The most efficacious remedies for diseases of the rectum are wool-grease—to which some add pompholix[1] and oil of roses—a dog's head, reduced to ashes; or a serpent's slough, with vinegar. In cases where there are chaps and fissures of those parts, the ashes of the white portion of dogs' dung are used, mixed with oil of roses; a prescription due, they say, to Æsculapius,[2] and remarkably efficacious also for the removal of warts. Ashes of burnt mouse-dung, swan's fat, and cow suet, are also used. Procidence of the rectum is reduced by an application of the juices discharged by snails when punctured. For the cure of excoriation of those parts, ashes of burnt woodmice are used, with honey; the gall of a hedge-hog, with a bat's brains and bitches' milk; goose-grease, with the brains of the bird, alum, and wool-grease; or else pigeons' dung, mixed with honey. A spider, the head and legs being first removed, is remarkably good as a friction for condylomata. To prevent the acridity of the humours from fretting the flesh, goosegrease is applied, with Punic wax, white lead, and oil of roses; swan's grease also, which is said to be a cure for piles.

A very good thing, they say, for sciatica, is, to pound raw snails in Aminean[3] wine, and to take them with pepper; to eat a green lizard, the feet, head, and intestines being first removed; or to eat a spotted lizard, with the addition of three oboli of black poppy. Ruptures and convulsions are treated with sheep's gall, diluted with woman's milk. The gravy which escapes from a ram's lights roasted, is used for the cure of itching pimples and warts upon the generative organs: for other affections of those parts, the ashes of a ram's wool, unwashed even, are used, applied with water; the suet of a sheep's caul, and of the kidneys more particularly, mixed with ashes of pumice-stone and salt; greasy wool, applied with cold water; sheep's flesh, burnt to ashes, and applied with water; a mule's hoofs, burnt to ashes; or the powder of pounded horse teeth, sprinkled upon the parts. In cases of decidence of either of the testes, an application of the slime discharged by snails is remedial, they say. For the treatment of sordid or running ulcers of those parts, the fresh ashes of a burnt dog's head are found highly useful; the small, broad kind of snail, beaten up in vinegar; a snake's slough, or the ashes of it, applied in vinegar; honey in which the bees have died, mixed with resin; or the kind of snail without a shell, that is found in Africa, as already[4] mentioned, beaten up with powdered frankincense and white of eggs, the application being renewed at the end of thirty days; some persons, however, substitute a bulb for the frankincense.

For the cure of hydrocele, a spotted lizard, they say, is marvellously good, the head, feet, and intestines being first removed, and the rest of the body roasted and taken frequently with the food. For incontinence[5] of urine dogs' fat is used, mixed with a piece of split alum the size of a bean; ashes, also, of African snails burnt with the shells, taken in drink; or else the tongues of three geese roasted and eaten with the food, a remedy which we owe to Anaxilaiis. Mutton-suet,[6] mixed with parched salt, has an aperient effect upon inflammatory tumours, and mouse-dung, mixed with powdered frankincense and sandarach, acts upon them as a dispellent: the ashes, also, of a burnt lizard, or the lizard itself, split asunder and applied; or else bruised millepedes, mixed with one third part of turpentine. Some make use of earth of Sinope[7] for this purpose, mixed with a bruised snail. Ashes of empty snail-shells burnt alone, mixed with wax, possess certain repercussive properties; the same, too, with pigeons' dung, employed by itself, or applied with oat-meal or barley-meal. Cantharides, mixed with lime, remove inflammatory tumours quite as effectually as the lancet; and small snails, applied topically with honey, have a soothing effect upon tumours in the groin.