Delphi Complete Works of Pliny the Elder

by Pliny the Elder

  The most convenient method of making a watercourse from the spring is by employing earthen pipes, two fingers in thick- ness, inserted in one another at the points of junction — the one that has the higher inclination fitting into the lower one — and coated with quick-lime macerated in oil. The inclination, to ensure the free flow of the water, ought to be at least one-fourth of an inch to every hundred feet; and if the water is conveyed through a subterraneous passage, there should be air-holes let in at intervals of every two actus. Where the water is wanted to ascend aloft, it should be conveyed in pipes of lead: water, it should be remembered, always rises to the level of its source. If, again, it is conveyed from a considerable distance, it should be made to rise and fall every now and then, so as not to lose its motive power. The proper length for each leaden pipe is ten feet; and if the pipe is five fingers in circumference its weight should be sixty pounds; if eight feet, one hundred; if ten, one hundred and twenty; and so on in the same proportion.

  A pipe is called “a ten-finger” pipe when the sheet of metal is ten fingers in breadth before it is rolled up; a sheet one half that breadth giving a pipe “of five fingers.” In all sudden changes of inclination in elevated localities, pipes of five fingers should be employed, in order to break the impetu- osity of the fall: reservoirs, too, for branches should be made as circumstances may demand.

  Detailed table of contents

  CHAP. 32

  HOW MINERAL WATERS SHOULD BE USED.

  I am surprised that Homer has made no mention of hot springs, when, on the other hand, he has so frequently intro- duced the mention of warm baths: a circumstance from which we may safely conclude that recourse was not had in his time to mineral waters for their medicinal properties, a thing so universally the case at the present day. Waters impregnated with sulphur are good for the sinews, and aluminous waters are useful for paralysis and similar relaxations of the system. Those, again, which are impregnated with bitumen or nitre, the waters of Cutilia, for example, are drunk as a purgative.

  Many persons quite pride themselves on enduring the heat of mineral waters for many hours together; a most pernicious practice, however, as they should be used but very little longer than the ordinary bath, after which the bather should be shampooed with cold water, and not leave the bath without being rubbed with oil. This last operation, however, is commonly regarded as altogether foreign to the use of mineral baths; and hence it is, that there is no situation in which men’s bodies are more exposed to the chances of disease, the head becoming saturated with the intensity of the odours exhaled, and left exposed, perspiring as it is, to the coldness of the atmosphere, while all the rest of the body is immersed in the water.

  There is another mistake, also, of a similar description, made by those who pride themselves upon drinking enormous quantities of these waters; and I myself have seen persons, before now, so swollen with drinking it that the very rings on their fingers were entirely concealed by the skin, owing to their inability to discharge the vast quantities of water which they had swallowed. It is for this reason, too, that these waters should never be drunk without taking a taste of salt every now and then. The very mud, too, of mineral springs may be employed to good purpose; but, to be effectual, after being applied to the body, it must be left to dry in the sun.

  It must not be supposed, however, that all hot waters are of necessity medicated, those of Segesta in Sicily, for example, of Larissa, Troas, Magnesia, Melos, and Lipara. Nor is the very general supposition a correct one, that waters, to be medicinal, must of necessity discolour copper or silver; no such effect being produced by those of Patavium, or there being the slightest difference perceptible in the smell.

  Detailed table of contents

  CHAP. 33.

  THE USES OF SEA-WATER. THE ADVANTAGES OF A SEA-VOYAGE.

  Sea-water also is employed in a similar manner for the cure of diseases. It is used, made hot, for the cure of pains in the sinews, for reuniting fractured bones, and for its desiccative action upon the body: for which last purpose, it is also used cold. There are numerous other medicinal resources derived from the sea; the benefit of a sea-voyage, more particularly, in cases of phthisis, as already mentioned, and where patients are suffering from hæmoptosis, as lately experienced, in our own memory, by Annæus Gallio, at the close of his consulship: for it is not for the purpose of visiting the country, that people so often travel to Egypt, but in order to secure the beneficial results arising from a long sea-voyage. Indeed, the very sea-sickness that is caused by the rocking of the vessel to and fro, is good for many affections of the head, eyes, and chest, all those cases, in fact, in which the patient is recommended to drink an infusion of hellebore. Medical men con- sider sea-water, employed by itself,’ highly efficacious for the dispersion of tumours, and, boiled with barley-meal, for the successful treatment of imposthumes of the parotid glands: it is used also as an ingredient in plasters, white plasters more particularly, and for emollient poultices. Sea-water is very good, too, employed as a shower-bath; and it is taken internally, though not without injury to the stomach, both as a purgative and as an expellent, by vomit and by alvine evacuation, of black bile or coagulated blood, as the case may be.

  Some authorities prescribe it, taken internally, for quartan fevers, as also for tenesmus and diseases of the joints; purposes for which it is kept a considerable time, to mellow with age, and so lose its noxious properties. Some, again, are for boiling it, but in all cases it is recommended to be taken from out at sea, and untainted with the mixture of fresh water, an emetic also being taken before using it. When used in this manner, vinegar or wine is generally mixed with the water. Those who give it unmixed, recommend radishes with oxymel to be eaten upon it, in order to provoke vomiting. Sea-water, made hot, is used also as an injection; and there is nothing in existence preferred to it as a fomentation for swellings of the testes, or for chilblains before they ulcerate. It is similarly employed, also, for the cure of prurigo, itch-scab, and lichens. Lice and other foul vermin of the head, are removed by the application of sea-water, and lividities of the skin are restored to their natural colour; it being a remarkably good plan, in such cases, after applying the sea-water, to foment the parts with hot vinegar.

  It is generally considered, too, that sea-water is highly effcacious for the stings of venomous insects, those of the pha- langium and scorpion, for example, and as an antidote to the poisonous secretions of the asp, known as the “ptyas;” in all which cases it is employed hot. Fumigations are also made of it, with vinegar, for the cure of head-ache; and, used warm as at injection, it allays griping pains in the bowels and cholera. Things that have been heated in sea-water are longer than ordinary in cooling. A sea-water bath is an excellent corrective for swelling of the bosoms in females, affections of the thoracic organs, and ermaciation of the body. The steam also of sea-water boiled with vinegar, is used for the removal of hardness of hearing and head-ache. An application of sea-water very expeditiously removes rust upon iron; it is curative also of scab in sheep, and imparts additional softness to the wool.

  Detailed table of contents

  CHAP. 34.

  HOW ARTIFICIAL SEA-WATER MAY BE MADE IN PLACES AT A DISTANCE FROM THE SEA.

  I am by no means unaware that these details may very possibly appear superfluous to persons who live at a distance from the sea; but scientific research has made provision against this objection, by discovering a method of enabling every one to make sea-water for himself. It is a singular fact in connexion with this discovery, that if more than one sextarius of salt is put into four sextarii of water, the liquefying properties of the water will be overpowered, and the salt will no longer melt. On the other hand, again, a mixture of one sextarius of salt with four sextarii of water, acts as a good substitute for the efficacy and properties of the very saltest sea-water. The most reasonable proportion, however, is generally thought to be eight cyathi of salt, diluted in the quantity of water above mentioned; a preparation which has been found to hav
e a warming effect upon the sinews, without in any degree chafing the body.

  Detailed table of contents

  CHAP. 35.

  HOW THALASSOMELI IS MADE.

  There is also a composition made to ripen for use, known as “thalassomeli,” and prepared with equal parts of sea-water, honey, and rain-water. For this purpose, also, the water is brought from out at sea, and the preparation is kept in an earthen vessel well pitched. It acts most efficiently as a purgative, and without in the least fatiguing the stomach; the taste, too, and smell of it, are very agreeable.

  Detailed table of contents

  CHAP. 36.

  How HYDROMELI IS MADE.

  Hydromeli, also, was a mixture formerly made with pure rain-water and honey, and was prescribed for patients who, were anxious for wine, as being a more harmless drink. For these many years past, however, it has been condemned, as having in reality all the inconveniences of wine, without the advantages.

  Detailed table of contents

  CHAP. 37.

  METHODS OF PROVIDING AGAINST THE INCONVENIENCE OF DRINKING SUSPECTED WATER.

  As persons out at sea often suffer great inconvenience from the want of fresh water, we will here describe some methods of obviating it. Fleeces are spread round the ship, and on becoming moistened with the exhalations arising from the sea, the water is wrung from them, and found to be quite fresh. Hollow balls of wax, also, or empty vessels sealed at the mouth, upon being let down into the sea in a net, become filled with water that is fresh and potable. On shore, too, sea-water may be made fresh, by filtering it through argillaceous earth.

  By swimming in water of any kind, sprains of the limbs in man or beast are reduced with the greatest facility. Persons when travelling, are sometimes apprehensive that the use of water, the quality of which is unknown to them, may prove injurious to their health: as a precaution against this, they should drink the suspected water cold, immediately after leaving tie bath.

  Detailed table of contents

  CHAP. 38.

  SIX REMEDIES DERIVED FROM MOSS. REMEDIES DERIVED FROM SAND.

  Moss which has grown in water is excellent as a topical application for gout; and, in combination with oil, it is good for pains and swellings in the ankles. The foam that floats upon the surface of the water, used as a friction, causes warts to disappear. The sand, too, of the sea-shore, that more particularly which is very fine and burnt white by the heat of the sun, is used remedially for its desiccative properties, the bodies of dropsical or rheumatic patients being entirely covered with it.

  Thus much with reference to water itself; we will now turn to the aquatic productions, beginning, as in all other instances, with the principal of them, namely, salt and sponge.

  Detailed table of contents

  CHAP. 39. (7.)

  THE VARIOUS KINDS OF SALT; THE METHODS OF PREPARING IT, AND THE REMEDIES DERIVED FROM IT. TWO HUNDRED AND FOUR OBSERVATIONS THERE UPON.

  All salt is either native or artificial; both kinds being formed in various ways, but produced from one of these two causes, the condensation or the desiccation, of a liquid. The Lake of Tarentum is dried up by the heat of the summer sun, and the whole of its waters, which are at no time very deep, not higher than the knee in fact, are changed into once mass of salt. The same, too, with a lake in Sicily, Cocanicus by name, and another in the vicinity of Gela. But in the case of these two last, it is only the sides that are thus dried up: whereas in Phrygia, in Cappadocia, and at Aspendus, where the same phænomena are observable, the water is dried up to a much larger extent, to the very middle of the lake, in fact. There is also another marvellous circumstance connected with this last — however much salt is taken out of it in the day, its place is supplied again during the night. Every kind of lake- salt is found in grains, and not in the form of blocks.

  Sea-water, again, spontaneously produces another kind of salt, from the foam which it leaves on shore at high-water n-ark, or adhering to rocks; this being, in all cases, condensed by the action of the sun, and that salt being the most pun- gent of the two which is found upon the rocks.

  There are also three different kinds of native salt. In Bac- triana there arc two vast lakes; one of them situate on the side of Scythia, the other on that of Ariana, both of which throw up vast quantities of salt. So, too, at Citium, in Cyprus; and, in the vicinity of Memphis, they extract salt from the lake and dry it in the sun. The surface-waters of some rivers, also, condense in the form of salt, the rest of the stream flowing beneath, as though under a crust of ice; such as the running waters near the Caspian Gates for instance, which are known as the “Rivers of Salt.” The same is the case, too, in the vicinity of the Mardi and of the people of Armenia. In Bactriana, also, the rivers Ochus and Oxus carry down from the mountains on their banks, fragments of salt. There are also in Africa some lakes, the waters of which are turbid, that are productive of salt. Some hot springs, too, produce salt-those at Pagasæ for example. Such, then, are the various kinds of salt produced spontaneously by water.

  There are certain mountains, also, formed of native salt; that of Oromenus, in India, for example, where it is cut out like blocks from a quarry, and is continually reproduced, bringing in a larger revenue to the sovereigns of those countries than that arising from their gold and pearls. In some instances it is dug out of the earth, being formed there, evidently, by the condensation of the moisture, as in Cappadocia for example, where it is cut in sheets, like those of mirror-stone. The blocks of it are very heavy, the name commonly given to them being “mica.” At Gerrhæ, a city of Arabia, the ramparts and houses are constructed of blocks of salt, which are soldered together by being moistened with water. King Ptole- mæs discovered salt also in the vicinity of Pelusium, when he encamped there; a circumstance which induced other persons to seek and discover it in the scorched tracts that lie between Egypt and Arabia, beneath the sand. In the same manner, too, it has been found in the thirsting deserts of Africa, as far as the oracle of Hammon, a locality in which the salt increases at night with the increase of the moon.

  The districts of Cyrenaica are ennobled, too, by the production of hammoniacum, a salt so called from the fact of its being found beneath the sands there. It is similar in colour to the alum known as “schiston,” and consists of long pieces, by no means transparent, and of an unpleasant flavour, but highly useful in medicine; that being held in the highest esteem, which is the clearest and divides into straight flakes. There is one remarkable fact mentioned in connexion with it: so long as it lies under ground in its bed it is extremely light, but the moment it is exposed to the light, it is hardly credible to what an extent its weight is increased. The reason for this is evident: the humid vapours of the excavations bear the masses upwards, as water does, and so aid the workmen. It is adulterated with the Sicilian salt which we have mentioned as being found in Lake Cocanicus, as also with that of Cyprus, which is marvellously like it. At Egelasta, in Nearer Spain, there is a salt, hewn from the bed in almost transparent blocks, and to which for this long time past most medical men, it is said, have given the preference over all other salt. Every spot in which salt is found is naturally barren, and produces nothing. Such are the particulars, in general, which have been ascertained with reference to native salt.

  Of artificial salt there are several kinds; the common salt, and the most abundant, being made from sea-water drained into salt-pans, and accompanied with streams of fresh water; but it is rain more particularly, and, above all things, the sun, that aids in its formation; indeed without this last it would never dry. In the neighbourhood of Utica, in Africa, they build up masses of salt, like hills in appearance; and when these have been hardened by the action of the sun and moon, no moisture will ever melt them, and iron can hardly divide them. In Crete, however, salt is made without the aid of fresh water, and merely by introducing sea-water into the salt-pans. On the shores of Egypt, salt is formed by the overflow of the sea upon the land, already prepared for its reception, in my opinion, by the emanation
s of the river Nilus. It is made here, also, from the water of certain wells, discharged into salt-pans. At Babylon, the result of the first condensation is a bituminous liquid, like oil, which is used for burning in lamps; when this is skimmed off, the salt is found beneath. In Cappadocia, also, both well and spring-water are introduced into the saltpans. In Chaonia there is a spring, from the water of which, when boiled and left to cool, there is an inert salt obtained, not so white as ordinary salt. In the Gallic provinces and in Germany, it is the practice to pour salt-water upon burning wood.

  Detailed table of contents

  CHAP. 40.

  MURIA.

  In one part of Spain, they draw a brine for this purpose from deep — sunk pits, to which they give the name of “muria;” being of opinion, also, that it makes a considerable difference upon what kind of wood it is poured. That of the quercus they look upon as the best, as the ashes of it, unmixed, have the pungency of salt. In other places, again, the wood of the hazel is held in high esteem; and thus, we see, by pouring brine upon it, charcoal even is converted into salt. All salt that is thus prepared with burning wood is black. I find it stated by Theophrastus, that the Umbri are in the habit of boiling ashes of reeds and bulrushes in water, till there remains but little moisture unconsumed. The brine, too, of salted provisions is sometimes boiled over again, and, as soon as all the moisture has evaporated, the salt resumes its original form. That prepared from the pickle of the mæna has the finest flavour.

  Detailed table of contents