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
Others again, who are of a more scrupulous tendency,[2383] take the
ashes of it in water; and the Emperor Nero, it is said, was in the
habit of refreshing himself with this drink, when he attempted to gain
the public applause at the three-horse chariot races.[2384] Swine’s
dung, it is generally thought, is the next best to that of the goat.
CHAP. 73. (18.)—REMEDIES FOR HÆMORRHAGE.
Hæmorrhage is arrested by applying deer’s rennet with vinegar, hare’s
rennet, hare’s fur reduced to ashes, or ashes of burnt asses’ dung.
The dung, however, of male animals is the most efficacious for this
purpose, being mixed with vinegar, and applied with wool, in all cases
of hæmorrhage. In the same way, too, the ashes of a horse’s head or
thigh, or of burnt calves’ dung, are used with vinegar; the ashes also
of a goat’s horns or dung, with vinegar. But it is the thick blood
that issues from the liver of a he-goat when cut asunder, that is
looked upon as the most efficacious; or else the ashes of the burnt
liver of a goat of either sex, taken in wine or applied to the nostrils
with vinegar. The ashes, too, of a leather wine-bottle—but only when
made of he-goat skin—are used very efficiently with an equal quantity
of resin, for the purpose of stanching blood, and knitting together the
lips of the wound. A kid’s rennet in vinegar, or the thighs of that
animal, reduced to ashes, are said to be productive of a similar result.
CHAP. 74.—REMEDIES FOR ULCERS AND CARCINOMATOUS SORES.
Ulcers upon the legs and thighs are cured by an application of bears’
grease, mixed with red earth: and those of a serpiginous nature by
using wild boar’s gall, with resin and white lead; the jaw-bone of a
wild boar or swine, reduced to ashes; swine’s dung in a dry state;
or goats’ dung, made luke-warm in vinegar. For other kinds of ulcers
butter is used, as a detergent, and as tending to make new flesh;
ashes of deer’s antlers, or deer’s marrow; or else bull’s gall, mixed
with oil of cyprus[2385] or oil of iris. Wounds inflicted with edged
weapons are rubbed with fresh swine’s dung, or with dried swine’s dung,
powdered. When ulcers are phagedænic or fistulous, bull’s gall is
injected, with leek-juice or woman’s milk; or else bull’s blood, dried
and powdered, with the plant cotyledon.[2386]
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