462 
pltnt's natural history. 
[Book XXX. 
application of a mouse split asunder, or of a lizard more par- 
ticularly, similarly divided, or else the head only of the animal, 
pounded with salt. The snails, too, that are found in clusters 
upon leaves, are pounded and applied with their shells on ; as 
also those that are used as food, the shells being first removed, 
applied with hare's rennet in particular. The bones of a 
snake, applied with the rennet of any four-footed animal, will 
produce a similar effect before the end of two days : cantha- 
rides, also, bruised and applied with barley- meal, are highly 
extolled. 
CHAP. 43. (14.) REMEDIES FOR PEMALE COMPLAINTS. 
For diseases incident to females, a ewe's placenta is very 
useful, as already mentioned by us, when speaking of goats : 
sheep's dung, too, is equally good. A fumigation of burnt 
locusts, applied to the lower parts, affords relief to strangury, 
in females more particularly. If, immediately after concep- 
tion, a woman eats a cock's testes every now and then, the 
child of which she is pregnant will become a male, it is said. 
The ashes of a burnt porcupine, taken in drink, are a preventive 
of abortion : bitches' milk facilitates delivery : and the after- 
birth of a bitch, provided it has not touched the ground, will 
act as an expellent of the foetus. Milk, taken as a drink, 
strengthens the loins of women when in travail. Mouse-dung, 
diluted with rain water, reduces the breasts of females, when 
swollen after delivery. The ashes of a burnt hedge-hog, 
applied with oil, act as a preventive of abortion. Delivery is 
facilitated, in cases where the patient has taken, either goose- 
dung in two cyathi of water, or the liquid that escapes from 
the uterus of a weasel by its genitals. 
Earth-worms, applied topically, effectually prevent pains in 
the sinews of the neck and shoulders ; taken in raisin wine, 
they expel the after-birth, when retarded. Applied by them- 
selves, earthworms ripen abscesses of the breasts, open them, 
draw the humours, and make them cicatrize : taken in honied 
wine, they promote the secretion of the milk. In hay-grass there 
are small worms found, which, attached to the neck, act as a 
preventive of premature delivery ; they are removed, however, 
at the moment of childbirth, as otherwise they would have the 
effect of impeding delivery ; care must be taken, ako, not to put 
56 In B. xxviii. c. 77, " Fieri." 
