Pliny Natural History, Vol. VIII (Loeb Latin-English)

[...continued from previous page] ...is it absolutely necessary to have already stated that we have described the natures of animals and what each discovery was—for they were no less useful in finding medicines than they are in providing them—and now to indicate which things in them provide aid. These things were not entirely omitted there, but while they are different, they are connected to the former.

4 II. We will begin, however, with man searching for his own cures, a task that immediately presents immense difficulty. Some drink the blood of gladiators as if it were a living cup to cure epilepsy comitiales morbi: "the disease of the assemblies," or epilepsy, because those afflicted often fell during public gatherings., a practice that is horrific even to watch in the arena among the wild beasts. Yet, by Hercules, they believe it is most effective to drink it from the man himself, warm and breathing, and to drink the very soul from the kiss of the wounds, even though it is not the human custom for mouths to be applied to the wounds of even wild beasts. Others seek the marrow of legs and the brains of infants.

5 There are not a few among the Greeks who have written about the flavors of individual organs and limbs, having pursued everything down to the nail parings, as if health could truly be seen as emerging from a human being, or as if a disease could be worthy of medicine itself—a remarkable frustration, by Hercules, if it does not prove useful. It is considered sinful to look at human entrails; what...