356 
pliny's natural history. 
[Book XXVIII. 
the people of Achaia. They say too, that the smoke of dried 
cow-dung — that of the animal when grazing, I mean — is re- 
markably good for phthisis, inhaled through a reed and we 
find it stated that the tips of cows^ horns are burnt, and ad- 
ministered with honey, in doses of two spoonfuls, in the form 
of pills. Goat suet, many persons say, taken in a pottage of 
alica,^^ or melted fresh with honied wine, in the proportion of 
one ounce of suet to one cyathus of wine, is good for cough 
and phthisis, care being taken to stir the mixture with a sprig 
of rue. One author of credit assures us that before now, a 
patient whose recovery has been despaired of, has been restored 
to health by taking one cyathus of wild goat^^ suet and an 
equal quantity of milk. Some writers, too, have stated that 
ashes of burnt swine's dung are very useful, mixed with raisin 
wine ; as also the lights of a deer, a spitter^^ deer in particular, 
smoke-dried and beaten up in wine. 
CHAP. 68. REMEDIES TOR DROPSY. 
For drops}^, a wild boar's urine is good, taken in small doses 
in the patient's drink ; it is of much greater efficacy, however, 
when it has been left to dry in the bladder of the animal. The 
ashes, too, of burnt cow-dung, and of bulls' dung in particular 
— animals that are reared in herds, I mean — are highly esteemed. 
This dung, the name given to which is bolbiton,"^^ is re- 
duced to ashes, and taken in doses of three spoonfuls to one 
semisextarius of honied wine ; that of the female animal being 
used where the patient is a woman, and that of the other sex 
in the case of males ; a distinction about which the magicians 
have made a sort of grand mystery. The dung of a bull-calf is 
also applied topically for this disease, and ashes of burnt calves' 
dung are taken with seed of staphy linos, in equal proportions, 
in wine. Goats' blood also is used, with the marrow ; but it 
is generally thought that the blood of the he-goat is the most 
efficacious, when the animal has fed upon lentisk, more par- 
ticularly. 
Another instance of smoking, though not a very tempting one. 
92 See B. xviii. c. 29. 9-^ ^' Eupicapra." 
91 '^Subulo.'* 9^ From the Greek. 
See B. xix. c. 27, B. xx. c. 15, and B. xxv. c. 64. 
