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CHAP. 61.—REMEDIES FOR DISEASES OF THE GENERATIVE ORGANS AND OF THE FUNDAMENT.

For diseases of the fundament, a sovereign remedy is bear's gall, mixed with the grease; to which some persons are in the habit of adding litharge and frankincense. Butter, too, is very good, employed with goose-grease and oil of roses. The proportions in which they are mixed will be regulated by the circumstances of the case, care being taken to see that they are of a consistency which admits of their being easily applied. Bull's gall upon lint is a remarkably useful remedy, and has the effect of making chaps of the fundament cicatrize with great rapidity. Swellings of those parts are treated with veal suet—that from the loins in particular—mixed with rue. For other affections, goats' blood is used, with polenta. Goats' gall, too, is employed by itself, for the cure of condylomata, and sometimes, wolf's gall, mixed with wine.

Bears' blood is curative of inflamed tumours and apostemes upon these parts in general; as also bulls' blood, dried and powdered. The best remedy, however, is considered to be the stone which the wild ass1 voids with his urine, it is said, at the moment he is killed. This stone, which is in a somewhat liquefied state at first, becomes solid when it reaches the ground: attached to the thigh, it; disperses all collections of humours and all kinds of suppurations: it is but rarely found, however, and it is not every wild ass that produces it, but as a remedy it is held in high esteem. Asses' urine too, used in combination with gith, is highly recommended; the ashes of a horse's hoof, applied with oil and water; a horse's blood, that of a stone-horse in particular; the blood, also, of an ox or cow, or the gall of those animals. Their flesh too, applied warm, is productive of similar results; the hoofs reduced to ashes, and taken in water or honey; the urine of a she-goat; the flesh of a he-goat, boiled in water; the dung of these animals, boiled with honey; or else a boar's gall, or swine's urine, applied in wool.

Riding on horseback, we well know, galls and chafes the inside of the thighs: the best remedy for accidents of this nature is to rub the parts with the foam which collects at a horse's mouth. Where there are swellings in the groin, arising2 from ulcers, a cure is effected by inserting in the sores three horse-hairs, tied with as many knots.

1 "Onager."

2 Arising, by sympathy, from sores in other parts of the body.

The Natural History. Pliny the Elder. John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S. H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A. London. Taylor and Francis, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street. 1855.

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