Chap. 23.] REMEDIES FOR DISEASES OF THE EEET. 447 
CHAP. 23. (9.) REMEDIES FOR GOTJT AKD FOR DISEASES OF THE 
FEET. 
To prevent varicose veins, the legs of cHldren are rubbed 
with a lizard's blood : but both the party who operates and the 
patient must be fasting at the time. Wool- grease, mixed with 
woman's milk and white lead, has a soothing effect upon gout ; 
the liquid dung also voided by sheep ; a sheep's lights ; a 
ram's gall, mixed with suet ; mice, split asunder and applied ; 
a weasel's blood, used as a liniment with plantago; the ashes 
of a weasel burnt alive, mixed with vinegar and oil of roses, 
and applied with a feather, or used in combination with wax 
and oil of roses ; a dog's gall, due care being taken not to touch 
it with the hand, and to apply it with a feather ; poultry dung ; 
or else ashes of burnt earth-worms, applied with honey, and 
removed at the end of a couple of days. Some, however, pre- 
fer using this last with water, while others, again, apply the 
worms themselves, in the proportion of one acetabulums^ to 
three cyathi of honey, the feet of the patient being first anointed 
with oil of roses. The broad, flat, kind of snail, taken in drink, 
is used for the removal of pains in the feet and joints ; two of 
them being pounded for the purpose and taken in wine. They 
are employed, also, in the form of a liniment, mixed with the 
juice of the plant helxine:^^ some, however, are content to 
beat up the snails with vinegar. Some say that salt, burnt 
in a new earthen vessel with a viper, and taken repeatedly, is 
curative of gout, and that it is an excellent plan to rub the 
feet with viper's fat. It is asserted, too, that similar results 
are produced by keeping a kite till it is dry, and then powder- 
ing it and taking it in water, a pinch in three fingers at a 
time ; by rubbing the feet with the blood of that bird mixed 
with nettles ; or by bruising the first feathers of a ring-dove 
with nettles. The dung of ring-doves is used as a liniment 
for pains in the joints ; the ashes also of a burnt weasel, or 
of burnt snails, mixed with amylum^''' or gum tragacanth. 
A yerj excellent cure for contusions of the joints is a spider's 
web ; but there are persons who give the preference to ashes 
of burnt cobwebs or of burnt pigeons' dung, mixed with 
polenta and white wine. Eor sprains of the joints a sovereign 
^5 Acetabuli mensura " seems a preferable reading to aceto mensura," 
which makes no sense. 
16 See B. xxi. e. 56. See B. xvili. c. 17. 
