To protect the population from the baleful effects of the love-philter, there was, fortunately, the anti-philter, in which, strangely enough, we come upon the same ingredients. Thus mouse-dung, applied in “the form of a liniment, acts as an antiphrodisiac,” according to Pliny (lib. xxviii. cap. 80). “A lizard drowned in urine has the effect of an antiphrodisiac upon the man whose urine it is.” (Idem, lib. xxx. cap. 49.) “The same property is to be attributed to the excrement of snails and pigeon’s dung, taken with oil and wine.”—(Idem.) A powerful antiphrodisiac was made of the urine of a bull and the ashes of a plant called “brya.” “The charcoal too of this wood is quenched in urine of a similar nature, and kept in a shady spot. When it is the intention of the party to rekindle the flames of desire, it is set on fire again. The magicians say that the urine of a eunuch will have a similar effect.”—(Idem, lib. xxiv. cap. 42.) “According to Osthanes ... a woman will forget her former love by taking a he-goat’s urine in drink.”—(Idem, lib. xxviii. cap. 77.) Hen-dung was an antidote against philters, especially those made of menstrual blood. “Contra Philtra magica, in specie ex sanguine menstruo femineo.” (“Chylologia,” p. 816, 817.) Dove-dung was also administered for the same purpose, but was not quite so efficacious. A journeyman cabinet-maker had been given a love-potion by a young woman, so that he couldn’t keep away from her. His mother then bought a pair of new shoes for him, put into them certain herbs, and in them he had to run to a certain town. A can of urine was then put into his right shoe, out of which he drank, whereupon he perfectly despised the object of his former affection. A prostitute gave a love-potion to a captain in the army. Some of her ordure was placed in a new shoe, and after he had walked therein an hour, and had his fill of the smell, the spell was broken. Paullini here quotes Ovid,— “Ille tuas redolens Phineu medicamina mensas Non semel est stomacho nausea facta meo.” A man was given in his food some of the dried ordure of a woman whom he formerly loved, and that created a terrible antipathy toward her.—(Paullini, p. 258.) “The seeds of the tamarisk mixed in a drink or meat with the urine of a castrated ox will put an end to Venus.”—(“Saxon Leechdoms,” vol. i. p. 43, quoting Pliny, lib. 21, c. 92.) “Galenos says that the priests eat rue and agnus castus, it seems, as a refrigerative.”—(Idem, p. 43.) The herb rue was used by the Romans as an amulet against witchcraft, and was also employed in the exorcisms of the Roman Catholic Church.—(Brand, “Popular Antiquities,” vol. iii. p. 315, article “Rural Charms.”)