FORTY-ONE REMEDIES DERIVED FROM THE FEMALE SEX

Latine · Mayhoff 1906

Quae ex mulierum corporibus traduntur, ad portentorum miracula accedunt, ut sileamus divisa membratim scelera abortus, mensum piacula quaeque alia non obstetrices modo, verum etiam ipsae meretrices prodidere: capilli si crementur, odore serpentes fugari; eodem nidore 5 vulvae morbo strangulatas respirare; cinere eo quidem, si in testa sint cremati vel cum spuma argenti, scabritias oculorum ac prurigines emendari, item verrucas et infantium ulcera, cum melle capitis quoque vulnera et omnium ulcerum sinus, addito melle ac ture panos, podagras, cum adipe suillo sacrum ignem, sanguinem sisti inlito, item formicationes corporum.

De lactis usu convenit dulcissimum esse mollissimumque et in longa febri coeliacisque utilissimum, maxime eius, quae iam infantem removerit. et in malacia stomachi, in febribus, rosionibus efficacissimum experiuntur; item mammarum collectionibus cum ture, oculo ab ictu cruore suffuso et in dolore aut epiphora, si inmulgeatur, plurimum prodest, magisque cum melle et narcissi suco aut turis polline, superque in omni usu efficacius eius, quae marem enixa sit, multoque efficacissimum eius, quae geminos mares, et si vino ipsa cibisque acrioribus abstineat. mixto praeterea ovorum candido liquore madidaque lana frontibus inpositum fluctiones oculorum suspendit. etiam si rana saliva sua oculum asperserit, praecipuum est remedium, et contra morsum eiusdem bibitur instillaturque. eum, qui simul matris filiaeque lacte inunctus sit, liberari omni oculorum metu in totam vitam adfirmant. aurium quoque vitiis medetur admixto modice oleo aut, si ab ictu doleant, anserino adipe tepefactum. si sit odor gravior, ut plerunmque fit longis vitiis, diluto melle lana includitur. et contra regium morbum in oculis relictum instillatur cum elaterio. peculiariter valet potum contra venena, quae data sint e marino lepore, buprestiaut etiam, ut Aristoteles tradit, dorycnio, et contra insaniam, quae facta sit hyoscyami potu. podagris quoque iubent inlini cum cicuta, alii cum oesypo et adipe anserino, qualiter et vulvarum doloribus inponitur. alvum etiam sistit potu, ut Rabirius scribit, et menses ciet. eius vero, quae feminam enixa sit, ad vitia tantum in facie sananda praevalet. pulmonum quoque incommoda lacte mulieris sanantur; cui si admisceatur inpubis pueri urina et mel Atticum, omnia coclearium singulorum mensura, vermes quoque aurium eici invenio. eius, quae marem pepererit, lacte gustato canes rabiosos negant fieri.

Mulieris quoque salivam ieiunam potentem diiudicant cruentatis oculis et contra epiphoras, si ferventes anguli oculorum subinde madefiant, efficacius, si cibo vinoque se pridie ea abstinuerit. invenio et fascia mulieris alligato capite dolores minui. post haec nullus est modus. iam primum abigi grandines turbinesque contra fulgura ipsa mense nudato; sic averti violentiam caeli, in navigando quidem tempestates etiam sine menstruis. ex ipsis vero mensibus, monstrificis alias, ut suo loco indicavimus, dira et infanda vaticinantur, e quibus dixisse non pudeat, si in defectus lunae solisve congruatvis illa, inremediabilem fieri, non segnius et in silente luna, coitusque tum maribus exitiales esse atque pestiferos, purpuram quoque eo tempore ab iis pollui; tanto vim esse maiorem. quocumque autem alio menstruo si nudatae segetem ambiant, urucas et vermiculos scarabaeosque ac noxia alia decidere Metrodorus Scepsius in Cappadocia inventum prodit ob multitudinem cantharidum; ire ergo per media arva retectis super dunes vestibus. alibi servatur, ut nudis pedibus eant capillo cinctuque dissoluto. cavendum ne id oriente sole faciant, sementiva enim arescere, item novella tactu in perpetuum laedi, rutam ethederam, res medicatissimas, ilico mori. multa diximus de hac violentia, sed praeter illa certum est, apes tactis alvariis fugere; lina, cum coquantur, nigrescere; aciem in cultris tonsorum hebetari; aes contactu grave virus odoris accipere et aeruginem, magis si decrescente luna id accidat; equas, si sint gravidae, tactas abortum pati, quin et aspectu omnino, quamvis procul visas, si purgatio illa post virginitatem prima sit aut in virgine aetatis sponte manet. bitumen in Iudaea nascens sola hac vi superari filo vestis contactae docuimus. ne igni quidem vincitur, quo cuncta, cinisque etiam ille, si quis aspergat lavandis vestibus, purpuras mutat, florem coloribus adimit, ne ipsis quidem feminis malo suo inter se inmunibus: abortus facit inlitu aut si omnino praegnas supergradiatur. quae Lais et Elephantis inter se contraria prodidere de abortivo carbone e radice brassicae vel myrti vel tamaricis in eo sanguine extincto, itemque asinas tot annis non concipere, quot grana hordei contacta ederint, quaeque alia nuncupavere monstrifica aut inter ipsa pugnantia, cum haec fecunditatem fieri isdem modis, quibus sterilitatem illa, praenuntiaret, melius est non credere. Bithus Durrachinus hebetata aspectu specula recipere nitorem tradit isdem aversa rursus contuentibus, omnemque vim talem resolvi, si mullum piscem secum habeant; multi vero inesse etiam remedia tanto malo: podagris inlini, strumas et parotidas et panos, sacros ignes, furunculos, epiphoras tractatu mulierum earum leniri; Lais et Salpe canum rabiosorum morsus et tertianas quartanasque febres menstruo in lana arietis nigri argenteo bracchiali incluso, Diotimus Thebanus vel omnino vestis ita infectae portiuncula ac vel licio bracchiali inserto. Sotira obstetrix tertianis quartanisque efficacissimum dixit plantas aegri subterlini, multoque efficacius ab ipsa muliere et ignorantis; sic et comitiales excitari. Icatidas medicus quartanas finiri coitu, incipientibus dumtaxat menstruis, spopondit. inter omnes vero convenit, si aqua potusque formidetur a morsu canis, supposita tantum calici lacinia tali statim metum eum discuti, videlicet praevalente sympathia illa Graecorum, cum rabiem canum eius sanguinis gustatu incipere dixerimus. cinere eo iumentorum omnia ulcera sanar certum est addita caminorum farina et cera, maculas autem e veste eas non nisi eiusdem urina ablui, cinerem per se rosaceo mixtum feminarum praecipue capitis dolores sedare inlitum fronti, asperrimamque vim profluvii eius esse per se annis virginitate resoluta. id quoque convenit, quo nihil equidem libentius crediderim, tactis omnino menstruo postibus inritas fieri Magorum artes, generis vanissimi, ut aestimare licet. ponam enim vel modestissimum e promissis eorum, ex homine siquidem resigmina unguium e pedibus manibusque cera permixta ita, ut dicatur tertianae, quartanae vel cotidianae febri remedium quaeri, ante solis ortum alienae ianuae adfigi iubent ad remedia in his morbis, quanta vanitate, si falsum est, quanta vero noxia, si transferunt morbos! innocentioires ex his omnium digitorum resigmina unguium ad cavernas formicarum abici iubent eamque, quae prima coeperit trahere, correptam subnecti collo; ita discuti morbum.

English · Bostock & Riley 1855–57

The remedies said to be derived from the bodies of females closely approach the marvellous nature of prodigies; to say nothing of still-born infants cut up limb by limb for the most abominable practices, expiations made with the menstrual discharge, and other devices which have been mentioned, not only by midwives but by harlots even as well! The smell of a woman’s hair, burnt, will drive away serpents, and hysterical suffocations, it is said, may be dispelled thereby. The ashes of a woman’s hair, burnt in an earthen vessel, or used in combination with litharge, will cure eruptions and prurigo of the eyes: used in combination with honey they will remove warts and ulcers upon infants; with the addition of honey and frankincense, they will heal wounds upon the head, and fill up all concavities left by corrosive ulcers; used with hogs’ lard, they will cure inflammatory tumours and gout; and applied topically to the part affected, they will arrest erysipelas and hæmorrhage, and remove itching pimples on the body which resemble the stings of ants.

As to the uses to which woman’s milk has been applied, it is generally agreed that it is the sweetest and the most delicate of all, and that it is the best of remedies for chronic fevers and cœliac affections, when the woman has just weaned her infant more particularly. In cases, too, of sickness at stomach, fevers, and gnawing sensations, it has been found by experience to be highly beneficial; as also, in combination with frankincense, for abscesses of the mamillæ. When the eyes are bloodshot from the effects of a blow, or affected with pain or defluxion, it is a very good plan to inject woman’s milk into them, more particularly in combination with honey and juice of daffodil, or else powdered frankincense. In all cases, however, the milk of a woman who has been delivered of a male child is the most efficacious, and still more so if she has had male twins; provided always she abstains from wine and food of an acrid nature. Mixed with the white of an egg in a liquid state, and applied to the forehead in wool, it arrests defluxions of the eyes. If a frog has spirted its secretions into the eye, woman’s milk is a most excellent remedy; and for the bite of that reptile it is used both internally and externally.

It is asserted that if a person is rubbed at the same moment with the milk of both mother and daughter, he will be proof for the rest of his life against all affections of the eyes. Mixed with a small quantity of oil, woman’s milk is a cure for diseases of the ears; and if they are in pain from the effects of a blow, it is applied warm with goose-grease. If the ears emit an offensive smell, a thing that is mostly the case in diseases of long standing, wool is introduced into those organs, steeped in woman’s milk and honey. While symptoms of jaundice are still visible in the eyes, woman’s milk is injected, in combination with elaterium. Taken as a drink, it is productive of singularly good effects, where the poison of the sea-hare, the buprestis, or, as Aristotle tells us, the plant doryenium has been administered; as a preventive also of the madness produced by taking henbane. Woman’s milk also, mixed with hemlock, is recommended as a liniment for gout; while some there are who employ it for that purpose in combination with wool-grease or goose-grease; a form in which it is used as an application for pains in the uterus. Taken as a drink, it arrests diarrhœa, Rabirius says, and acts as an emmenagogue; but where the woman has been delivered of a female child, her milk is of use only for the cure of face diseases.

Woman’s milk is also a cure for affections of the lungs; and, mixed with the urine of a youth who has not arrived at puberty, and Attic honey, in the proportion of one spoonful of each, it removes singing in the ears, I find. Dogs which have once tasted the milk of a woman who has been delivered of a male child, will never become mad, they say.

A woman’s fasting spittle is generally considered highly efficacious for bloodshot eyes: it is good also for defluxions of those organs, the inflamed corners of the eyes being moistened with it every now and then; the result, too, is still more successful, if the woman has abstained from food and wine the day before.

I find it stated that head-ache may be alleviated by tying a woman’s fillet round the head.

Over and above these particulars, there is no limit to the marvellous powers attributed to females. For, in the first place, hailstorms, they say, whirlwinds, and lightning even, will be scared away by a woman uncovering her body while her monthly courses are upon her. The same, too, with all other kinds of tempestuous weather; and out at sea, a storm may be lulled by a woman uncovering her body merely, even though not menstruating at the time. As to the menstrual discharge itself, a thing that in other respects, as already stated on a more appropriate occasion, is productive of the most monstrous effects, there are some ravings about it of a most dreadful and unutterable nature. Of these particulars, however, I do not feel so much shocked at mentioning the following. If the menstrual discharge coincides with an eclipse of the moon or sun, the evils resulting from it are irremediable; and no less so, when it happens while the moon is in conjunction with the sun; the congress with a woman at such a period being noxious, and attended with fatal effects to the man. At this period also, the lustre of purple is tarnished by the touch of a woman: so much more baneful is her influence at this time than at any other. At any other time, also, if a woman strips herself naked while she is menstruating, and walks round a field of wheat, the caterpillars, worms, beetles, and other vermin, will fall from off the ears of corn. Metrodorus of Scepsos tells us that this discovery was first made in Cappadocia; and that, in consequence of such multitudes of cantharides being found to breed there, it is the practice for women to walk through the middle of the fields with their garments tucked up above the thighs. In other places, again, it is the usage for women to go barefoot, with the hair dishevelled and the girdle loose: due precaution must be taken, however, that this is not done at sun-rise, for if so, the crop will wither and dry up. Young vines, too, it is said, are injured irremediably by the touch of a woman in this state; and both rue and ivy, plants possessed of highly medicinal virtues, will die instantly upon being touched by her.

Much as I have already stated on the virulent effects of this discharge, I have to state, in addition, that bees, it is a well-known fact, will forsake their hives if touched by a menstruous woman; that linen boiling in the cauldron will turn black, that the edge of a razor will become blunted, and that copper vessels will contract a fetid smell and become covered with verdigrease, on coming in contact with her. A mare big with foal, if touched by a woman in this state, will be sure to miscarry; nay, even more than this, at the very sight of a woman, though seen at a distance even, should she happen to be menstruating for the first time after the loss of her virginity, or for the first time, while in a state of virginity. The bitumen that is found in Judæa, will yield to nothing but the menstrual discharge; its tenacity being overcome, as already stated, by the agency of a thread from a garment which has been brought in contact with this fluid. Fire itself even, an element which triumphs over every other substance, is unable to conquer this; for if reduced to ashes and then sprinkled upon garments when about to be scoured, it will change their purple tint, and tarnish the brightness of the colours. Indeed so pernicious are its properties, that women themselves, the source from which it is derived, are far from being proof against its effects; a pregnant woman, for instance, if touched with it, or indeed if she so much as steps over it, will be liable to miscarry.

Laïs and Elephantis have given statements quite at variance, on the subject of abortives; they mention the efficacy for that purpose of charcoal of cabbage root, myrtle root, or tamarisk root, quenched in the menstrual discharge; they say that she-asses will be barren for as many years as they have eaten barley-corns steeped in this fluid; and they have enumerated various other monstrous and irreconcileable properties, the one telling us, for instance, that fruitfulness may be ensured by the very same methods, which, according to the statement of the other, are productive of barrenness; to all which stories it is the best plan to refuse credit altogether. Bithus of Dyrrhachium informs us that a mirror, which has been tarnished by the gaze of a menstruous female, will recover its brightness if the same woman looks steadily upon the back of it; he states, also, that all evil influences of this nature will be entirely neutralized, if the woman carries the fish known as the sur mullet about her person.

On the other hand, again, many writers say that, baneful as it is, there are certain remedial properties in this fluid; that it is a good plan, for instance, to use it as a topical application for gout, and that women, while menstruating, can give relief by touching scrofulous sores and imposthumes of the parotid glands, inflamed tumours, erysipelas, boils, and defluxions of the eyes. According to Laïs and Salpe, the bite of a mad dog, as well as tertian or quartan fevers, may be cured by putting some menstruous blood in the wool of a black ram and enclosing it in a silver bracelet; and we learn from Diotimus of Thebes that the smallest portion will suffice of any kind of cloth that has been stained therewith, a thread even, if inserted and worn in a bracelet. The midwife Sotira informs us that the most efficient cure for tertian and quartan fevers is to rub the soles of the patient’s feet therewith, the result being still more successful if the operation is performed by the woman herself, without the patient being aware of it; she says, too, that this is an excellent method for reviving persons when attacked with epilepsy.

Icetidas the physician pledges his word that quartan fever may be cured by sexual intercourse, provided the woman is just beginning to menstruate. It is universally agreed, too, that when a person has been bitten by a dog and manifests a dread of water and of all kinds of drink, it will be quite sufficient to put under his cup a strip of cloth that has been dipped in this fluid; the result being that the hydrophobia will immediately disappear. This arises, no doubt, from that powerful sympathy which has been so much spoken of by the Greeks, and the existence of which is proved by the fact, already mentioned, that dogs become mad upon tasting this fluid. It is a well-known fact, too, that the menstruous discharge, reduced to ashes, and applied with furnace soot and wax, is a cure for ulcers upon all kinds of beasts of burden; and that stains made upon a garment with it can only be removed by the agency of the urine of the same female. Equally certain it is, too, that this fluid, reduced to ashes and mixed with oil of roses, is very useful, applied to the forehead, for allaying head-ache, in women more particularly; as also that the nature of the discharge is most virulent in females whose virginity has been destroyed solely by the lapse of time.

Another thing universally acknowledged and one which I am ready to believe with the greatest pleasure, is the fact, that if the door-posts are only touched with the menstruous fluid all spells of the magicians will be neutralized—a set of men the most lying in existence, as any one may ascertain. I will give an example of one of the most reasonable of their prescriptions—Take the parings of the toe-nails and finger-nails of a sick person, and mix them up with wax, the party saying that he is seeking a remedy for a tertian, quartan, or quotidian fever, as the case may be; then stick this wax, before sunrise, upon the door of another person—such is the prescription they give for these diseases! What deceitful persons they must be if there is no truth in it! And how highly criminal, if they really do thus transfer diseases from one person to another! Some, of them, again, whose practices are of a less guilty nature, recommend that the parings of all the finger-nails should be thrown at the entrance of ant-holes, the first ant to be taken which attempts to draw one into the hole; this, they say, must be attached to the neck of the patient, and he will experience a speedy cure.