In Pliny’s medicine there are a number of examples of what may be called magic transfer, in which the aim of the procedure is not to cure the disease outright but to rid the patient of it by transferring it from him to some other animal or object. Intestinal disease may be transferred to puppies who have not yet opened their eyes by pressing them to the body and giving them milk from the patient’s mouth. They will die of the disease, when its cause and exact nature may be determined by dissecting them. But finally they must be buried.[391] Griping pains in the bowels will also pass to a duck that is held against the abdomen. One may be rid of a cough by spitting in a frog’s mouth or cure catarrh by kissing a mule,[392] although in these cases we are left uninformed whether the disease passes to the animal. But if a person who has been stung by a scorpion whispers the news in the ear of an ass, the ill will be transferred to the ass.[393] A boil may be removed by rubbing nine grains of barley around it, each grain thrice with the left hand, and then throwing them all into the fire.[394] Warts are banished by touching each with a grain of the chickpea and then tying the grains up in a linen cloth and throwing them behind one.[395] If a root of asphodel is applied to sores and then hung up in smoke, the sores will dry up along with the root.[396] To cure scrofulous sores some bind on as many earthworms as there are sores and let them dry up together.[397] A tooth will cease aching if the herb _erigeron_ is dug up with iron and the patient thrice alternately touches the tooth with the root and spits, and if he then replaces the herb in the same spot and it lives.[398] If this last is a case of magic transfer, perhaps we may trace the same notion in some of the numerous instances in which Pliny directs that an animal shall be released alive after some part of it has been removed or some other medicinal use made of it. [Sidenote: Amulets.]