Still, however, I should not hesitate to employ it as a friction for phthiriasis or porrigo. It is strongly recommended also, in raisin wine, as an antidote to the poison of the sea-hare,[58] but I should be more ready to use it as a liniment for elephantiasis. Some authors have prescribed it as an ointment for foul ulcers and the fleshy excrescences which grow in them, as also for spots and films on the eyes; and have recommended it to be taken, in doses of one cyathus, for ulcerations of the lungs, and for tapeworm. There is an oil extracted from this pitch, known as “pisselæon,”[59] the properties of which are of increased activity for all the purposes before-mentioned. It is a well-known fact that the saw-dust of cedar will put serpents to flight, and that a similar effect is produced by anointing the body with the berries[60] bruised in oil. CHAP. 12.—CEDRIDES: TEN REMEDIES. Cedrides, or in other words, the fruit of the cedar,[61] is curative of coughs, acts as a diuretic, and arrests looseness of the bowels. It is good also for ruptures, convulsions, spasms, and strangury, and is employed, as a pessary, for affections of the uterus. It is used also to neutralize the venom of the sea-hare,[62] and for the cure of the various affections above-mentioned, as also of gatherings and inflammations. CHAP. 13.—GALBANUM: TWENTY-THREE REMEDIES. We have already[63] given some description of galbanum: to be good, it should be neither too moist nor too dry, but just in the state which we have mentioned.[64] It is taken by itself for inveterate coughs, asthma, ruptures, and convulsions; and it is employed externally for sciatica, pains in the sides, inflamed tumours,[65] boils, denudations of the bones, scrofulous sores, nodes upon the joints, and tooth-ache. It is applied with honey also, to ulcerations of the head. In combination with oil of roses or with nard, it is used as an injection for suppurations of the ears; and the odour of it is useful for epilepsy, hysterical suffocations, and faintness at the stomach. Employed as a pessary or as a fumigation, it brings away the fœtus in cases of miscarriage; branches too of hellebore covered with it and laid beneath the patient, have a similar effect. We have already[66] stated that serpents are driven away by the fumes of burnt galbanum, and they will equally avoid persons whose body has been rubbed with it. It is curative also of the sting of the scorpion. In protracted deliveries, a piece of galbanum the size of a bean is given in one cyathus of wine: it has the effect also of reducing the uterus when displaced, and, taken with myrrh and wine, it brings away the dead fœtus. In combination with myrrh and wine too, it neutralizes poisons—those which come under the denomination of “toxica”[67] in particular. The very touch of it, mixed with oil and spondylium,[68] is sufficient to kill a serpent.[69] It is generally thought to be productive of strangury.