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Supper should be spare; but wine also is to be given, to restore the tone of the stomach, for it also suffers in this complaint. When, in the meantime, you have re-established the strength, you will require to give a common clyster having sprinkled upon it much natron, or dissolving it in two drams of the resin of the turpentine tree. On the next day we are to abstract blood from the inside of the nostrils, and for this purpose push into them the long instrument named Katidion, or the one named Toryne, or, in want of these, we must take the thick quill of a goose, and having scooped the nervous part of it into teeth like a saw, we are to push it down the nostrils as far as the ethmoid cells, then shake it with both hands so that the part may be scarified by its teeth. Thus we shall have a ready and copious flow of blood; for slender veins terminate there, and the parts are soft and easily cut. The common people have many modes of scarification, by rough herbs, and the dried leaves of the bay, which they introduce with the fingers and move strongly.On this practice, see Paulus Ægineta, tom. i. p. 326, Syd. Soc. Edit. Having evacuated to a sufficient amount—say to the amount of half a hemina—we are to wipe the parts with sponges and oxycrate, or blow in some styptic powder, gall, fissil alum, or the flower of the wild pomegranate.
