Fishing from the earliest times - Blog

!;CURES IN RABIES. TOOTHACHE, PREGNANCY 281" pickled fish applied topically, even where the wound has notbeen cauterised with hot iron ;this will be found sufficientlyeffectual as a remedy " !Do you suffer from toothache ? Then you must haveomitted to rub your teeth once a year in the brains of a dogfish,boiled in oil and kept for the purpose !If, however, this and other remedies disappoint you,Dioscorides ^ and Celsus 2 come to your aid with the sting ofthe pastinaca, which, applied with hellebore or resin, extractsthe teeth painlessly ! As a dead certainty, if the ichthyickingdom fail to give relief, " attach two frogs to the exteriorof your jaw " !Health, perfect health, should be the lot of every womanwho follows the Plinian precepts in Book XXXII. 46.Is she helpless from hysteria ?" Lint, greased with adolphin's fat, and then ignited," produces an anti-excitantor, if the case yield not to treatment instantly, " the flesh ofthe strombus, left to putrefy in vinegar " is an excellentalternativeIf an easy delivery be desired, " first " —the prescriptionsmacks of Mrs.Glasse — " catch your torpedo-fish at the timethat the moon is in Libra, keep it in the open air for three days,"and then, as soon as it is introduced into the patient's room,the trick is done ! Pregnancy, on the other hand, proves oftenabortive, if the woman " happens to step over castoreum orover the beaver itself," or misuses a Retnora.For dyeing the hair black calcined echineis with lard, orhorse-leeches boiled in vinegar, are cheap and trustworthyrecipes. For depilatories your choice is wide. The blood,gall, and liver of the Tunny, fresh or pickled ; or merely theliver, pounded, but preserved with cedar-resin in a leadenbox 3 ; the Pulmo marinus, the Sea-hare, according to^ De Materia Medica, II. 22, i, 176 (Kiihn). Cf. P. A. Matthiole, Commentariiin libros sex Pedanii Dioscordis Anazarbei (Venetiis, 1554), Bk. II.c. xix.* VI. 9.3 Salpe the midwife recommends this prescription to disguise the age ofboys on sale for slaves (Pliny, XXXII. 47). At the end of the chapter theauthor seems to awake from his trance of trustfulness, in the words, " in thecase of every depilatory, the hairs should always be removed before it is"apphed 1