CHAP. 44.—SEVEN REMEDIES DERIVED FROM IRON.
Iron is employed in medicine for other purposes besides that of making incisions. For if a circle is traced with iron, or a pointed weapon is carried three times round them, it will preserve both infant and adult from all noxious influences: if nails, too, that have been extracted from a tomb, are driven into the threshold of a door, they will prevent night-mare.1691 A slight puncture with the point of a weapon, with which a man has been wounded, will relieve sudden pains, attended with stitches in the sides or chest. Some affections are cured by cauterization with red-hot iron, the bite of the mad dog more particularly; for even if the malady has been fully developed, and hydrophobia has made its appearance, the patient is instantly relieved on the wound being cauterized.1692 Water in which iron has been plunged at a white heat, is useful, as a potion, in many diseases, dysentery1693 more particularly.