A strange remedy for sneezing or hiccoughing, recommended by Pliny, was to transfer a ring from one of the fingers of the left hand to the middle finger of the right hand.[549] This prescription is copied from Pliny by the physician Marcellus Empiricus[550] who says, however, that a ring should be put on the middle finger of the _left_ hand, adding that the cure was immediate. Probably the explanation is to be found in the fact that rings were rarely worn by the Romans on the middle finger, and hence the unusual sensation produced by placing a ring on this finger operated to check the nervous spasm causing the sneezes or hiccoughs. It is well known that any nervous shock, sometimes a very slight one, will suffice to cure such spasms; indeed, Pliny also advises the immersion of the hand in very hot water. Since lizards were believed to recover their sight by natural means after they had been blinded, this fancy led to the use of a strange method for procuring remedial rings. A blinded lizard was put into a glass vessel, in which iron or gold rings were also placed. When it became apparent that the creature had regained its sight, the rings were taken out and used for the cure of weak and weeping eyes. Something of the natural force that operated to restore the lizard’s vision was supposed to communicate itself to the rings.[551] In a treatise incorrectly attributed to the Roman physician Galen (“De incantatione”), the statement is made that the wearing of a ring set with a sard weighing twenty grains will ensure deep and tranquil sleep and give protection against bad dreams or fearful “visions of the night.” For nervous derangement, often a cause of nightmare, Marcellus Empiricus, who practised medicine in the Roman world of the sixth century A.D., recommended a finger ring made out of the hoof of a rhinoceros, asserting that any patient suffering from “obstruction of the nerves” would surely experience relief by wearing such a ring. On the other hand a ring turned out of rhinoceros horn was supposed to have efficacy against poison and spasms.[552] As a cure for bilious or intestinal troubles, the physician, Alexander Trallianus (sixth century A.D.) recommends an iron ring with an octagonal _chaton_ on which should be inscribed the words: Φεύγε, φεύγε, ὶον χολή, ἢ κορδαλος ἑζήτει. “Fly, fly, wretched bile, the swallow is seeking thee.”[553] This refers to the belief that the flesh of the swallow was a remedy for those suffering from colic.