Pliny the Younger & Pliny the Elder · a new plain-English translation from the Latin
1| Next come the benefits that the things of the water bring to medicine. For nature, the craftswoman, is not idle even in them: through waves and billows, through the ebb and flow of the tides and the swift courses of rivers, she wields her relentless powers, and nowhere, if we are willing to admit the truth, with greater might, since this element rules over all the others.
2| Waters devour lands, put out flames, climb on high and claim even the sky for themselves, and with the screen of their clouds choke the breath of life; and this is what strikes out thunderbolts, when the world is at war with itself. What can be more wonderful than waters standing in the sky? And yet, as if it were too little to reach so great a height, they sweep shoals of fish up there with them, often stones too, and climb carrying weights not their own.
3| Falling again, the same waters become the cause of everything that springs from the earth, by a thoroughly wonderful arrangement of nature, if one cares to reflect on it: that for crops to be produced and for trees and shrubs to live, waters move up into the sky and bring down from there the breath of life even to plants; so that we must in fairness confess that all the powers of the earth too are owed to the bounty of the waters. Therefore, before anything else, we will set out examples of their power. For which of mortals could list them all?
4| They burst forth generously and everywhere, in very many lands: in one place cold, in another hot, in another both together, as among the Tarbelli, an Aquitanian people, and in the Pyrenees, with only a small distance separating them; elsewhere warm or lukewarm. They promise help against diseases, and, bursting out for the sake of human beings alone of all living creatures, they swell the number of the gods under various names and they found cities, such as Puteoli in Campania, Statiellae in Liguria, Sextiae in the province of Narbonensis. Nowhere, however, are they more abundant than on the Bay of Baiae, nor with more kinds of help: some by the power of sulphur,
5| some of alum, some of salt, some of nitrum, some of bitumen, some even with an acid or salty mixture; some do good by their steam alone, and their force is so great that they heat baths and even make cold water boil in the tubs. The waters at Baiae called Posidianae, which took their name from a freedman of Claudius Caesar, even cook food. The waters that once belonged to Licinius Crassus give off steam in the sea itself, and in the middle of the waves something comes forth that is good for health.
6| Further, by kind, some benefit the sinews, or the feet, or the hips, others dislocations or fractures; they empty the bowels and heal wounds; some are a particular cure for the head or the ears, and the Ciceronian waters for the eyes. It is worth recording: there is a villa, set on the shore as you go from Lake Avernus toward Puteoli, famous for its colonnade and grove, which Marcus Cicero called the Academy, after the model of Athens, since he composed there the books of the same name; in it he had even set up memorials to himself, as though he had not done that throughout the whole world.
7| In the first part of it, shortly after his death, when Antistius Vetus owned it, hot springs burst out that are exceedingly good for the eyes. They were celebrated in a poem by Laurea Tullius, one of Cicero's freedmen, so that one may see at once how even his servants drank deep of that majestic genius. I shall give the poem itself, so that it may be read everywhere and not only there: Where your,
8| most illustrious champion of the Roman tongue, / grove, bidden to rise in a better place, grows green, / and the villa celebrated by the name of Academy / Vetus now restores with richer care, / here too appear streams never found before, / which relieve weary eyes with their sprinkled dew. / Surely the place itself gave this in honor of its Cicero, / when with this aid it laid the springs open, / so that, since he is read without end throughout the whole world, / there might be more waters to heal the eyes. / In the same region of Campania the waters of Sinuessa are reported to do away with barrenness in women and madness in men,
9| and on the island of Aenaria to cure those with stones; and so does the water called Acidula, 3,000 paces from Teanum Sidicinum (this one is cold), and likewise the water called Dimidia in the territory of Stabiae, and the one at Venafrum from the Acidulus spring. The same happens to those who drink at Lake Velinus, and likewise at a spring in Syria near Mount Taurus, as Marcus Varro reports, and at the river Gallus in Phrygia, as Callimachus reports. But there one must drink in moderation, so that it does not drive people out of their minds, which Ctesias writes happens in Ethiopia to those who have drunk from the Red Spring.
10| Near Rome the Albula waters heal wounds; these are lukewarm. But the waters of Cutiliae in the Sabine country, which are extremely cold, penetrate the body with a kind of sucking, so that it could almost seem a bite; they are very good for the stomach, the sinews, and the whole body. The spring of Thespiae makes women conceive at once, and so does the river Elatus in Arcadia; while the spring Linus, also in Arcadia, guards the unborn child and does not allow miscarriages. Conversely, at Pyrrha the river called Aphrodisium makes people barren.
11| Varro reports that vitiligo is removed at Lake Alphius, and that Titius, a former praetor, had a face like a marble statue because of that complaint. The Cydnus, a river of Cilicia, cures those with gout, as appears from a letter of Cassius of Parma to Mark Antony. On the other hand, at Troezen, through the fault of the waters, everyone suffers ailments in the feet.
12| The Tungri, a community of Gaul, have a remarkable spring that sparkles with a great many bubbles and has a taste of iron rust, which is noticed only at the end of the drink. It purges the body and dispels tertian fevers and the troubles of stones. The same water becomes turbid when fire is brought near it, and finally turns red. The Leucogaean springs between Puteoli and Naples cure the eyes and wounds. Cicero set down among his Marvels that only in the marshes of Reate do the hooves of draught animals harden.
13| Eudicus reports that in Hestiaeotis there are two springs, Cerona, from which sheep that drink become black, and Nelea, from which they become white, and from both, parti-coloured; Theophrastus, that at Thurii the Crathis makes white and the Sybaris blackness in cattle and flocks,
14| and that men too feel that difference; for those who drink from the Sybaris are darker and harder and have curly hair, while those who drink from the Crathis are fair and softer and have long straight hair. Likewise in Macedonia, those who wish white offspring to be born to them drive their flocks to the Haliacmon, those who wish black or dusky ones, to the Axius. The same writer says that in some places everything is born dusky, crops too, as among the Messapi, and that in the Lusi of Arcadia, at a certain spring, land mice live and move about. At Erythrae the river Aleos produces hairs on the body.
15| In Boeotia at the god Trophonius, beside the river Hercynna, of two springs one brings memory, the other forgetfulness, the names having been found from that. In Cilicia, near the town of Cescum, a stream called Nuus flows, from which Marcus Varro reports that the senses of those who drink become keener, while on the island of Cea there is a spring by which people are made dull, and at Zama in Africa one by which voices become tuneful.
16| Those who have drunk from the lake Clitorius come to loathe wine, says Eudoxus, but Theopompus that people are made drunk by those springs we have mentioned; Mucianus, that on Andros from the spring of father Liber on fixed days, seven in number, the wine of that god flows, and if it is carried out of sight of the temple, its taste passes into water,
17| Polyclitus, that people are anointed at Liparis, near Soli in Cilicia; Theophrastus the same in Ethiopia, in a spring of the same name; Lycos, that among the Orati in India there is a spring with whose water lamps burn; the same is reported at Ecbatana. Theopompus says that at Scotusa there is a lake that cures wounds,
18| Juba, that among the Trogodytae there is a lake called Insane from its harmful power, which three times a day becomes bitter and salt and then sweet, and as often by night, teeming with white serpents of twenty cubits each; the same writer, that in Arabia a spring leaps up with such force that it throws back every weight cast into it;
19| Theophrastus, that the spring of Marsyas in Phrygia, near the town of Celaenae, throws out stones. Not far from it are two springs, Claeon and Gelon, named from the effect, after Greek words. At Cyzicus there is a spring called the spring of Cupid, from which those who drink, Mucianus believes, lay aside love.
20| At Cranon there is a hot spring, below the highest boiling heat, which, with wine added, keeps the heat of the drink for three days in vessels. There are also the hot springs of the Mattiaci in Germany across the Rhine, whose draught stays hot for three days, while around the margins the waters make pumice.
21| But if anyone thinks some of these things lack credibility, let him learn that in no part of nature are there greater marvels, although at the beginning of the work we related plenty. Ctesias reports that there is a pool in India called Silas, in which nothing floats and everything sinks; Caelius, that at Avernus among us even leaves sink, and Varro, that birds which have flown to it die.
22| On the other hand in the lake Apuscidamus in Africa everything floats and nothing sinks, likewise in the spring Phinthia in Sicily, as Apion reports, and in the lake of the Medes and the well of Saturn. Likewise the source of the river Limyra is accustomed to pass into neighbouring places, portending something; it is also a marvel that it passes with its fish. The inhabitants seek replies from them with food, which the fish snatch, nodding assent, but if they deny the outcome, they drive it off with their tails.
23| The river Alcas in Bithynia washes Bryazum (this is the name both of the temple and of the god), whose whirlpool perjurers are said not to be able to endure, as if it were a burning flame. And in Cantabria the springs of the Tamarici are held to be portents. There are three, eight feet apart, which come together into one channel as a vast river.
24| Each of them is dried up for twelve days, sometimes for twenty, without any trace of water, though a spring that is lavish without interruption lies next to them. It is dreaded when they do not flow for those who wish to look at them, as happened most recently to Larcius Licinius, legate with praetorian power, after seven days. In Judaea a stream dries up on every Sabbath.
25| From the opposite side there are other dreadful marvels. Ctesias writes that in Armenia there is a spring from which black fish at once bring death in food. I have heard this too about the source of the Danube, until one comes to a spring set beside the channel, where this kind of fish ends, and therefore report understands the head of that river to be there. The same they report in Lydia in the pool of the Nymphs.
26| In Arcadia, near Pheneus, water flows from rocks called the Styx, which kills at once, as we have said, but Theophrastus reports that there are small fish in it, themselves deadly, which is not the case in any other kind of deadly spring.
27| Theopompus says that waters kill also in Thrace among the Cichri, Lycos that in the Leontini they kill on the third day after one has drunk, Varro, at Soracte in a spring four feet wide; that at sunrise it overflows like boiling water; that birds which have tasted it lie dead beside it. For this too is a treacherous condition, that some also allure by their appearance, as at Nonacris in Arcadia, with no deterring quality whatever. This one they think is harmful from excessive cold, seeing that it turns to stone as it flows.
28| Otherwise around Tempe in Thessaly, since its poison is a terror to all, and they report that even bronze and iron are eaten away by that water. It flows, as we have indicated, for a short distance, and, a marvel, a wild carob is said to embrace that spring with its roots, always flowering in purple. And a certain herb of its own kind is green on the lips of the spring. In Macedonia, close by the tomb of the poet Euripides, two streams flow together, one of most wholesome drinking, the other deadly.
29| At Perperena there is a spring that makes stone of whatever earth it waters, and likewise the hot waters at Aedepsus in Euboea. For the rocks which the stream reaches grow in height. At Eurymenae garlands thrown into a spring become stone. At Colossae there is a river from which bricks thrown in are drawn out as stone. In the Scyretic mine, trees, whatever are washed by the river, become stone with their branches.
30| Dripping drops also harden into stone in caves, which are therefore shell-like; for at Mieza in Macedonia they do so even hanging from the very vaults, but at Corycus only when they have fallen, in some caves in both ways, and they make columns, as in Phausia of the Chersonese opposite Rhodes, in a great cave, even of varied colour in appearance. And let us be content with examples so far.
31| It is asked among physicians which kind of waters are most useful. They rightly condemn standing and sluggish ones, thinking those that flow more useful, for by their course and the very beating they are refined and improve; and for that reason I wonder that cistern waters are especially approved by some. But these give as their reason that the lightest is that of rains, as it could rise and hang in the air.
32| Therefore they prefer snows also, and to snows even ice, as if its fineness had been driven to infinity; for these, they say, are lighter, and ice much lighter than water. It matters for life that their opinion be refuted. For first of all, that lightness can scarcely be detected otherwise than by sense, waters differing from each other by almost no moment of weight. Nor is it a proof of lightness in rainwater that it has risen into the sky, since stones also are evidently carried up, and as it falls it is stained by the breath of the earth, whence it comes about that rainwater is felt to contain a great deal of filth and therefore rainwater heats up very quickly.
33| I wonder indeed that snow and ice are thought the finest part of that element, when the proof of hailstones lies beside it, from which it is agreed that the drink is most pestilential. Nor are there few among them who on the contrary declare drinks from frost and snow the most unwholesome, since what was finest has been driven out from them. It is certainly found that all liquid is diminished by freezing, and that excessive dew causes scabies, hoar frost a burning, snow's causes being akin.
34| It is agreed indeed that rainwaters putrefy very quickly and last least on a voyage. Epigenes, however, says that water which has been purified after putrefying seven times does not putrefy any more. For even the physicians admit that cistern waters, through their hardness, are useless to the bowels and the throat, and that no other waters hold more mud, or more of the creatures that cause disgust.
35| Likewise they have to admit that rivers are not at once the most useful, as no torrent's is, and that very many lakes are wholesome. Which, then, and of what kind, are the most suitable? Different ones in different places. The kings of the Parthians drink only from the Choaspes and the Eulaeus; these accompany them even on distant journeys. But that these please them not because they are rivers is clear, since they drink neither from the Tigris nor the Euphrates nor from many others.
36| Mud is a fault of waters. If, however, the same river teems with eels, it is held as a sign of wholesomeness, just as it is a sign of coldness when taeniae breed in a spring. Before all, bitter waters are condemned, and those that fill one at once as one sips, as happens at Troezen. For nitrous and salmacid waters, for those crossing deserts to the Red Sea, polenta added makes useful within two hours, and they themselves eat the polenta. Condemned above all are those that make mud in the spring and those that give the drinkers a bad colour; it matters too if they stain bronze vessels or cook pulses slowly, if when strained they gently leave earth behind, and when boiled coat vessels with thick crusts.
37| There is still another fault, not only of a stinking water, but of one that tastes of anything at all, though it be pleasant and agreeable and, as often, approach the neighbourhood of milk. A wholesome water ought to be as like air as possible. One spring only in the whole world is reported of water with a pleasant smell, the Chabura in Mesopotamia; the fables give a reason, that Juno was bathed in it. For the rest, wholesome waters ought to have no taste or smell.
38| Some judge of wholesomeness by a balance, but their diligence is frustrated, since it is very rare for any water to be lighter. A surer fineness is that, among equals, the better is the one that is heated and cooled more quickly. They affirm too that when it is drawn in carried vessels, so as not to hang from the hand, and set on the ground, it turns lukewarm. From what kind, then, will the most approvable come? From wells, plainly, as I see is agreed in towns, but those in which the reason of exercise is secured by frequent drawing, and that fineness by the earth acting as a strainer.
39| So much for wholesomeness; for coldness shade also is necessary, and that they see the sky. Above all one observation, which relates also to permanence, that the vein should leap up from the bottom, not from the sides. For that the water should be cold to the touch is also achieved by art, if when forced up on high or thrown down from a height it seizes the air by striking it. Indeed in swimming the same water is felt colder by those who hold their breath.
40| It was the invention of the emperor Nero to boil water and, lowering it in glass into snow, to chill it; thus the pleasure of coldness is had without the faults of snow. All water at any rate is agreed to be more useful boiled, and when heated it is also cooled more, a most subtle discovery. For a faulty water the remedy is to boil it down to half. Cold water taken in stops bleeding. The heat in baths is warded off if one holds it in the mouth. That waters which are coldest to drink are not equally so to the touch, this good alternating, many gather from a familiar example.
41| The most famous of all waters in the whole world, for coldness and wholesomeness, by the proclamation of the city, wins the palm: the Marcia, among the other gifts of the gods bestowed on the city. This was once called the Aufeia, and the spring itself the Pitonia. It rises in the farthest mountains of the Paeligni, passes through the Marsi and the lake Fucinus, making for Rome beyond doubt. Soon plunged into caverns, it opens out again in the Tiburtine country, and so is brought on nine miles by arches built. The first to undertake to bring it into the city was Ancus Marcius, one of the kings, afterwards Quintus Marcius Rex in his praetorship, and Marcus Agrippa restored it again.
42| The same Agrippa also brought in the Virgo, from a turning at the eighth milestone, two miles along the Praenestine road. Near it is the Herculaneus stream, which it shuns, and from which it took the name of Virgo. By comparison of these rivers the difference spoken of above is detected, since as much as the Virgo excels in touch, so much the Marcia excels in drinking; although the pleasure of both has long since been lost to the city, as ambition and avarice turn the public health aside to villas and suburban estates.
43| It would not be beside the point to have joined to this a method of searching for waters. They are found chiefly in valleys and at some hinge of a curve, or at the roots of mountains. Many have thought the northern parts everywhere watery, a matter in which it is fitting to have disclosed the variety of nature. In the mountains of Hyrcania it does not rain on the southern side; therefore they are wooded only on the north. But Olympus, Ossa, Parnassus, the Apennine, the Alps are clothed and watered on every side, some on the south, as in Crete the White Mountains. So nothing of permanent observation will be judged in these.
44| The signs of waters are the rush and the herb of which we have spoken, and a frog brooding with its breast on a certain place. For the wandering willow, the alder, or the vitex, or the reed, or ivy spring up of their own accord, also from the draining together of rainwater running down from higher into a lower place, a deceptive omen; much surer is the misty exhalation before sunrise for those looking farther, which some watch for from a height, lying face down with the chin touching the earth.
45| There is also a peculiar estimate known only to the skilled, which they follow in the fiercest heat and in the hottest hours of the day: what sort of reflection shines back from each place. For if, with the earth thirsty, it is moister, an undoubted hope is promised.
46| But such intentness of the eyes is needed that they grow sore. Those who flee this run down to other trials. A place is dug to a depth of five feet, and raw pots of clay, or a bronze basin smeared with oil, are placed in it, covered with a fleece of wool, and a burning lamp is vaulted over with leafy branches, then with earth; if the clay is found damp or broken, or sweat on the bronze, or the lamp put out without any lack of oil, or even the fleece of wool soaked, they undoubtedly promise waters. Some also first bake the place with fire, the proof from the vessels being so much the more effective.
47| The earth itself promises when it has whitish patches or is wholly of a greenish-grey colour. For in black earth springs are not generally perennial. Potter's clay always takes away hope, nor do they dig a well further, observing the layers of earth, so that the order spoken of above descends from the black.
48| Water is always sweet in clayey earth, colder in tufa. For this too is approved, since it makes waters sweet and very light and by straining holds back the impurities. Sand promises thin and muddy waters, gravel uncertain veins, but of good taste; male sand and sandy carbunculus certain, stable and wholesome ones, red rocks the best and of most certain hope, the rocky roots of mountains and flint, this much more, cold. As they dig, however, the clods ought to answer constantly moister and the iron tools to descend more easily.
49| When wells are sunk, sulphurous or aluminous veins that are met with kill the well-diggers. The test of this danger is a burning lamp let down, if it goes out; then beside the well, to right and left, vents are dug to receive that heavier breath. Even without these faults the air becomes heavier by depth itself, and they correct it by constantly tossing linen cloths to fan it. When the water is reached, the work rises without sand-lining, lest the veins be stopped.
50| Some waters are colder as soon as spring begins, those whose origin is not deep (for they depend on the winter rains), some from the rising of the Dog Star, as at Pella in Macedonia both occur. For in front of the town, at the beginning of summer, the marsh water is cold, then in the greatest heat it is chilled in the higher parts of the town. This happens also in Chios by a like reasoning of harbour and town. At Athens the Enneacrunos is cooler in a rainy summer than the well in the garden of Jupiter, but that one is cold in droughts. Wells fail most around Arcturus, not in summer itself, and all sink within those four days, and indeed many throughout the whole winter, as around Olynthus, until spring when the waters return.
51| In Sicily, around Messana and Mylae, the springs dry up entirely in winter, and in summer overflow and make a river. At Apollonia in Pontus a spring beside the sea overflows only in summer, and most about the rising of the Dog Star, less if the summer is colder. Some lands become drier with rains, as in the territory of Narnia, which Marcus Cicero inserted among his marvels, reporting that in drought it becomes mud, in rain dust.
52| All water is sweeter in winter, less so in summer, least in autumn, and less in droughts. Nor is the taste of rivers generally even, there being great difference of channel. For waters are such as the earth through which they flow, or the juices of the herbs which they wash. So the same rivers are found unwholesome in some part. Streams flowing in also change the taste, as with the Borysthenes, and being overcome are diluted. Some are even changed by rain. Three times it has happened in the Bosporus that salt rains fell and killed the crops, and as often rains made the irrigation waters of the Nile bitter, to the great pestilence of Egypt.
53| Springs are produced, for the most part, when woods are felled which the nourishment of the trees used to consume, as on Haemus when Cassander was besieging the Gauls, when they had cut down the woods for the sake of a rampart. Often, however, damaging torrents are collected when the forest has been stripped from the hills, which was accustomed to hold the storm clouds and disperse them. It matters to the waters also that the earth be tilled and moved and the callus of the top skin be broken. It is reported at any rate that in Crete, when the town called Arcadia was taken, the springs and rivers, which were many in that place, ceased, and when it was founded again six years later they came out again, as each part began to be cultivated.
54| Earthquakes also pour out and swallow up waters, as it is agreed happened five times around Pheneus in Arcadia. So too on mount Corycus a river burst out, and afterwards the mountain began to be cultivated. That change is marvellous for which no evident cause appears, as in Magnesia a spring made cold from hot, the taste of salt not being changed, and in Caria, where there is a temple of Neptune, a river which had been sweet before was changed into salt.
55| And this is full of marvel, that the Arethusa at Syracuse smells of dung during the Olympic games, and it is probable, since the Alpheus passes under the sea to that island. A spring of the Rhodians in the Chersonese throws out its refuse in the ninth year.
56| The colours of waters also change, as at Babylon a lake has red waters for 11 days in summer, and the Borysthenes is reported blue at fixed times, although the finest of all waters, and therefore floating on top of the Hypanis, in which there is also this marvel, that when south winds blow the Hypanis becomes the upper. But there is another proof of fineness, that it gives off no breath, much less a mist. Those who wish to be seen as careful in these matters say that waters become heavier after the winter solstice.
57| For the rest, it is most useful to lead water from the spring in clay pipes of the thickness of two fingers, with the joints socketed so that the upper enters the lower, smeared with quicklime in oil. The fall of the water will be at the least a sicilicus in a hundred feet; if it comes by a tunnel, vents ought to be at every two actus. Where it must rise to a height, let it come by lead. It rises to the height of its own source. If it comes over a longer run, let it rise and descend repeatedly, lest the levels be lost.
58| It is the rule that pipes be ten feet in length, and, if they are quinariae, weigh sixty pounds each, if octonariae, a hundred, if denariae, a hundred and twenty, and so on in these proportions. That is called a denaria whose sheet is 10 fingers broad before it is bent, and half of that a quinaria. At every bend of a hill a quinaria must be made, where the force is to be tamed, and likewise reservoirs, as the matter demands.
59| I wonder that Homer made no mention of hot springs, though he otherwise often introduced bathing in hot water, doubtless because there was not then this medicine which now takes refuge in waters. Sulphurous water, however, is useful for the sinews, aluminous for paralytics or those loosened in a like way, bituminous or nitrous, such as the Cutiliae are, by drinking, and therefore for purgations.
60| Many count it a glory to endure their heat for very many hours, which is most harmful, for one ought to use them a little longer than baths, and afterwards cold fresh water, and not leave without oil, which the common people think foreign; and so nowhere are bodies more exposed, since the head is filled by the vastness of the vapour and, sweating, is attacked by the cold, while the rest of the body is immersed. A like error belongs to those who glory in drinking as much as possible, and I have seen men swollen by drinking to such a degree that their rings were covered by the skin, the multitude of water taken in being unable to be returned.
61| This too, then, ought not to be done without frequent tasting of salt. They also use the mud of the springs themselves usefully, but only if it dries in the sun when smeared on. Nor indeed is it to be believed that all waters which are hot are medicinal, as at Segesta in Sicily, Larisa in the Troad, Magnesia, Melos, Lipara. Nor is a discoloured appearance of bronze or silver, as many have thought, a proof of medicinal powers, since in the springs of Patavium nothing of the kind, nor any difference even of smell, will be detected.
62| The manner of healing will be the same also in sea waters, which are heated for pains of the sinews, for the soldering of broken bones, for bruises, likewise for drying bodies, for which reason they use cold sea water too. Besides there is another manifold use, the chief being sailing for those afflicted with consumption, as we have said, or for spitting of blood, as we remember Annaeus Gallio did most recently after his consulship.
63| For Egypt is not sought for its own sake, but for the length of the voyage. Indeed the vomitings themselves, stirred by the unsteady tossing, cure very many diseases of the head, the eyes, the chest, and all those for which hellebore is drunk. Sea water by itself the physicians think more effective for dispersing tumours, if barley meal is boiled down in it, for swellings by the ears. They also mix it into plasters, especially white ones, and into malagmata; it helps too when poured on with frequent strokes.
64| It is also drunk, though not without injury to the stomach, to purge bodies, and to bring up black bile or clotted blood by one way or the other. Some have given it to be drunk in quartan fevers too, and in tenesmus and joint diseases, kept for the purpose so that by age it lays aside its virulence; some boiled, all drawn from the deep and not spoiled by any mixture of sweet water. In this use they want vomiting to come first. Then also they mix vinegar or wine and water.
65| Those who have given it pure order radishes to be eaten after it in honeyed vinegar, in order to call back to vomiting. They also pour warmed sea water into clysters. For fomenting swellings of the testicles they prefer nothing else, likewise for the fault of chilblains before they ulcerate, in a similar way for itchings, and for the cure of psorae and lichens. Nits too and the foul vermin of the head are cured by it. And the same brings livid places back to their colour. In these treatments, after the sea water, to foment with hot vinegar is of the greatest benefit. It is understood also to be salutary for venomous strokes, as of phalangia and scorpions, and for those sprinkled by the ptyas asp; in these it is used hot.
66| The same is used as a fumigation with vinegar for pains of the head. Gripings and cholera also are relieved by hot sea water poured in by clysters. Heated sea water cools with more difficulty. Breasts that are budding, the praecordia and leanness of the body are set right by sea-water pools, heaviness of the ears and pains of the head by the vapour of boiling water with vinegar. Sea waters rub rust off iron very quickly; they also cure the scab of cattle and soften wool.
67| Nor am I unaware that these things may seem superfluous to those inland. But care has provided for this too, a method having been found by which anyone might make sea water for himself. What is marvellous in that method is that, if more than a sextarius of salt is immersed in 4 sextarii of water, the water is overcome and the salt is not dissolved. Otherwise a sextarius of salt with 3 sextarii of water fills the strength and nature of the saltiest sea. They think the most moderate is for the water measure spoken of above to be tempered with eight cyathi of salt, since so it both warms the sinews and does not roughen the body.
68| What they call thalassomeli is also kept till old, of equal portions of sea water, honey and rain water. They bring the sea water from the deep for this use also and store it in a pitched earthenware vessel. It is of benefit for purgations, above all without vexing the stomach, and with a pleasant taste and smell.
69| Hydromeli too was once mixed from pure rainwater with honey, to be given to sick people longing for wine as if it were a more harmless drink, but it has been condemned now for many years, having the same faults as wine and not the same uses.
70| Because sailors often suffer from a lack of fresh water, we shall point out these resources also. Fleeces spread about the ship grow wet from taking in the breath of the sea, and fresh moisture is squeezed from them; likewise hollow balls of wax lowered into the sea in nets, or empty vessels stopped up, collect fresh moisture within themselves. For on land, sea water strained through clay becomes sweet.
71| Dislocated limbs of both men and four-footed animals return most easily into their joints by swimming in water of whatever kind one likes. Travellers also fear that an unknown water may try their health. They guard against this by drinking the suspect cold water immediately on coming out of the baths.
72| Moss that has been in water, smeared on, benefits gout; the same with oil mixed in, pain and swelling of the ankles. The foam of water, rubbed on, removes warts, as does the sand of the sea shores, especially fine sand glittering in the sun; it is used in medicine for drying bodies, covering those of dropsical people or those who feel rheumatic flows. And so far on waters; now on aquatic things. We shall begin, as in the rest, from the principal ones among them, which are the salt and the sponge.
73| All salt is either made or produced, each in several ways, but with a twofold cause, moisture either condensed or dried. It is dried in the lake of Tarentum by summer suns, and the whole pool turns to salt, a modest one otherwise, not exceeding the knees in depth, likewise in Sicily in the lake called Cocanicus, and another beside Gela. Only the edges of these dry up, as in Phrygia, Cappadocia, Aspendus, where it is cooked more abundantly, even to the middle. Another marvel in it is that as much comes in by night as you take away by day. All salt from pools is fine and not in lumps.
74| Another kind is produced spontaneously from sea waters, foam left on the farthest shores and rocks. All this is condensed by dew, and that found on rocks is sharper. There are still three natural differences. For in Bactria two vast lakes, one towards the Scythians, the other towards the Arii, boil up with salt, as at Citium in Cyprus and around Memphis they draw it out of the lake, then dry it in the sun.
75| But the surfaces of rivers too are condensed into salt, the remaining stream flowing as if under ice, as at the Caspian Gates what are called the rivers of salt, likewise around the Mardi and the Armenians. Besides, among the Bactrians the rivers Ochus and Oxus carry down fragments of salt from the mountains near.
76| There are also lakes in Africa, and indeed muddy ones, which bear salt. Hot springs bear it too, as the Pagasaean. And so far for the kinds that come spontaneously from waters.
77| There are also mountains of native salt, as in India the Oromenus, in which it is cut like a quarry and grows again, and the revenue of the kings from it is greater than from gold and pearls. It is also dug from the earth, evidently from moisture condensed, in Cappadocia. There indeed it is cut like specular stones; the lumps are of great weight, which the common people call micae.
78| At Gerrae, a town of Arabia, they make walls and houses of blocks of salt, cementing them with water. King Ptolemy found it also near Pelusium, when he was making a camp. After this example it began later to be found between Egypt and Arabia, even in squalid places, when the sands were removed, as it also is through the parched regions of Africa all the way to the oracle of Hammon, and that one grows with the moon by night.
79| For the Cyrenaic tracts too are famous for Hammoniacum, so called also from being found under the sands. It is like alum in colour, the kind they call schiston, in long lumps, not translucent, unpleasant in taste but useful for medicine. The most approved is that which is as clear as possible, with straight cleavages. A remarkable thing is reported about it: that though very light within its caves, when brought out into the full light it grows heavy with a weight scarcely credible. The cause is evident, the damp breath of the tunnels so helping those who work it, as waters help. It is adulterated with the Sicilian, which we called Cocanican, and also with the Cyprian, which is wonderfully like.
80| In Hither Spain also at Egeleste it is cut in lumps almost translucent, and to this the palm has long been given by most physicians among all kinds of salt. Every place in which salt is found is barren and produces nothing. And altogether the spontaneously produced kind falls within these.
81| Manufactured salts are of various kinds. The common and most plentiful is in salt-works, sea water being poured on, not without irrigation by fresh waters, but chiefly with the help of rain and above all much sun [….], not otherwise drying. In Africa around Utica they build up heaps of salt to the appearance of hills, which, when they have hardened by sun and moon, are melted by no moisture and are scarcely even cut by iron. It is made also in Crete, without irrigation, by pouring sea water into salt-pans, and around Egypt by the sea itself flowing in on a soil, as I believe, made juicy by the Nile.
82| It is made also by wells emptied into the salt-pans. The first thickening at Babylon is gathered into a liquid bitumen like oil, which they also use in lamps. When this is drawn off, the salt lies beneath. And in Cappadocia they pour water from wells and a spring into the salt-pans. In Chaonia they boil down water from a spring and by cooling make a salt that is inert and not white.
83| The Gauls and Germans pour salt water on burning logs; in a certain part of Spain they draw it from wells, calling it muria. They think that the wood also makes a difference. Oak is best, as it yields the strength of salt by itself from a pure ash; elsewhere hazel is praised. So when the salt liquid is poured on, the tree itself is even turned into salt. Any salt made with wood is black. In Theophrastus I find that the Umbrians used to boil down the ash of reed and rush with water until little moisture remained. Moreover salt is boiled again from the brine of salted fish, and when the liquid is used up it returns to its own nature, being generally most pleasant when from the maenae.
84| Of the sea salts the Cyprian from Salamis is most praised, but of those from pools the Tarentine and the Phrygian, which is called Tattaean. These two are useful for the eyes. The Cappadocian, which is brought in little bricks, is said to give brightness to the skin. But the one we called Citian stretches the skin more, and so after childbirth they smear the belly with it together with melanthium.
85| The saltiest salt is the driest, the sweetest of all and the whitest is the Tarentine, but otherwise that which is whitest is the most brittle. All salt is sweetened by rain, though dews make it sweeter, but the blast of the north wind produces abundance. It is not produced with the south wind. The flower of salt is produced only with north winds. In the fire neither the Tragasaean crackles nor leaps, nor the Acanthian, named from the town, nor does the foam or finer fragment of any. The Agrigentine, which endures fire, leaps from water.
86| There are also differences of colour. It is red at Memphis, reddish around the Oxus, purple at Centuripae, around Gela in the same Sicily of such brightness that it takes back an image. In Cappadocia a saffron-coloured one is dug, translucent and most fragrant. For medical uses the ancients praised the Tarentine most, after it any from the sea, of that kind especially the foamy one; for the eyes of draught-animals and oxen the Tragasaean and the Baetican.
87| For relish and food whichever dissolves easily is more useful, and also the moister, for they have less bitterness, as the Attic and the Euboean. For keeping meats the sharp and dry is more suitable, as the Megarian. It is also seasoned with added odours and takes the place of a savoury, rousing appetite and inviting in all foods, so that among countless condiments a distinctive savour is recognized from it, and it is likewise sought for when garum is eaten.
88| Indeed flocks and herds and beasts of burden are most drawn to pasture by salt, with much more abundant milk and a much more pleasing quality even in cheese. Therefore, by Hercules, a more civilized life cannot be spent without salt, and so necessary an element it is that the word has passed over to the pleasures of the mind also, the outstanding ones. They are called sales; and all the charm of life, the highest cheerfulness, and the rest from labours are expressed by no other word more.
89| It is brought into honours also and into military service, in the salaries named from it, with great authority among the ancients, as is clear from the name of the Via Salaria, since it had been agreed that salt was carried by that road to the Sabines. King Ancus Marcius gave 6,000 modii of salt to the people as a gift, and was the earliest to set up salt-works. Varro also is authority that the ancients used it in place of a relish, and that they ate salt with bread is clear from the proverb. Its authority is understood most of all in sacred rites, since none is performed without salted meal.
90| The purity of salt-works made its chief difference by a certain ash of salt, which is the lightest of it and the whitest. There is also what is called the flower of salt, a wholly different thing, of a moister nature and a saffron or reddish colour, like a rust of salt, with an unpleasant smell too, like garum, differing from salt, and not only from foam. Egypt discovered it, and it seems to be carried down by the Nile.
91| Yet it floats on certain springs too. The best is that which gives back a certain fattiness of oil; for there is fattiness even in salt, which we may wonder at. It is adulterated, however, and tinted with red ochre, or most often with ground potsherd, a fraud which is detected by water dissolving the artificial colour, while the true one is dissolved only by oil, and perfumers use it chiefly because of its colour. The whiteness is at the top in the vessels, the middle part moister, as we have said.
92| The nature of the flower is harsh, heating, useless to the stomach; it stirs sweat, loosens the belly in wine and water, and is useful in acopa and zmectica. It also draws hairs from the eyelids. The lowest parts of the dregs are shaken up so that the colour of saffron returns. Besides these, there is still called in salt-works salsugo, by others salsilago, wholly liquid, differing from sea water in its saltier power.
93| There is still another kind of choice liquor, which they have called garum, made when the intestines of fish and the other parts that would be thrown away are steeped in salt, so that it is a kind of putrid matter. This was formerly made from a fish which the Greeks called garos, they report that the afterbirth is drawn out by the fumigation of its head burnt,
94| now from the mackerel, the most praised from the fisheries of Spartarian Carthage (it is called "the allies' garum"), each thousand sesterces buying about two congii. Hardly any liquid except unguents has come to be in higher price, ennobling even the nations. Mackerel are caught also in Mauretania and at Carteia in Baetica, entering from the ocean, useful for nothing else. Clazomenae is praised for garum, also Pompeii and Leptis, as for muria Antipolis and Thurii, and indeed now Dalmatia too.
95| The dregs of this is allex, and the unfinished, unstrained sediment. Yet it has begun to be made privately also from a useless and very small little fish. Our people call it apua, the Greeks aphye, since that little fish is born from rain. The people of Forum Julii call the fish from which they make it lupus. It then passed into luxury, and the kinds multiplied without limit, as garum diluted to the colour of old honey wine and to such sweetness that it can be drunk. Another kind, however, is devoted to the scruples of superstition and to Jewish rites, which is made from fish lacking scales. So allex has come to oysters, sea urchins, sea nettles, the livers of mullets, and in countless kinds salt has begun to dissolve for the savours of gluttony. Let these things be noted in passing for the desires of life.
96| Yet these too are of some use in healing. For the scab of cattle is healed by allex poured in through the cut skin, and it is of benefit against the bites of dogs or the sea dragon, and is laid on in torn linen cloths,
97| and with garum fresh burns are healed, if one pours it on and does not name garum. It is of benefit against the bites of dogs too, and most of all of the crocodile, and for ulcers that creep or are foul. For ulcers or pains of the mouth and ears it is wonderfully beneficial. Muria also, or that salsugo, thickens, bites, thins, dries, is useful for dysenteries, even if a spreading sore seizes the intestines, and is poured in for sciatica and old coeliac complaints. In fomentation it makes up among the inland people for the place of sea water.
98| The nature of salt by itself is fiery and hostile to fires, fleeing them, eating away everything, but binding bodies, drying, fastening, and protecting even the dead from the decay of putrefaction, so that they last through centuries, but in healing biting, burning, cleansing, thinning, dissolving, useless only to the stomach, except to rouse appetite. Against the bites of serpents it helps with origanum, honey, hyssop; against the cerastes with origanum and cedria or pitch or honey,
99| against scolopendras drunk in vinegar, against the strokes of scorpions smeared on with a fourth part of linseed and oil or vinegar, against hornets and wasps and the like in vinegar; for heterocrania and ulcers of the head, pustules or papules and beginning warts, with calf tallow, likewise in remedies for the eyes and for fleshy growths there, and pterygia of the whole body, but peculiarly in the eyes, and for this reason added to collyria and plasters (for these the Tattaean or the Caunite is most approved),
100| and for eyes filled with blood from a blow and bruised, with myrrh in equal weight and honey, or with hyssop in hot water, and so that they are fomented with salsugo (for this the Spanish is chosen); and against suffusions of the eyes it is ground with milk in little whetstone-mortars; especially for bruises, wrapped in a linen cloth and laid on repeatedly from boiling water; for running ulcers of the mouth in a torn linen cloth; for swelling of the gums rubbed in; and against roughness of the tongue broken and crushed small.
101| They say the teeth are not eaten away and do not rot, if every morning, fasting, one holds salt under the tongue until it dissolves. The same cures leprosies, boils, lichens and psorae, with raisins with their stones removed, and ox tallow, origanum, and leaven or bread; the Theban is chosen above all for these and for itching. For the tonsils and uvulae, with honey any kind is beneficial; for anginas, in addition, with oil and vinegar, at the same time smeared on the throat from outside with liquid pitch.
102| It softens the belly also when mixed with wine, and drunk in wine drives out, without harm, the kinds of tapeworm. The heat of baths, so that convalescents can endure it, it ensures when put under the tongue. Pains of the sinews, especially about the shoulders and kidneys, it relieves when heated white-hot repeatedly in sacks in boiling water; colic and gripings and pains of the hips, drunk, and laid on white-hot in the same sacks; gout, pounded with meal, honey and oil, with that observation to be used there above all, which said that for whole bodies nothing is more useful than salt and sun. At any rate we see the bodies of fishermen like horn, but this is judged outstanding in gout.
103| It removes also corns of the feet, and chilblains. For burns it is applied in oil, or chewed, and it checks pustules; for sacred fires and ulcers that creep, in vinegar or hyssop; for carcinomata, with the uva taminia; for phagedaenic ulcers, roasted with barley meal, with a linen cloth soaked in wine laid over. For those suffering from jaundice, held at the fire until they sweat, against the itchings they feel, rubbed in with oil and vinegar it helps; the weary, with oil.
104| Many have cured dropsical people also with salt, and anointed the burning heats of fevers with it and oil, and dispersed an old cough by licking it, and poured it into clysters for sciatics, laid it on the excrescent or putrefying parts of ulcers, and on bites of crocodiles in linen cloths with vinegar, in such a way that the ulcers are first beaten with them. It is drunk also against opium in honeyed vinegar, and laid on dislocations with meal and honey, likewise on swellings.
105| For toothache, fomented with vinegar and smeared on with resin, it benefits. For all these purposes, however, the foam of salt is more agreeable and more useful. But any salt is added to acopa for heating, likewise to zmegmata for stretching and smoothing the skin. It also removes the scab of cattle and oxen when smeared on, and given to be licked, and is spat into the eyes of beasts of burden. Let this be said of salt.
106| The nature of nitre is not to be put off, not much distant from salt and to be told the more carefully because it is plain that the physicians who have written of it were ignorant of its nature, and that no one has handed it down more carefully than Theophrastus. A little is made among the Medes, in valleys whitening with dryness, which they call halmyraga, even less in Thrace near Philippi, foul with earth, which they call agrium.
107| For by burning oak it was never made in quantity, and long ago was wholly given up. Nitrous waters are found in very many places, but without power of thickening. The best, and plentiful, is in the Clitae of Macedonia, which they call Chalestricum, white and pure, nearest to salt. There is a nitrous lake with a sweet little spring leaping up from the middle. There nitre is made around the rising of the Dog Star for nine days, and ceases for as many, and again floats on the surface, and then ceases.
108| From which it appears that it is the nature of the soil that produces it, since it is found that neither suns help at all when it ceases, nor rains. This too is marvellous, that though the little spring is always bubbling up, the lake neither increases nor overflows. On those days, however, on which it is produced, if there have been rains, they make the nitre saltier, and north winds make it worse because they stir the mud more strongly.
109| And this kind is born, but in Egypt it is manufactured, much more abundantly, but worse, for it is dusky and stony. It is made almost in the same way as salt, except that they pour sea water into the salt-pans, the Nile in autumn into the nitre-beds. With the Nile coming in, they are watered, and as it goes down they are soaked with the juice of nitre for 40 days continuously, not on fixed days as in Macedonia. If rains have also been present, they add less from the river, and as soon as it has begun to thicken it is seized, lest it be dissolved in the beds. Here too the nature of oil intervenes, useful for the scab of animals, but the nitre itself stored in heaps lasts.
110| It is marvellous that in the lake Ascanius and in certain springs around Chalcis the topmost waters are sweet and drinkable, the lower nitrous. In nitre the best is the finest, and therefore the foam is better, though for some purposes the impure, as for dyeing purples and all dyes. There is also great use of it for glass, which will be told in its place.
111| The nitre-beds of Egypt used to be only around Naucratis and Memphis, those around Memphis worse. For it turns to stone there in heaps, and there are many mounds of stone for that reason. They make vessels of these, and often also, melting it with sulphur and boiling. In meats too which they wish to keep long they use that nitre. There are nitre-beds there in which a reddish kind also comes out from the colour of the earth.
112| The foam of nitre, which is most praised, the ancients said did not form unless dew had fallen on the pregnant nitre-beds, but not yet bearing; and so it was not formed when they were already stimulated, even if it fell.
113| Others have thought that it is produced by the ferment of the heaps. The next age of physicians reported that aphronitrum is collected in Asia in caves, dripping from masses (they call those caves colligae), then dried in the sun. The Lydian is thought best; the test is that it be least heavy and most friable, of an almost purple colour. This is brought in pastilles, the Egyptian in pitched vessels, lest it dissolve; those vessels too are finished by drying in the sun.
114| The test of nitre is that it be very fine and as spongy and as full of channels as possible. In Egypt it is adulterated with lime, and detected by taste. For the pure dissolves at once; the adulterated stings with lime, and when sprinkled gives off a strong smell. It is burnt covered in a potsherd, lest it leap out. Otherwise nitre does not leap in the fire, and it produces or feeds nothing, whereas in salt-works herbs grow, and in the sea so many animals, so much seaweed.
115| But that the sharpness of nitre is greater appears not from this proof only, but from that other, that nitre-beds at once consume footwear, though otherwise wholesome and useful for clearness of the eyes. In the nitre-beds people do not have bleary eyes; ulcers brought there are healed most quickly, those received there slowly. It also stirs sweat when those anointed with it use oil, and softens the body. In bread they use the Chalestraean in place of salt, for radishes the Egyptian; it makes them more tender, but makes white relishes worse and greens greener. In medicine it heats, thins, bites, thickens, dries, ulcerates,
116| useful for those things that must be drawn out or dispersed, and for what is to be gently bitten and thinned, as in papules and pustules. Some in this use quench it, kindled, in harsh wine, and so use it ground, in baths, without oil. It checks excessive sweats with dry iris; with green oil added it thins both scars of the eyes and roughnesses of the eyelids, smeared on with fig or boiled in raisin wine down to half (likewise against argema),
117| for the nails of the eyes, boiled in raisin wine with the calyx of a pomegranate; it aids clearness of sight when smeared on with honey. It benefits toothache, if the mouth is rinsed with it in wine with pepper; likewise boiled with leek it brings darkening teeth back to colour, and burnt it serves as a dentifrice. It kills the vermin of the head and nits, smeared on in oil with Samian earth. For discharging ears it is dissolved in wine and poured in; it eats away the filth of the same part in vinegar, and dry, added, disperses noises and ringing.
118| White vitiligines it corrects, smeared on in the sun with Cimolian chalk in equal weight in vinegar. It draws out boils, mixed with resin; with the white raisin grape, pounded together with its pips, it meets inflammation of the testicles, likewise eruptions of phlegm over the whole body with axle-grease, and against the bites of dogs, with resin added to those smeared on. It is smeared on with vinegar likewise for the bites of serpents; for phagedaenic ulcers and ulcers which creep or rot, with lime in vinegar. For dropsical people it is pounded with fig, given and smeared on.
119| It disperses gripings if a decoction is drunk, in the weight of a drachma, with rue or dill or cumin. It restores weariness in those anointed with oil and vinegar, and against chills and shivering it is beneficial, the hands and feet being rubbed with oil. It checks the itchings of the suffused with gall, best instilled with vinegar. It succours against the poisons of mushrooms, drunk in posca, or, if a buprestis has been swallowed, in water, and calls out vomiting. For those who have drunk bull's blood it is given with laser.
120| On the face too it heals ulcerations with honey and cow's milk. For burns it is roasted until it blackens, and pounded and smeared on. It is poured into the bladder, and for pain of the kidneys, or for stiffness of the body or pains of the sinews. For paralysis it is laid on the tongue with bread.
121| For asthmatics it is taken in barley gruel. It cures an old cough with the flower mixed with galbanum and turpentine resin, equal in weight of all, so that a piece of the size of a bean is swallowed. It is boiled, and afterwards diluted and given with liquid pitch to be sipped in angina. Its flower with cyprus oil is also pleasant for pains of the joints in the sun. It also thins jaundice, taken in a drink of wine, disperses inflations, stops flow of blood from the nostrils when steam from boiling water is drawn up the nostrils, and removes scurf mixed with alum,
122| the stench of the armpits by daily fomentation in water, ulcers born of phlegm when mixed with wax, a method that benefits the sinews too. It is infused for coeliac patients; and many have prescribed anointing before the cold fits with nitre and oil, as against leprosies and freckles; to be used in baths for gout. Tubs of nitre are good for atrophy, opisthotonos and tetanus. Salt and nitre cooked with sulphur is turned into stone.
123| We have spoken of the kinds of sponges in the natures of sea creatures. Some distinguish thus: some of them are male, with a fine channel and denser, absorbing, which are also dyed for luxury, sometimes even with purple; others female, with larger channels and continuous; among the males others harder, which they call tragos, with the finest and most dense channels. Whitening is done with care: the freshest of the softest through the summer, stained with the foam of salt, are spread out upside down under the moon and frosts, that is on the side on which they adhered, that they may drink whiteness; that it is an animal we have shown, even with the blood still clinging.
124| Some relate that they are governed by hearing too and contract at a sound, squeezing out the abundance of moisture, and cannot be torn from the rocks, and so are cut off and discharge their gore; indeed [….] those which are born from the north wind they prefer to the rest, and physicians affirm that nowhere does the breath last longer. So also they benefit bodies, because they mix their own with ours, and therefore the fresher and moister are better, but less in hot water, and less if oiled or laid on oiled bodies, and the dense ones adhere less.
125| The softest kind of sponges are the penicilli. Applied with honey wine, they reduce swellings of the eyes; they are also used to wipe away lippitudo, most usefully moistened with water; they should be very fine and very soft. Sponges themselves are also applied for fluxes of the eyes with posca, and with hot vinegar for headaches. For the rest, fresh sponges disperse, soothe and soften; old ones do not close wounds. They are used for wiping, for fomenting, and for covering a place after fomentation until something else is applied.
126| Applied, they also dry moist sores and the sores of old people. Fractures and wounds are very usefully fomented with sponges. In surgery the blood is taken up with them, so that the treatment can be seen. They are also themselves applied to inflamed wounds, sometimes dry, sometimes sprinkled with vinegar, sometimes with wine, sometimes with cold water; and when applied soaked in rainwater, they do not let fresh incisions swell. They are also applied to parts where the skin is unbroken
127| but which suffer from a hidden flux that needs to be dispersed, and to what are called apostemata, after the place has been smeared with boiled honey; likewise to the joints, sometimes soaked in salted vinegar, sometimes in posca, or, if the attack is burning hot, in water; the same, in salt water, for calluses; but against the stings of scorpions, in vinegar. In the treatment of wounds they also take the place of unwashed wool, with this difference, that wool softens, while sponges hold in and draw off what is unhealthy in sores.
128| They are also bound round those with dropsy, dry or soaked in warm water or posca, whenever the skin needs to be soothed, covered or dried. They are also applied, soaked in boiling water and squeezed out between two boards, in those diseases that call for steaming. Used so, they also help the stomach, and in fever against excessive heat; but for the spleen, in posca, and for sacred fire, in vinegar, they are more effective than anything else; they should be applied so that they cover a wide area of the sound parts as well.
129| They stop a flow of blood in vinegar or cold water; a bruise fresh from a blow they remove in hot salt water, changed often; swelling and pain of the testicles, in posca. For dog bites they are usefully applied cut into pieces, in vinegar or cold water or honey, and moistened again plentifully from time to time. The ash of the African sponge, drunk with the juice of cut leek by those who are spitting blood, or by others in cold water, does good. The same ash, smeared on the forehead with oil or with vinegar, removes tertian fevers.
130| The African sponge in particular, in posca, disperses swellings; and the ash of any sponge burned with pitch stops the bleeding of wounds; some burn only the loose-textured ones with pitch for this. They are also burned for the eyes in an unfired pot of potter's clay, and that ash is of the greatest service against roughness of the eyelids and proud flesh, and whatever needs to be scraped down, thickened or filled in there.
131| For that use it is better to wash the ash. Sponges also serve in place of strigils and towels for the sick. And they protect the head well against the sun. The ignorance of doctors has reduced them to two names: African sponges, whose strength is firmer, and Rhodian sponges, softer for fomenting. Now, however, the softest are found around the walls of the city of Antiphellus. Trogus reports that around Lycia very soft penicilli grow in deep water at the places from which sponges have been taken; and Polybius, that if they are hung over a sick person they make his nights more restful. Now we shall turn to the animals of the sea.
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