Pliny the Elder, The Natural History, BOOK XXIX. REMEDIES DERIVED FROM LIVING CREATURES., CHAP. 36.—REMEDIES FOR HEAD-ACHE AND FOR WOUNDS ON THE HEAD.

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CHAP. 36.—REMEDIES FOR HEAD-ACHE AND FOR WOUNDS ON THE HEAD.

A good remedy for head-ache are the heads taken from the snails which are found without¹ shells, and in an imperfect state. In these heads there is found a hard stony substance, about as large as a common pebble: on being extracted from the snail, it is attached to the patient, the smaller snails being pounded and applied to the forehead. Wool-grease, too, is used for a similar purpose; the bones of a vulture's head, worn as an amulet; or the brains of that bird, mixed with oil and cedar resin, and applied to the head and introduced into the nostrils. The brains of a crow or owlet, are boiled and taken with the food: or a cock is put into a coop, and kept without food a day and a night, the patient submitting to a similar abstinence, and attaching to his head some feathers plucked from the neck or the comb of the fowl. The ashes, too, of a weasel are applied in the form of a liniment; a twig is taken from a kite's nest, and laid beneath the patient's pillow; or a mouse's skin is burnt, and the ashes applied with vinegar: sometimes, also, the small bone is extracted from the head of a snail that has been found between two cart ruts, and after being passed through a gold ring, with a piece of ivory, is attached to the patient in a piece of dog's skin; a remedy well known to most persons, and always used with success.²

For fractures of the cranium, cobwebs are applied, with oil and vinegar; the application never coming away till a cure has been effected. Cobwebs are good, too, for stopping the bleeding of wounds³ made in shaving. Discharges of blood from the brain are arrested by applying the blood of a goose or duck, or the grease of those birds with oil of roses. The head of a snail cut off with a reed, while feeding in the morning, at full moon more particularly, is attached to the head in a linen cloth, with an old thrum, for the cure of headache; or else a liniment is made of it, and applied with white wax to the forehead. Dogs' hairs are worn also, attached to the forehead in a cloth.

1 He means slugs probably.

2 He does not appear to state this on hearsay only!

3 Cobwebs are still used for this purpose, as also the fur from articles made of beaver. Ajasson mentions English taffeta.

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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Pliny the Elder, The Natural History
John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S., H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A., Ed.

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CHAP. 36.—REMEDIES FOR HEAD-ACHE AND FOR WOUNDS ON THE HEAD.

Pliny the Elder, The Natural History John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S., H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A., Ed.

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Table of Contents:

CHAP. 36.—REMEDIES FOR HEAD-ACHE AND FOR WOUNDS ON THE HEAD.

Pliny the Elder, The Natural History
John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S., H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A., Ed.