would think of consulting a Hyena; yet, according
to Pliny, "there is not a wild beast of the
field that the Magitians have so much in
admiration as it: for they hold that in the Hyæna
itselfe there is a certaine magicall vertue,
attributing a wonderfull power thereto, in transporting
the mind of man or woman, and ravishing
their sences so, as that it will allure them unto
her very strangely." There was only one
inconvenience in calling in a Hyena to prescribe,
and that was rather personal to the Hyena; for,
before it could do any good, its own life must be
sacrificed. You were to take "the ashes of the
Hyænes ridge-bone, the tongue and right foot
of a seale, put thereto a Buls gall, seeth them
all together and make a cataplasme thereof,
spreading the same upon a piece of a Hyænes
skin, and apply it accordingly, and you shall
see how it will ease the pain of the gout!" A
simpler mode of cure:—"The haire of yong
boy-children which is first clipped off, is
held to be a singular remedy for to assuage
the painful fits of the gout, if the same be
tied fast about the foot that is grieved;
and generally their haire, so long as they
be under fourteen yeres of age, easeth the
said anguish, if it be applied unto the
place."

I select a few of the most striking
remedies for ague: "They say that the dust or
sand wherein any hawke or bird of prey hath
basked or bathed herselfe is singular good for
the quartane ague, if the patient weare it in
a linen cloth, tied with a red thred. Item,
the longest tooth in the head of a cole-black
dog is very proper for this purpose. There is a
kind of bastard wesps, which the Greeks call
thereupon Pseudospheces, and ordinarilie they
do flie alone, and not in troupes as others doe;
which, if they be caught with the left hand, and
hanged about the necke under the chin, do cure
quartans, as some Magitians say: howbeit,
others attribute this effect to one of these wespes,
which a man saw first the same year. Cut the
head of a Viper off, or take out the heart
alive, and wrap the one or the other within a
little linnen rag, and carry it about you, the
quartane ague will soon be gone, by their saying.
Some of them take only the little pretty snouts
end of a mouse or the very tips of the ears, and
injoin the patient to lap the same in a red
carnation coloured cloth, and so to carry it about
him; but then the mouse must be let gone again
and not killed. Others pluck out the right eie of
a green lizard alive; which done, within a while
after they chop off the head; they then infold
them both in a piece of Goats skin, and give the
patient in charge to have the same about him.
Some there be who lap a caterpiller in a little
piece of linnen cloth, and bind the same thrice
about with linnen thred, making three knots thereof,
saying at the knitting of every knot, that this
they do to cure him or her of a quartane fever."
In our younger days schoolboys used to adopt
some such remedy as this to charm away warts;
so long tradition lasts. "Others carry about them
a naked snaile in a little piece of fine leather, or els
foure heads of snails cut off, and inclosed within
a small reed. They prescribe likewise to swallow
downe the heart of a Seagul or Cormorent, taken
forth of the bodie without any knife or instrument
of yron, to keepe the same dried, to beat
it to powder, and then to drink it in hot water."
Cobwebs, spiders, goose-grease, oil of myrtles,
and urchin's flesh are additional remedies; and,
if taken in a trusting spirit, would without
doubt have proved as useful as any of the
preceding.

Fever is, of course, variously treated, its
varieties being so many. Pendant remedies, or
amulets, were, as they still are in the south of
Italy, in high esteem amongst the Romans. For
an intermittent fever, which, indeed, is ague, you
are advised to take "the right eie of a wolfe, salt
it, and so tie it about the necke, or hang it fast
to any part of the person."  Elephant's blood
was also occasionally prescribed, and if
the patient were of a very delicate
constitution, then you might allow for diet a
very pretty dish—lion's heart steeped in oil of
roses.

If, in the course of your potations, you
happened to imbibe quicksilver, the remedy was
"the lard of a wolf:" an unguent rather difficult
to obtain. Had you been poisoned by "the
venome of the sea-hare"—a fish of which Pliny
seems to have been terribly afraid—the counterpoise
was a mash made of "the bones of an
asse well broken, bruised, and sodden;" were
your drink "craftily qualified," not with water,
but the poison that is in "a rusticke weazill,"
then your sole resource was in the gall of a he-goat.
This was pronounced "soveraigne." Headache
might be got rid of by suffering the part
affected to be touched by "the trunke or snuffle of
an elephaunt," or its pain be assuaged "if a man
poure vineger upon the hooks and hindges of
doors, and make a linniment with the durt that
commeth of the rust thereof, and therewith
anoint the forehead." Deafness was to be cured
with a compound of "goose-grease, fresh butter,
and bulls gal, tempered with myrrh and rue, or
the fome that a horse doth froth mixed with
oile of roses." For sore eyes, all that was
necessary was to "anoint them with wolfs
grease or swines marrow;" but for actual blindness
the remedies were more recondite: "The
gravie or dripping of the hyenas liver, newly
taken out of the body, and rosted, being
incorporated with clarified hony into an unguent,
riddeth a man from blindness;" or for a disfigurement
of the organs of vision: "If the eies be
dipped three times in that water wherein a man
or woman hath washed their feet, they shall be
troubled neither with blearednesse nor any other
infirmity." Of doubtful efficacy, I imagine, was
the experiment suggested in the following
passage: "If one bite off a peece of some tree
that hath been blasted with lightning, provided
always that he hold his hands behind him in so
doing" (a capital way to get a good firm bite),
"the said peece of wood will take away" (or
give) "the toothache."

While adverting to ailments of the throat,