Cow's milk or goat's milk is good for ulcerations of the tonsillary glands and of the trachea. It is used in the form of a gargle, warm from the udder or heated, goat's milk being the best, boiled with mallows and a little salt. A broth made from tripe is an excellent gargle for ulcerations of the tongue and trachea; and for diseases of the tonsillary glands, the kidneys of a fox are considered a sovereign remedy, dried and beaten up with honey, and applied externally. For quinzy, bull's gall or goat's gall is used, mixed with honey. A badger's liver, taken in water, is good for offensive breath, and butter has a healing effect upon ulcerations of the mouth. When a pointed or other substance has stuck in the throat, by rubbing it externally with cats' dung, the substance, they say, will either come up again or pass downwards into the stomach.
Scrofulous sores are dispersed by applying the gall of a wild
boar or of an ox, warmed for the purpose: but it is only when the
sores are ulcerated that hare's rennet is used, applied in a linen
cloth with wine. The ashes of the burnt hoof of an ass or
horse, applied with oil or water, is good for dispersing scrofu-
lous sores; warmed urine also; the ashes of an ox's hoof,
taken in water; cow-dung, applied hot with vinegar; goat-
suet with lime; goats' dung, boiled in vinegar; or the testes
of a fox. Soap,[1] too, is very useful for this purpose, an
invention of the Gauls for giving a reddish[2] tint to the hair.
This substance is prepared from tallow and ashes, the best ashes
for the purpose being those of the beech and yoke-elm: there
are two kinds of it, the hard soap and the liquid, both of them
much used by the people of Germany, the men, in particular,
more than the women.
1. Hist. Inx. II. 92–3, Bohn's Ed., where this subject is treated at considerable length.
2.