Cbap. 21.] 
EEMEDIES DEEIVED EEOM THE YIPEE. 
395 
CHAP. 20. KEMEDIES DEEIVED FEOM THE DKAGON. 
The dragon^^ is a serpent destitute of venom. Its head, 
placed beneath the threshold of a door, the gods being duly 
propitiated by prayers, will ensure good fortune to the house, 
it is said. Its eyes, dried and beaten up with honey, form a 
liniment which is an effectual preservative against the terrors 
of spectres by night, in the case of the most timorous even. 
The fat adhering to the heart, attached to the arm with a 
deer's sinews in the skin of a gazelle, will ensure success in 
law-suits, it is said ; and the first joint of the vertebrae will 
secure an easy access to persons high in office. The teeth, 
attached to the body with a deer's sinews in the skin of a roe- 
buck, have the effect of rendering masters indulgent and poten- 
tates gracious, it is said. 
But the most remarkable thing of all is a composition, by 
the aid of which the Ipng magicians profess to render persons 
invincible. They take the tail and head of a dragon, the hairs 
of a lion's forehead with the marrow of that animal, the foam 
of a horse that has won a race, and the claws of a dog's feet : 
these they tie up together in a deer's skin, and fasten them 
alternately with the sinews of a deer and a gazelle. It is, 
however, no better worth our while to refute such pretensions 
as these, than it would be to describe the alleged remedies for 
injuries inflicted by serpents, seeing that all these contrivances 
are so many evil devices to poison^^ men's morals. 
Dragon's fat will repel venomous creatures ; an effect which is 
equally produced by burning the fat of the ichneumon. They 
will take to flight, also, at the approach of a person who has 
been rubbed with nettles bruised in vinegar. 
CHAP. 21. REMEDIES DERIVED PEOM THE VIPEE. 
The application of a viper's head, even if it be not the one 
that has inflicted the wound, is of infinite utility as a remedy. 
It is highly advantageous, too, to hold the viper that inflicted 
the injury on the end of a stick, over the steam of boiling 
Some serpent of the boa species, probably. See B. viii. cc. lo, 14, 
22, 41, and B. x. cc. 5, 92, 95, 96. 
^9 By leading them to confound truth with fiction. 
^ See B. viiL c. 35. 
