthalmia, too, the 
eyes are fomented with a mixture of one semisextarius of 
milk and four drachmae of pounded sesame. 
Goats' milk is a cure for diseases of the spleen ; but in such 
case the goats must fast a couple of days, and be fed on ivy- 
leaves the third ; the patient, too, must drink the milk for three 
consecutive days, without taking any other nutriment. Milk, 
under other circumstances, is detrimental to persons suffering 
from head- ache, liver complaints, diseases of the spleen, and 
affections of the sinews ; it is bad for fevers, also, vertigo — 
except, indeed, where it is required as a purgative — oppression of 
the head, coughs, and ophthalmia. Sows' milk is extremely use- 
ful in cases of tenesmus, dysentery, and phthisis ; authors have 
been found too, to assert that it is very wholesome for females. 
CUAP. 34. TWELVE REMEDIES DERIVED FltOM CHEESE. 
"We have already"^*^ spoken of the different kinds of cheese 
when treating of the mamillae and other parts of animals. 
Sextius attributes the same properties to mares' milk cheese 
that he does to cheese made of cows' milk : to the former he 
gives the names of **hippace." Cheese is best for the sto- 
mach when not salted, or, in other words, when new cheese is 
used. Old [salted] cheese has a binding effect upon the 
bowels, and reduces the flesh, but is more wholesome to 
the stomach [than new salted cheese]. Indeed, we may pro- 
nounce of aliments in general, that salt meats reduce the system, 
while fresh food has a tendency to make flesh. Fresh cheese, 
applied with honey, effaces the marks of bruises. It acts, 
also, emolliently upon the bowels ; and, taken in the form of 
tablets, boiled in astringent wine and then toasted with honey on 
a platter, it modifies and alleviates griping pains in the bowels. 
The cheese known as saprum,""^^ is beaten up, in wine, with 
salt and dried sorb apples, and taken in drink, for the cure of 
coeliac affections. Goats' milk cheese, pounded and applied to 
the part affected, is a cure for carbuncle of the generative organs; 
sour cheese, also, with oxymel, is productive of a similar effect. 
In the bath it is used as a friction, alternately with oil, for the 
removal of spots. 
'''^ In B. xi. c. 97. From the Greek (rawpov, rotten cheese. 
Like our cream cheese, or new milk cheese, probably. 
