Fortior et tortos servat vesica capillos, Et mutat Latias spuma Batava comas.--Mart. viii. 23, 19. The first line of the above proves that people then covered their heads, in the night-time, with a bladder to keep their hair, after it was dressed, from being deranged; and a bladder was undoubtedly as fit for that use as the nets and cauls employed for the like purpose at present. [238] Femina canitiem Germanis inficit herbis. Ovidius De Arte Amandi, iii. 163. [239] Valer. Max. i. 5, p. 135: Capillos cinere rutilarunt. Ad rutilam speciem nigros flavescere crines, Unguento cineris prædixit Plinius auctor. Q. Serenus, De Medic. iv. 56. Serenus seems to allude to a passage of Pliny, xxiii. 2, p. 306, where he speaks of an ointment made from the burnt lees of vinegar and _oleum lentiscinum_. The same thing is mentioned in Dioscorides, v. 132, p. 379. Servius, Æn. iv. quotes the following words from Cato: “Mulieres nostræ cinere capillum ungitabant, ut rutilus esset crinis.” Alex. Trallianus, 1, 3, gives directions how to make an ointment for gray hair from soap and the ashes of the white flowers of the _Verbascum_. The _Cinerarii_, however, of Tertullian, lib. ii. _ad uxor._ 8, p. 641, seem to have been only hair-dressers, who were so called because they warmed their curling-irons among the hot ashes. [240] Pliny says that spots of the skin may be removed by ox-gall. [241] Odyss. vi. 91. [242] Iliad, ix. 14, and xvi. 4. [243] Geopon. vii. 6.--Plin. xiv. cap. 21.--Columella, xii. 50. 14. [244] Arnobius, vii. p. 237. [245] The word λίτρον in Pollux ought not to have been translated _sapo_. [246] Cicer. Ep. Fam. viii. 14.--Pollucis Onom. viii. 9, 39; x. 135.--Ovid. De Medicam. Faciei, ver. 73 et 85.--Phavorini Dictionar. p. 527. Gynesius calls clothes washed with _nitrum_, νιτρούμενα, _nitro perfricata_. [247] Lib. xi. p. 801. [248] De Mirabil. Auscult. c. 54. [249] Hist. Mirab. c. 162, p. 216. [250] Lib. xxxi. 10, p. 564. [251] J. D. Michaelis Commentationes, 4to, p. 151. I must mention also C. Schoettgenii Antiquitates Fulloniæ, Traj. 1727, 8vo. My readers will do me a pleasure if they compare the above work with this article. No one will accuse me of vanity when I pretend to understand the theory of washing better than the learned Schöttgen; but if I have explained the passages which he quotes in a more satisfactory manner, and turned them to more advantage, I must ascribe this superiority to my knowledge of that art. I shall here take occasion to remark, that there is no subject, however trifling, which may not be rendered useful, or at least agreeable, by being treated in a scientific manner; and to turn such into ridicule, instead of displaying wit, would betray a want of judgment.