CHAP. 9.—REMEDIES DERIVED FROM THE HUMAN HAIR, TEETH, ETC. The first hair, it is said, that is cut from an infant’s head, and, in fact, the hair of all persons that have not reached the age of puberty, attached to the limbs, will modify the attacks of gout. A man’s hair, applied with vinegar, is a cure for the bite of a dog, and, used with oil or wine, for wounds on the head. It is said, too, if we choose to believe it, that the hair of a man torn down from the cross, is good for quartan fevers. Ashes, too, of burnt human hair are curative of carcinomata. If a woman takes the first tooth that a child has shed, provided it has not touched the ground, and has it set in a bracelet, and wears it constantly upon her arm, it will preserve her from all pains in the uterus and adjacent parts. If the great toe is tied fast to the one next to it, it will reduce tumours in the groin; and if the two middle fingers of the right hand are slightly bound together with a linen thread, it will act as a preservative against catarrhs and ophthalmia. A stone, it is said, that has been voided by a patient suffering from calculi, if attached to the body above the pubes, will alleviate the pains of others similarly afflicted, as well as pains in the liver; it will have the effect, also, of facilitating delivery. Granius[2174] adds, however, that for this last purpose, the stone will be more efficacious if it has been extracted with the knife. Delivery, when near at hand, will be accelerated, if the man by whom the woman has conceived, unties his girdle, and, after tying it round her, unties it, adding at the same time this formula, “I have tied it, and I will untie it,” and then taking his departure. CHAP. 10.—REMEDIES DERIVED FROM THE HUMAN BLOOD, THE SEXUAL CONGRESS, ETC. The blood of the human body, come from what part it may, is most efficacious, according to Orpheus and Archelaüs, as an application for quinzy: they say, too, that if it is applied to the mouth of a person who has fallen down in a fit of epilepsy, he will come to himself immediately. Some say that, for epilepsy, the great toes should be pricked, and the drops of blood that exude therefrom applied to the face; or else, that a virgin should touch the patient with her right thumb—a circumstance that has led to the belief that persons suffering from epilepsy should eat the flesh of animals in a virgin state. Æschines of Athens used to cure quinzy, carcinoma, and affections of the tonsillary glands and uvula, with the ashes of burnt excrements, a medicament to which he gave the name of “botryon.”[2175]