The cure of phthisis is effected by taking a wolf’s liver boiled in thin wine; the bacon of a sow that has been fed upon herbs; or the flesh of a she-ass, eaten with the broth: this last mode in particular, being the one that is employed by the people of Achaia. They say too, that the smoke of dried cow-dung—that of the animal when grazing, I mean—is remarkably good for phthisis, inhaled through a reed;[2375] and find it stated that the tips of cows’ horns are burnt, and administered with honey, in doses of two spoonfuls, in the form of pills. Goat suet, many persons say, taken in a pottage of alica,[2376] or melted fresh with honied wine, in the proportion of one ounce of suet to one cyathus of wine, is good for cough and phthisis, care being taken to stir the mixture with a sprig of rue. One author of credit assures us that before now, a patient whose recovery has been despaired of, has been restored to health by taking one cyathus of wild goat[2377] suet and an equal quantity of milk. Some writers, too, have stated that ashes of burnt swine’s dung are very useful, mixed with raisin wine; as also the lights of a deer, a spitter[2378] deer in particular, smoke-dried and beaten up in wine. CHAP. 68.—REMEDIES FOR DROPSY. For dropsy, a wild boar’s urine is good, taken in small doses in the patient’s drink; it is of much greater efficacy, however, when it has been left to dry in the bladder of the animal. The ashes, too, of burnt cow-dung, and of bulls’ dung in particular—animals that are reared in herds, I mean—are highly esteemed. This dung, the name given to which is “bolbiton,”[2379] is reduced to ashes, and taken in doses of three spoonfuls to one semisextarius of honied wine; that of the female animal being used where the patient is a woman, and that of the other sex in the case of males; a distinction about which the magicians have made a sort of grand mystery. The dung of a bull-calf is also applied topically for this disease, and ashes of burnt calves’ dung are taken with seed of staphylinos,[2380] in equal proportions, in wine. Goats’ blood also is used, with the marrow; but it is generally thought that the blood of the he-goat is the most efficacious, when the animal has fed upon lentisk, more particularly. CHAP. 69.—REMEDIES FOR ERYSIPELAS, AND FOR PURULENT ERUPTIONS. For erysipelas a liniment of bears’ grease is used, that from the kidneys in particular; fresh calves’ dung also, or cow-dung; dried goats’ milk cheese, with leeks; or else the fine scrapings of deer’s skin, brought off with pumice-stone and beaten up in vinegar. Where there is redness of the skin attended with itching, the foam from a horse’s mouth is used, or the hoof, reduced to ashes.