Milk is employed as an injection where excoriations have been caused by the use of strong purgatives; in cases also where dysentery is productive of chafing, it is similarly employed, boiled with sea pebbles or a ptisan of barley. Where, however, the intestines are excoriated, cows’ milk or ewes’ milk is the best. New milk is used as an injection for dysentery; and in an unboiled state, it is employed for affections of the colon and uterus, and for injuries inflicted by serpents. It is also taken internally as an antidote to the venom of cantharides, the pine-caterpillar, the buprestis, and the salamander. Cows’ milk is particularly recommended for persons who have taken colchicum, hemlock, dorycnium,[2260] or the flesh of the sea-hare; and asses’ milk, in cases where gypsum, white-lead, sulphur,[2261] or quick-silver, have been taken internally. This last is good too for constipation attendant upon fever, and is remarkably useful as a gargle for ulcerations of the throat. It is taken, also, internally, by patients suffering from atrophy, for the purpose of recruiting their exhausted strength; as also in cases of fever unattended with head-ache. The ancients held it as one of their grand secrets, to administer to children, before taking food, a semisextarius of asses’ milk, or for want of that, goats’ milk; a similar dose, too, was given to children troubled with chafing of the rectum at stool. It is considered a sovereign remedy for hardness of breathing, to take cows’ milk whey, mixed with nasturtium. In cases of ophthalmia, too, the eyes are fomented with a mixture of one semisextarius of milk and four drachmæ of pounded sesame. Goats’ milk is a cure for diseases of the spleen; but in such case the goats must fast a couple of days, and be fed on ivy-leaves the third; the patient, too, must drink the milk for three consecutive days, without taking any other nutriment. Milk, under other circumstances, is detrimental to persons suffering from head-ache, liver complaints, diseases of the spleen, and affections of the sinews; it is bad for fevers, also, vertigo—except, indeed, where it is required as a purgative—oppression of the head, coughs, and ophthalmia. Sows’ milk is extremely useful in cases of tenesmus, dysentery, and phthisis; authors have been found too, to assert that it is very wholesome for females. CHAP. 34.—TWELVE REMEDIES DERIVED FROM CHEESE.