326 
PLINT's KATUEAL HISTOIIT. 
[Book XXVIII. 
or ashes. A peculiar kind of plaster is also made of it for the 
cure of inflammatory ulcers, seventy-five denarii of hogs' lard 
being mixed with one hundred of litharge. 
It is reckoned a very good plan also to anoint ulcers with 
boars' grease, and, if they are of a serpiginous nature, to add 
resin to the liniment. The ancients used to employ hogs' lard 
in particular for greasing the axles of their vehicles, that the 
wheels might revolve the more easily, and to this, in fact, it owes 
its name of axungia." When hogs' lard has been used for this 
purpose, incorporated as it is with the rust of the iron upon 
the wheels, it is remarkably useful as an application for dis- 
eases of the rectum and of the generative organs. The ancient 
physicians, too, set a high value upon the medicinal properties 
of hogs' lard in an unmixed state : separating it from the 
kidneys, and carefully removing the veins, they used to wash 
and rub it well in rain water, after which they boiled it several 
times in a new earthen vessel, and then put it by for keeping. 
It is generally agreed that it is more emollient, calorific, and 
resolvent, when salted ; and that it is still more useful when 
it has been rinsed in wine. 
Massurius informs us, that the ancients set the higliest 
value of all upon the fat of the wolf : and that it was for this 
reason that the newly- wedded bride used to anoint the door- 
posts of her husband's house with it, in order that no noxious 
spells might find admittance. 
CHAP, 38. SUET. 
Corresponding with the grease of the swine, is the suet^^ that 
is found in the ruminating animals, a substance employed in 
other ways, but no less efficacious in its properties. The pro- 
per mode of preparing it, in all cases, is to take out the veins 
and to rinse it in sea or salt-water, after which it is beaten up 
in a mortar, with a sprinkling of sea- water in it. This done, 
it is boiled in several waters, until, in fact, it has lost all smell, 
and is then bleached by continual exposure to the sun *; that of 
the most esteemed quality being the fat which grows about the 
kidneys. In case stale suet is required for any medicinal pur- 
pose, it is recommended to melt it first, and then to wash it in 
^ cold water several times; after which, it must again be melted 
with a sprinkling of the most aromatic wine that can be pro- 
91 " Sebum"— Suet or tallow. 
