[p. 337] piece of cloth wetted in wine and oil; and when you wish to
produce contraction, prepare the leaves of the hip-tree like the lentil,
and the cress; wine and finely-powdered linseed are to be mixed together.
And this is proper: linseed, and raw chaste-tree, and Melian alum,
all these things being macerated in vinegar.
Part 5
Having pounded the white unripe grape in a mortar of red bronze, and
passed it through the strainer, expose it to the sun during the day,
but remove it during the night, that it may not suffer from the dew;
rub it constantly during the day, so that it may dry equally, and
may contract as much virtue as possible from the bronze: let it be
exposed to the sun for as great a length of time as till it acquire
the thickness of honey; then put it into a bronze pot with the fresh
honey and sweet wine, in which turpentine resin has been previously
boiled, boil the resin in the wine until it become hard like boiled
honey; then take out the resin and pour off the wine: there should
be the greatest proportion of the juice of unripe grape, next of the
wine, and third of the honey and myrrh, either the liquid (stacte)
or otherwise. The finest kind is to be levigated and moistened by
having a small quantity of the same wine poured on it; and then the
myrrh is to be boiled by itself, stirring it in the wine; and when
it appears to have attained the proper degree of thickness, it is
to be poured into the juice of the unripe grape; and the finest natron
is to be toasted, and gently added to the medicine, along with a smaller
quantity of the flowers of copper (flos aeris) than of the natron.
When you have mixed these things, boil for not less than three days,
on a gentle fire made with fuel of the fig-tree or with coals, lest
it catch fire. The applications should all be free from moisture,
and the sores should not be wetted when this medicine is applied in
the form of liniment. This medicine is to be used for old ulcers,
and also for recent wounds of the glans penis, and ulcers on the head
and ears. Another medicine for the same ulcers:-The dried gall of
an ox, the finest honey, white wine, in which the shavings of the
lotus have been boiled, frankincense, of myrrh an equal part, of saffron
an equal part, the flowers of copper, in like manner of liquids, the
greatest proportion of wine, next of honey, and least of the gall.
Another:-Wine, a little cedar honey, of dried things,
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