Latin Texts & Translations

Recurrent fevers are effectually checked by making the patient taste the liver of a dolphin, just before the paroxysm comes on. Hippocampi ^[Note] are stifled in oil of roses, and the patients are rubbed therewith in cold agues, the fish, also, being worn as an amulet by the patient. In the same way, too, the small stones that are found at full moon in the head of the fish called "asellus" ^[Note] are worn, attached in a piece of linen cloth to the patient's body. A similar virtue is attributed to the

longest tooth of the river-fish called phagrus, ^[Note] attached to the patient with a hair, provided he does not see the person who attaches it to him for five days. Frogs are boiled in oil in a spot where three roads meet, and, the flesh being first thrown away, the patients are rubbed with the decoction, by way of cure for quartan fever. Some persons, again, suffocate frogs in oil, and, after attaching them to the patient without his knowing it, anoint him with the oil. The heart of a frog, worn as an amulet, modifies the cold chills in fevers; the same, too, with oil in which the intestines of frogs have been boiled. But the best remedy for quartan fevers, is to wear attached to the body either frogs from which the claws have been ^[Note] removed, or else the liver or heart of a bramble-frog, ^[Note] attached in a piece of russet-coloured cloth.

River-crabs, ^[Note] bruised in oil and water, are highly beneficial in fevers, the patient being anointed with the preparation just before the paroxysms come on: some authorities recommend the addition of pepper to the mixture. Others prescribe for quartan fevers a decoction of river-crabs in wine, boiled down to one fourth, the patient taking it at the moment of leaving the bath: by some, too, it is recommended to swallow the left eye of a river-crab. The magicians engage to cure a tertian fever, by attaching as an amulet to the patient, before sunrise, the eyes of river-crabs, the crabs when thus blinded being set at liberty in the water. They say, too, that these eyes, attached to the body in a piece of deer's hide, with the flesh of a nightingale, ^[Note] will dispel sleep and promote watchfulness. In cases where there are symptoms of lethargy, the rennet of the balæna ^[Note] or of the sea-calf ^[Note] is given to the patient to smell; some persons, too, use the blood of tortoises as a liniment for lethargic patients.

Tertian fevers, it is said, may be cured by wearing one of the vertebræ ^[Note] of a perch attached to the body, and quartan fevers by using fresh river snails, as an aliment. Some persons preserve these snails in salt for this purpose, and give them, pounded, in drink.