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
Where the fœtus is felt to be dead in the uterus, the lichens or
excrescences from a horse’s legs, taken in fresh, water, will act
as an expellent: an effect produced also by a fumigation made with
the hoofs or dry dung of that animal. Procidence of the uterus is
arrested by using butter, in the form of an injection; and indurations
of that organ are removed by similarly employing ox-gall, with oil
of roses, turpentine being applied externally in wool. They say,
too, that a fumigation, made from ox-dung, acts as a corrective upon
procidence of the uterus, and facilitates parturition; and that
conception is promoted by the use of cows’ milk. It is a well-known
fact that sterility is often entailed by suffering in child-birth; an
evil which may be averted, Olympias of Thebes assures us, by rubbing
the parts, before sexual intercourse, with bull’s gall, serpents’
fat, verdigrease, and honey. In cases, too, where menstruation is too
abundant, the external parts should be sprinkled with a solution of
calf’s gall, the moment before the sexual congress; a method which
acts emolliently also upon indurations of the abdomen. Applied to the
navel as a liniment, it arrests excessive discharges, and is generally
beneficial to the uterus. The proportions generally adopted are—one
denarius of gall, one-third of a denarius of opium, and as much oil
of almonds as may appear to be requisite; the whole being applied in
sheep’s wool. The gall, too, of a bull-calf is beaten up with half the
quantity of honey, and kept in readiness for the treatment of uterine
diseases. If a woman about the time of conception eats roasted veal
with the plant aristolochia,[2391] she will bring forth a male child,
we are assured. Calf’s marrow, boiled in wine and water with the suet,
and applied as a pessary, is good for ulcerations of the uterus; the
same, too, with foxes’ fat and cats’ dung, the last being applied with
resin and oil of roses.
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