We have already[2262] spoken of the different kinds of cheese when treating of the mamillæ and other parts of animals. Sextius attributes the same properties to mares’ milk cheese that he does to cheese made of cows’ milk: to the former he gives the names of “hippace.” Cheese is best for the stomach when not salted, or, in other words, when new cheese is used. Old [salted] cheese has a binding effect upon the bowels, and reduces the flesh, but is more wholesome to the stomach [than new salted cheese]. Indeed, we may pronounce of aliments in general, that salt meats reduce the system, while fresh food has a tendency to make flesh. Fresh cheese, applied with honey, effaces the marks of bruises. It acts, also, emolliently upon the bowels; and, taken in the form of tablets, boiled in astringent wine and then toasted with honey on a platter, it modifies and alleviates griping pains in the bowels. The cheese known as “saprum,”[2263] is beaten up, in wine, with salt and dried sorb apples, and taken, in drink, for the cure of cœliac affections. Goats’ milk cheese, pounded and applied to the part affected, is a cure for carbuncle of the generative organs; sour cheese,[2264] also, with oxymel, is productive of a similar effect. In the bath it is used as a friction, alternately with oil, for the removal of spots. CHAP. 35.—TWENTY-FIVE REMEDIES DERIVED FROM BUTTER. From milk, too, butter is produced; held as the most delicate food among barbarous[2265] nations, and one which distinguishes[2266] the wealthy from the multitude at large. It is mostly made from cows’ milk, and hence its name;[2267] but the richest butter is that made from ewes’ milk. There is a butter made also from goats’ milk; but previously to making it, the milk should first be warmed, in winter. In summer it is extracted from the milk by merely shaking it to and fro in a tall vessel, with a small orifice at the mouth to admit the air, but otherwise closely stopped, a little water[2268] being added to make it curdle the sooner. The milk that curdles the most, floats upon the surface; this they remove, and, adding salt to it, give it the name of “oxygala.”[2269] They then take the remaining part and boil it down in pots, and that portion of it which floats on the surface is butter, a substance of an oily nature. The more[2270] rank it is in smell, the more highly it is esteemed. When old, it forms an ingredient in numerous compositions. It is of an astringent, emollient, repletive, and purgative nature. CHAP. 36.—OXYGALA: ONE REMEDY. Oxygala, too, is prepared another way, sour milk being added to the fresh milk which is wanted to curdle. This preparation is extremely wholesome to the stomach: of its properties we shall have occasion[2271] to speak in another place. CHAP. 37.—THE VARIOUS USES OF FAT AND OBSERVATIONS UPON IT, FIFTY-TWO IN NUMBER.