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Book IV
[p. 459] also a cooling plaster; this, however, is not to be kept on for long, but a change made to those which soothe as well as repress. If pain is greater, rind of poppy-heads is to be boiled in wine, and mixed with wax-salve made up with rose oil; or wax and lard, equal parts, are melted together, and then the wine mixed with these; and as soon as this application becomes hot, it is to be removed and another immediately put on. But if the swellings have grown hard and are painful, the application of a sponge frequently squeezed out of oil and vinegar, or out of cold water, or the application of pitch, wax and alum, equal parts mixed, gives relief. There are also several emollients suitable alike for the hands and feet. But if the pain does not allow of anything being put on, when there is no swelling, the joint should be fomented with a sponge which has been dipped in a warm decoction of poppy-head rind, or of wild cucumber root, next the joints are smeared with saffron, poppy-juice and ewe's milk. But if there is a swelling, this ought to be bathed with a tepid decoction of mastic or some other repressant vervain, and then covered with a medicament composed of bitter almonds pounded up in vinegar, or of white lead, to which has been added the juice of pounded pellitory. The stone, too, which corrodes flesh, which the Greeks call sarcophagos, is carved out so as to admit the feet; when these are painful, they are inserted and held there, and are usually relieved. In Asia Minor Assian limestone is held in esteem for this purpose. When pain and inflammation have subsided, which should happen within forty days, unless the patient is in fault, gentle exercise, spare diet, soothing anoint-