Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 31.djvu/780

760 For a hard tumor or swelling, goat's flesh burned to ashes and smudged on with water is found to be efficacious, as are also shavings off the horn of a hart to disperse ill-humors and gatherings. Wood-ashes seethed in resin, or goat's horn burned and mingled with water, or its dung dried and grated and mingled with lard, were all good remedies for swellings.

For erysipelas, the prescriptions are numerous. A plaster of earthworms, or of bullock's dung, still warm is recommended; but, better still, "For that ilk, take a swallow's nest, break it away altogether, and burn it, with its dung and all; rub it to dust, mingle with vinegar, and smear therewith." For pain of jowl, burn a swallow to dust, and mingle him with field-bee's honey. Give the man that to eat frequently.

To the value of every portion of a fox not even the fairy-lore of Japan can bear higher testimony. The man who has disease of the joints is advised to take a living fox and seethe him till the bones alone be left, and then bathe repeatedly in this foxy essence. And every year he shall prepare himself this support, and let him add oil thereto, when he seetheth him. Wonderfully it healeth!

For sore of ears and dimness of eyes, a fox's gall mingled with oil or with honey is recommended, and "the fat of the fox's loin melted and dropped in the ear also bringeth health. For oppressive, hard-drawn breathing, a fox's lung sodden and put into sweetened wine and administered, wonderfully healeth." A salve of fox's grease mingled with tar would heal all manner of sores, while his liver worked cures quite as notable as those recorded in Japan. Shoes lined with vixen-hide were recommended to those who suffered from foot-addle—i.e., gout.

Next in value to the fox ranks the hare, whose brain drunk in wine "wonderfully amendeth "an indolent tendency to oversleep. Its lung, bound on the sore, healeth both eyes and feet. The hare's gall, mingled with honey, brighteneth the eyes. The lung and liver, mingled with myrrh and boiled in vinegar, cures giddiness. The sinews swallowed raw are an antidote against bite of spiders; and the rennet administered in wine against that of serpents. The heart mingled with dust of frankincense heals various forms of disease, while baldness is averted by smearing the head with oil in which have been seethed portions of this poor little animal." Then the hair holdeth on, and the salve compels that it shall grow."

If the gums of a child be frequently rubbed with a hare's brain sodden, then shall its teeth wax without sore. The milk of a she-wolf was held equally efficacious, but more difficult to obtain!

Next in order of merit comes the he-goat, whose liver pounded with vinegar is found valuable as a styptic, as is also his blood dried and reduced to dust; goat's gall is a cosmetic which will remove all unsightly spots and specks from off the face; mingled with