Book 2
6
. . . . . . from food and radishes frequently. Then to have recourse to the hellebore. The diet after these the same as in the other affections, and after the diet, anointing with oil and the cold sea-bath. These in an especial manner are the common remedies in all arthritic diseases, for in gouty cases hellebore is the great remedy, yet only in the first attacks of the affection. But if it has subsisted for a long time already, and also if it appear to have been transmitted from the patient’s forefathers, the disease sticks to him until death. But for the paroxysms in the joints, we are to do this: let unscoured wool from the sheep be applied; bathe with rose-oil and wine; and in certain case sponging with oxycrate has done good. Then as a cataplasm, bread with the cooling parts of gourd and pompion, and simple cucumber, and the herb plantain and rose leaves. And the sideritisSideritis scordioides. mitigates pain, along with bread, also lichen, and the root of comfrey, and the herb cinque-foil, and the species of horehound having narrow leaves: of this the decoction makes a fomentation which allays pain, and it forms a cataplasm with crumbs of bread or barley-meal. And the part of citrons which is not fit for food, is excellent with toasted barley-meal. Dried figs and almonds with some of the flours. These form the materiel for refrigeration; and, indeed, this is sometimes beneficial to one, and sometimes to another. In certain cases calefacients are beneficial, and the same is sometimes useful to another. It is said that the following application is powerfully anodyne; let a goat feed on the herb iris, and when it is filled therewith, having waited until the food it has taken be digested in the stomach, let the goat be slaughtered, and bury the feet in fæces within the belly. The medicines for the disease are innumerable; for the calamity renders the patients themselves expert druggists. But the medicines of the physicians will be described in works devoted to these things.
