The milk is increased in females by eating the glauciscus374 in its own liquor, or else smarides375 with a ptisan, or boiled with fennel. Ashes of calcined shells of the murex or purple, applied with honey, are an effectual cure for affections of the mamillæ; river-crabs, too, and sea-crabs, applied topically, are equally good. The meat of the murex, applied to the mamillæ, removes hairs376 growing upon those parts. The squatina,377 applied topically, prevents the mamillæ from becoming too distended. Lint greased with dolphin’s378 fat, and then ignited, produces a smoke which acts as an excitant upon females suffering from hysterical suffocations; the same, too, with strombi,379 left to putrefy in vinegar. Heads of perch or of mænæ,380 calcined and mixed with salt, oil, and cunila,381 are curative of diseases of the uterus: used as a fumigation, they bring away the afterbirth. Fat,382 too, of the sea-calf, melted by the agency of fire, is introduced into the nostrils of females when swooning from hysterical suffocations; and for a similar purpose, the rennet of that animal is applied as a pessary, in wool.

The pulmo marinus,383 attached to the body as an amulet, is an excellent promoter of menstruation; an effect which is equally produced by pounding live sea-urchins, and taking them in sweet wine. River-crabs,384 bruised in wine, and taken internally, arrest menstruation. The silurus,385 that of Africa386 more particularly, used as a fumigation, facilitates parturition, it is said. Crabs, taken in water, arrest menstruation; but used with hyssop, they act as an emmenagogue, we are told. In cases, too, where the infant is in danger of suffocation at the moment of delivery, a similar drink, administered to the mother, is highly efficacious. Crabs, too, either fresh or dried, are taken in drink, for the purpose of preventing abortion. Hippocrates387 prescribes them as a promoter of menstruation, and as an expellent of the dead fœtus, beaten up with five388 roots of lapathum and rue and some soot, and administered in honied wine. Crabs, boiled and taken in their liquor, with lapathum389 and parsley, promote the menstrual discharge, and increase the milk. In cases of fever, attended with pains in the head and throbbing of the eyes, crabs are said to be highly beneficial to females, given in astringent wine.

Castoreum,390 taken in honied wine, is useful as a promoter of menstruation: in cases of hysterical suffocation, it is given to the patient to smell at with pitch and vinegar, or else it is made up into tablets and used as a pessary. For the purpose also of bringing away the afterbirth it is found a useful plan to employ castoreum with panax,391 in four cyathi of wine; and in cases where the patient is suffering from cold, in doses of three oboli. If, however, a female in a state of pregnancy should happen to step over castoreum, or over the beaver itself, abortion, it is said, will be the sure result: so, too, if castoreum is only held over a pregnant woman’s head, there will be great danger of miscarriage.

There is a very marvellous fact, too, that I find stated in reference to the torpedo:392 if it is caught at the time that the moon is in Libra, and kept in the open air for three days, it will always facilitate parturition, as often as it is introduced into the apartment of a woman in labour. The sting, too, of the pastinaca,393 attached to the navel, is generally thought to have the property of facilitating delivery: it must be taken, however, from the fish while alive; which done, the fish must be returned to the sea. I find it stated by some authorities that there is a substance called “ostraceum,” which is also spoken of as “onyx”394 by others; that, used as a fumigation, it is wonderfully beneficial for suffocations of the uterus; that in smell it resembles castoreum, and is still more efficacious, if burnt with this last substance; and that in a calcined state it has the property of healing inveterate ulcers, and cancerous sores of a malignant nature. As to carbuncles and carcinomatous sores upon the secret parts of females, there is nothing more efficacious, it is said, than a female crab beaten up, just after full moon, with flower of salt395 and applied with water.