8 
EDIBLE BRITISH MOLLVSKS. 
from a weak chest. M. Figiiier assisted in finding the 
snails in the holes in the garden wall, and under leaves, 
and M. Laborde crushed the mollusks with a stone, pick- 
ing off the pieces of broken shells, then rolling the fish 
in powdered sugar swallowed them. The remedy w^as 
evidently efficacious, as twenty years later M. Laborde 
still held his position as tenor, and sang at the theatre 
at Brussels and also at the opera in Paris.* 
In the ^ Meddygon Myddvai,^ published by the Welsh 
MSS. Society, the following recipes are found : — 
For an Impostume (whitlow) . — Take a snail out of its 
shell, and bruising it small, pound it into a plaster and 
apply it to the finger; it will ripen and break it, and it 
should then be dressed like any other wound. For ^^a 
patient who is burnt it recommends a plaster of mallows, 
snail-shells, pennywort, and linseed pounded, and applied 
until the part is healed without even uncovering it. 
In olden times it was supposed that the small grits of , 
sand found in the horns of snails, introduced into hollow 
teeth, removed the pain instantaneously ; and that the 
ashes of empty snail-shells mixed with myrrh were good 
for the gums. (Pliny^s Nat. Hisf. vol. v. p. 431. )t 
Pliny also recommends snails beaten up raw and 
taken in 3 cyathi of warm water for a cough,^^ and a snail 
diet for internal pains, the snails to be cooked as fol- 
lows : — ^^They must first be left to simmer in water for 
some time without touching the contents of the shell ; 
after which, without any other addition, they must be 
grilled upon hot coals, and eaten with wine and garum 
(chap. 15, book xxx.), (a kind of fish-sauce). 
* ‘ La Yie et les Mceurs des Animaux,’ p. 386. 
t Throughout this volume I have used the translations of Pliny and 
Athenseus, in Bohn’s series of Classical Authors. 
