Chap. 41.] MEDICINAL REMEDIES OF ANIMAI/S. 
291 
our instructor in one of the operations of medicine/ When 
the animal has become too bulky by continued over-feeding, 
it goes down to the banks of the river, and examines the 
reeds which have been newly cut ; as soon as it has found a 
stump that is very sharp, it presses its body against it, and 
so wounds one of the veins in the thigh ; and, by the flow of 
blood thus produced, the body, which would otherwise have 
fallen into a morbid state, is relieved ; after which, it covers 
up the wound with mud. 
CHAP. 41. (27.) THE MEDICINAL REMEDIES WHICH HAVE BEEN 
BORROWED FROM ANIMALS.^ 
The bird also, which is called the ibis,^ a native of the same 
country of Egypt, has shewn us some things of a similar 
nature. Ey means of its hooked beak, it laves the body 
through that part, by which it is especially necessary for 
health that the residuous food should be discharged. JN'or, in- 
deed, are these the only inventions which femve been borrowed 
from animals, to prove of use to man. The power of the 
herb dittany, in extracting arrows, was first disclosed to us by 
stags that had been struck by th,at weapon ; the weapon being 
* Pliny, speaking of the hippopotamus, in B. xxviii. c. 31, styles it, 
''the discoverer of the art of letting blood." — B, 
^ Cuvier remarks upon this and the following Chapter, that they are 
entirely fabulous. The diseases, remedies, and instructions given by the 
animals are equally imaginary, although Pliny has taken the whole from 
authors of credit, and it has been repeated by Plutarch, De Iside, and by 
iElian, Anim. Nat. B. ii. c. 35, and many others. Ajasson, vol. vi. p. 
446 ; Lemaire, vol. iii. p. 426. — B. 
^ Cuvier has given an interesting account of the ibis, the opinions en- 
tertained of it by various travellers and naturalists, and a detail of the 
examination which he made of two of its mummies, which were brought 
by Grobert to Paris, from the wells of Sakhara, These mummies w^ere 
found to be similar to those previously examined by Buffon, Shaw, and 
others, and proved the ibis of the ancient Egyptians to have been a species 
of curlew. This opinion he further supports by a reference to various 
sculptures and mosaics, where this bird is represented, and he remarks 
upon the errors into which most travellers and historians have fallen as to 
it ; the only correct accoimt he conceives to be that of the African traveller, 
Bruce, who describes and figures it under the name of Abou hannes. See 
the extract in Lemaire, vol. iii. p. 633, et seq.^ from his Mecherches sur les 
Ossements Fossiles, vol. i. p. 141, et seq. Herodotus gives an account of 
the ibis, B. i. c. 75, 76, but it is not correct. — B. 
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