To prevent varicose veins, the legs of children are rubbed with a lizard's blood: but both the party who operates and the patient must be fasting at the time. Wool-grease, mixed with woman's milk and white lead, has a soothing effect upon gout; the liquid dung also voided by sheep; a sheep's lights; a ram's gall, mixed with suet; mice, split asunder and applied; a weasel's blood, used as a liniment with plantago; the ashes of a weasel burnt alive, mixed with vinegar and oil of roses, and applied with a feather, or used in combination with wax and oil of roses; a dog's gall, due care being taken not to touch it with the hand, and to apply it with a feather; poultry dung; or else ashes of burnt earth-worms, applied with honey, and removed at the end of a couple of days. Some, however, prefer using this last with water, while others, again, apply the worms themselves, in the proportion of one acetabulum[1] to three cyathi of honey, the feet of the patient being first anointed with oil of roses. The broad, flat, kind of snail, taken in drink, is used for the removal of pains in the feet and joints; two of them being pounded for the purpose and taken in wine. They are employed, also, in the form of a liniment, mixed with the juice of the plant helxine:[2] some, however, are content to beat up the snails with vinegar. Some say that salt, burnt in a new earthen vessel with a viper, and taken repeatedly, is curative of gout, and that it is an excellent plan to rub the feet with viper's fat. It is asserted, too, that similar results are produced by keeping a kite till it is dry, and then powdering it and taking it in water, a pinch in three fingers at a time; by rubbing the feet with the blood of that bird mixed with nettles; or by bruising the first feathers of a ring-dove with nettles. The dung of ring-doves is used as a liniment for pains in the joints; the ashes also of a burnt weasel, or of burnt snails, mixed with amylum[3] or gum tragacanth.

A very excellent cure for contusions of the joints is a spider's web; but there are persons who give the preference to ashes of burnt cobwebs or of burnt pigeons' dung, mixed with polenta and white wine. For sprains of the joints a sovereign remedy is mutton suet, mixed with the ashes of a woman's hair; a good application, too, for chilblains is mutton suet, mixed with alum, or else ashes of a burnt dog's head or of burnt mouse-dung. Ulcers, free from discharge, are brought to cicatrize by using the above-named substances in combination with wax; ashes, also, of burnt dormice, mixed with oil; ashes of burnt wood-mice, mixed with honey; ashes of burnt earthworms, applied with old oil; or else ashes of the snails without a shell that are so commonly found. All ulcers on the feet are cured by the application of ashes of snails, burnt alive; and for excoriations of the feet, ashes of burnt poultry-dung are used, or ashes of burnt pigeons' dung, mixed with oil. When the feet have been galled by the shoes, the ashes of an old shoe- sole are used, or the lights of a lamb or ram. For gatherings beneath[4] the nails, a horse's tooth, powdered, is a sovereign remedy. A light application of a green lizard's blood, will cure the feet of man or beast when galled beneath.

For the removal of corns upon the feet, the urine of a mule of either sex is applied, mixed with the mud which it has formed upon the ground; sheep's dung, also; the liver of a green lizard, or the blood of that animal, applied in wool; earth-worms, mixed with oil; the head of a spotted lizard, pounded with an equal quantity of vitex and mixed with oil; or pigeons' dung, boiled with vinegar. For the cure of all kinds of warts, dogs' urine is applied fresh, with the mud which it has formed upon the ground; dogs' dung, also, reduced to ashes and mixed with wax; sheep's dung; the blood of mice, ap- plied fresh, or the body of a mouse, split asunder; the gall of a hedgehog; a lizard's head or blood, or the ashes of that animal, burnt entire; the cast-off slough of a snake; or else poultry dung, applied with oil and nitre. Cantharides, also, bruised with Taminian[5] grapes, act corrosively upon warts: but when warts have been thus removed, the remedies should be employed which we have pointed out for ulcerations on the skin.