To render available or to enhance the occult virtues of birds Hildegard suggests a great amount of complicated ceremonial. The heart of a vulture, split in two, dried before a slow fire and in the sun, and worn sewn up in a belt of doeskin, makes one tremble in the presence of poison.[408] This is explained by the vulture’s own antipathy to poison, which is increased and purified by the fire, sun, and especially by the belt, for the doe is swifter and more sensitive than other animals. Mistiness is marvelously removed from the eyes by catching a nightingale before day-break, adding a single drop of dew found on clean grass to its gall, and anointing the eyebrows and lashes frequently with the same.[409] Another eye-cure consists in cooking a heron’s head in water, removing its eyes, alternately drying them in the sun and softening them in cold water for three successive times, pulverizing and dissolving them in wine, and at night frequently touching the eyes and lids with the tip of a feather dipped in this concoction.[410] The blood of a crane, dried and preserved, and its right foot are employed in varied ways to facilitate child-birth.[411] Hildegard also often tells how to make a medicinal unguent by cooking some bird in some prescribed manner and then pulverizing certain portions of the carcass with various herbs or other animal substances.[412] Even without the employment of ceremonial sufficiently remarkable powers are attributed to the bodies or parts of birds. Eating the flesh of one reduces fat and benefits epileptics, while eating its liver is good for melancholy.[413] The liver of a swan has the different property of purifying the lungs, while the lung of a swan is a cure for the spleen.[414] Again, a heron’s liver cures stomach trouble, while a cure for spleen is to drink water in which its bones have been stewed, and if one who is sad eats its heart, it will make him glad.[415] [Sidenote: Cures from quadrupeds.]