€liap. 25.] REMEDIES FOE COLD SHiTERINGfS. 449 
cause of apprehension, as affecting the whole body. According 
to what the magicians say, the gall of a male black dog is a 
counter-charm for the whole of a house ; and it will be quite suffi- 
cient to make fumigations with it, or to use it as a purification, 
to ensure its preservation against all noxious drugs and pre- 
parations. They say the same, too, with reference to a dog's 
blood, if the walls are sprinkled with it ; and the genitals of 
that animal, if buried beneath the threshold. This will sur- 
prise persons the less who are aware how highly these same 
magicians extol that most aboiliinable insect, the tick, and 
all because it is the only one that has no^^ passage for the 
evacuations, its eating ending only in its death, and it living all 
the longer for fasting : in this latter state it has been known 
to live so long as seven days, they say, but when it gorges to 
satiety it will burst in a much shorter period. According to 
these authorities, a tick from a dog's left ear, worn as an 
amulet, will allay all kinds of pains. They presage, too, from 
it on matters of life and death ; for if the patient, they say, 
gives an answer to a person who has a tick about him, and, 
standing at the foot of the bed, asks how he is, it is an infal- 
lible sign that he will survive ; while, on the other hand, if he 
makes no answer, he will be sure to die. They add, also, that 
the dog from whose left ear the tick is taken, must be entirely 
black. JN'igidius has stated in his writings that dogs will 
avoid the presence all day of a person who has taken a tick 
from off a hog. 
The magicians likewise assure us that patients suffering 
from delirium will recover their reason on being sprinkled 
with a mole's blood; and that persons who are apt to be 
troubled by the gods of the night'^^ and by Pauni, will expe- 
rience relief by rubbing themselves morning and evening with 
the tongue, eyes, gall, and intestines of a dragon, boiled in 
oil, and cooled in the open air at night. 
CHAP. 25. EEMEDIES FOE COLD SHIVEEINGS. 
A remedy for cold shiverings, according to Meander, is a 
dead amphisbsena,^^ or its skin only, attached to the body : in 
addition to which, he informs us that if one of these reptiles 
A popular fallacy of Pliny's time. See B. xi. c. 40. 
21 Spectres and nightmare. The serpent so called, 
23 See B. viii. c. 36, 
VOL. V. 
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