Various parts and products of the human body are credited with remarkable virtues as the mention just made of woman’s milk suggests. Other passages recommend more especially the milk of a woman just delivered of a male child, but most of all that of the mother of twins.[346] _Sed nihil facile reperiatur mulierum profluvio magis monstrificum_, as Pliny proceeds to illustrate by numerous examples.[347] Great virtues are also attributed to the urine, particularly of a chaste boy.[348] A few other instances of remedies drawn from the human body are ear-wax or a powdered tooth against stings of scorpions and bites of snakes,[349] a man’s hair for the bite of a dog, the first hairs from a boy’s head for gout.[350] Diseases of women are prevented by wearing constantly in a bracelet the first tooth a boy loses, provided it has not touched the ground. Simply tying two fingers or toes together is recommended for tumors in the groin, catarrh, and sore eyes.[351] Or the eyes may be touched thrice with water in which the feet have been washed. Scrofula and throat diseases may be cured by the touch of the hand of one who has died an early death, although some authorities do not insist upon the circumstance of early death but direct that the corpse be of the same sex as the patient and that the diseased spot be touched with the back of the left dead hand. [Sidenote: Virtues of human saliva.] Of all fluids and excretions of the human body the saliva is perhaps used most often in ancient and medieval medicine, as the custom of spitting once or thrice in administering other remedies or performing ceremonies goes to prove. The spittle of a fasting person is the more efficacious. In a chapter devoted particularly to the properties of human saliva Pliny lists many diseases and woes which it alleviates.[352] In this connection he makes the following absurd assertion which he nevertheless declares is easily tested by experiment. “If a person repents of a blow given from a distance or hand-to-hand, let him spit into the palm of the hand with which he struck, and the person who has been struck will feel no resentment. This is often proved by beasts of burden who are induced to mend their pace by this method after the use of the whip has failed.” Pliny adds, however, that some persons try to increase the force of their blows by thus spitting on the hands beforehand. He also mentions as counter-charms against sorcery the practices of spitting into one’s urine or right shoe, or when crossing a dangerous spot. [Sidenote: The human operator.]