434 
PLTNT's NATFJiAL HTSTOET. 
[Book XXX. 
poses the snails of Astypalsea^^ are the most efficacious, and 
they give the preference to the detersive preparation^^ made 
from them. The parts affected are sometimes rubbed with 
a cricket, and affections of the tonsillary glands are alleviated 
by being rubbed with the hands of a person who has bruised a 
cricket. 
CHAP. 12. EEMEDIES POE QXJINZY AND SCKOFULA. 
For quinzy we have very expeditious remedies in goose- gall, 
mixed with elaterium^^ and honey, an owlet's brains, or the 
ashes of a burnt swallow, taken in warm water ; which last 
remedy we owe^^ to the poet Ovid. But of all the remedies 
spoken of as furnished by the swallow, one of the most effica- 
cious is that derived from the young of the wild swallow, a 
bird which may be easily recognized by the peculiar conforma- 
tion of its nest.^"^ By far the most effectual, however, of them 
all, are the young of the bank-swallow,^^ that being the name 
given to the kind which builds its nest in holes on the banks of 
rivers. Many persons recommend the young of any kind of 
swallow as a food, assuring us that the person who takes it 
need be in no apprehension of quinzy for the whole of the 
ensuing year. The young of this bird are sometimes sti^ed 
and then burnt in a vessel with the bload, the ashes being 
administered to the patient with bread or in the drink : some, 
however, mix with them the ashes of a burnt weasel, in equal 
proportion. The same remedies are recommended also for 
scrofula, and they are administered for epilepsy, once a day, in 
drink. Swallows preserved in salt are taken for quinzy, in 
doses of one drachma, in drink : the nest,^^ too, of the bird, 
taken internally, is said to be a cure for the same disease. 
Millepedes,"^^' it is thought, used in the form of a liniment, are 
peculiarly efficacious for quinzy : some persons, also, administer 
eleven of them, bruised in one semi-sextarius of hydromel, 
through a reed, they being of no use whatever if once touched 
by the teeth. Other remedies mentioned are, the broth of a 
See B. iv. c. 23, B. viii. c. 59, and cc. 15 and 43 of the present Book. 
The only birds' nests that are now taken internally are the soiUton 
hoiirong^ or, edible birds' nests, of the Chinese. 
• '0 See B. xxix. c. 39. 
65 See B. XX. c. 2. 
6^ No very great obligation, apparently. 
«^ See B. X. c. 49. 
6S Riparia." 
