The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 5 (of 6)Pliny, the Elder
History
The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 5 (of 6)
Pliny, the Elder
Natural history -- Pre-Linnean works
The disease called “tenesmus,” or in other words, a frequent and
ineffectual desire to go to stool, is removed by drinking asses’ milk
or cows’ milk. The various kinds of tapeworm[2352] are expelled by
taking the ashes of deer’s horns in drink. The bones which we have
spoken[2353] of as being found in the excrements of the wolf, worn
attached to the arm, are curative of diseases of the colon, provided
they have not been allowed to touch the ground. Polea, too, a substance
already mentioned,[2354] is remarkably useful for this purpose, boiled
in grape juice:[2355] the same too with swine’s dung, powdered and
mixed with cummin, in a decoction of rue. The antler of a young stag,
reduced to ashes and taken in wine, mixed with African snails, crushed
with the shells on, is considered a very useful remedy.
CHAP. 60. (15.)—REMEDIES FOR AFFECTIONS OF THE BLADDER, AND FOR URINARY
CALCULI.
Diseases of the bladder, and the torments attendant upon calculi, are
treated with the urine of a wild boar, or the bladder of that animal
taken as food; both of them being still more efficacious if they have
been thoroughly soaked first. The bladder, when eaten, should be
boiled first, and if the patient is a female, it should be a sow’s
bladder. There are found in the liver of the wild boar certain small
stones,[2356] or what in hardness resemble small stones, of a white
hue, and resembling those found in the liver of the common swine: if
these stones are pounded and taken in wine, they will expel calculi,
it is said. So oppressed is the wild boar by the burden of his
urine,[2357] that if he has not first voided it, he is unable to take
to flight, and suffers himself to be taken as though he were enchained
to the spot. This urine, they say, has a consuming effect upon urinary
calculi. The kidneys of a hare, dried and taken in wine, act as an
expellent upon calculi. We have already[2358] mentioned that in the
gammon of the hog there are certain joint-bones; a decoction made from
them is remarkably useful for urinary affections. The kidneys of an
ass, dried and pounded, and administered in undiluted wine, are a cure
for diseases of the bladder. The excrescences that grow on horses’
legs, taken for forty days in ordinary wine or honied wine, expel
urinary calculi. The ashes, too, of a horse’s hoof, taken in wine or
water, are considered highly useful for this purpose; and the same with
the dung of a she-goat—if a wild goat, all the better—taken in honied
wine: goats’ hair, too, is used, reduced to ashes.
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