Kitap 1
3
Anointing with acrid medicines is proper to the feet and knees. The materiel thereof should be heating and pungent by degrees; for there is need of both in cases of lethargy to induce warmth and watchfulness. In the first place, it is proper to whip the limbs with the nettles, for the down thereof sticking to the skin does not endure long, but imparts no disagreeable tingling and pain; it also moderately stimulates, induces swelling, and provokes heat. But if you desire to have these effects produced more powerfully, rub in equal parts of lemnestisAn efflorescence collecting about reeds in salt lakes. The same as ἀδάρκη, for which see the Appendix to Dunbar’s Greek Lexicon. and euphorbium, with oil of must. It is also a very good thing to rub with raw squill pulverised; but it is necessary to rub off the oily matter of the limb (for everything acrid loses its stimulant properties with oil) — unless it be medicinal — either the oil of privet, or that of must, or the Sicyonian. But if after these things a deep coma prevail, it will be proper, having pounded the wild cucumber with vinegar, and mixed it with an equal quantity of a cake of mustard, to apply this as an acrid cataplasm, and one which will speedily occasion redness, and will also quickly produce swelling. But if there be danger of blistering and of wounds, it will be proper to raise the cataplasm frequently, and see that none of these effects be produced. These things, therefore, are to be done to relieve the torpor and insensibility of the parts at all seasons, except at the commencement of the paroxysms.
