[279] De eisdem testiculis, quod nempe comitialibus, et caducis remedio sint, Plinius[1] sic refert Quidam bibendos cense<n>t testes Gallinacei ex aqua, et lacte antecedente quinque dierum abstinentia vini ob id inveteratos. Dissentiunt nimirum parum Sextus[2], et Plinius, quod ille ex aqua tantum potandos testiculos velit, et decem dierum a vino abstinentiam laudet, hic cum aqua et lacte exhibeat bibendos, et quinque dierum abstinentiae vini meminit. Serapio etiam pro epilepticis medicamentum probat e testibus Galli Gallinacei confectum: Caelius Aurelianus ut videtur, improbat. Ornithologus[3] in manuscripto quodam Germanico libro remedium tale ad epilepsiam invenisse asserit. Fel Gallinacei aeger cum aqua mixtum bibat, et diebus decem abstemius esto.

Pliny reports in the following way about the same testicles, since they would just be a remedy for epileptics and people suffering of falling-sickness: Some persons think that it is necessary to drink testicles of rooster put in water and milk with a previous abstinence from wine for five days, and because of this they are let grow old. Really Sextus Placitus Papyriensis and Pliny disagree a little bit within them, since the former would be of the opinion that the testicles must be drunk only with water and he thinks good an abstinence from wine of ten days, the latter would give them to drink with water and milk and he remembers an abstinence from wine of five days. Also Serapion prizes a medicine from testicles of rooster: Caelius Aurelianus, as it seems, doesn’t agree. The Ornithologist affirms he has found in a German manuscript book this remedy for epilepsy: the patient has to drink chicken's bile mixed with water and has to be teetotal for ten days.

Amatus Lusitanus catulum, vel Columbum vivum dissectum per spinam supra caput mulieris melanc<h>olicae, vel desipientis imponi consulit. Similiter Ornithologus[4] quosdam Gallinam nigram dissectam in eodem casu audi<i>sse se refert admovere. Quod si vel capitis, vel alterius cuiusque membri dolorem sedare velis, noli ab ovi Gallinacei albumine recedere. Plinius[5] Gallinaceum capitis dolori remedio esse ait, si inclusus abstineat die ac nocte pari inedia eius, qui doleat, evulsis collo plumis circumligatisque vel cristis. Idem sed paulo aliter Marcellus[6] attestatur. Albumen enim, teste principe Avicenna, dolores, etsi acres magis, quum ulla alia res eiusdem etiam facultatis compescit, quoniam suo glutine dolentibus partibus adhaeret, nec facile recedit, ut lac. Et Kiranides omnes dolores ovum crudum sanare dixit: unde etiam ovo (albumine potissimum) tanquam sine morsu exiccante ad anacollemata[7], quae fronti imponuntur, utimur.

Amatus Lusitanus - alias João Rodriguez do Castelo Branco - advises to place on the head of a melancholic or half-mad woman a living puppy or a pigeon split down the backbone. Likewise the Ornithologist reports he heard some people are placing a quartered black hen in this same pathology. And if you want to soothe headache or pain in any other part of body don’t forget the albumen of hen’s egg. Pliny says that a rooster represents a remedy for headache if after having been confined fasting day and night, as he who has pain is fasting, and after the feathers have been removed from neck and wounded around the head, or using the combs. Marcellus Empiricus attests the same thing but a little bit otherwise. In fact the albumen, as the very reliable Avicenna affirms, holds off the pains, even if piercing, more than any other thing even though endowed with the same property, since it sticks to aching parts with its glueyness and doesn’t peel off easily, like the milk does. Also Kiranides said that raw egg lets recover from all pains: hence we use also the egg (chiefly the albumen) since it dries without smarting to make poultices to be placed on forehead.

Maximopere sane semper student medici, ut moderato somno utantur aegri: id quoque ovi albumen fronti cum linteolo applicatum luculenter praestat. Pedes etiam Gallinaceos comesos vulgus somnum conciliare existimat. Sunt qui Gallinae pennam intinctam in aceto ad somni profunditatem conferre tradant: quod si verum est in immoderatis vigiliis, quibus in ardentibus febribus aegri frequenter contorquentur, eiusmodi vilissimi pretii remedium laudatissimumque erit. Destillationibus, et rheumatismis ovum acrochliaron[8], id est, leviter calefactum sorptumque remedio esse Dioscorides scripsit, tanquam de albumine privatim atque ita Avicenna debet intelligi ubi ova coryzae conferre prodidit. Albumen enim fronti applicatum fluxiones a capite descendere prohibet. Est enim insigni astrigendi facultate praeditum adeo, ut Plinius[9] dicat: Candidum ex ovis admixtum calci viva glutinat vitri fragmenta: vis vero tanta est (ovi candido nempe, ut Hermolaus exponit) ut lignum perfusum ovo non ardeat, ac ne vestis quidem contacta aduratur[10]. Unde non mirum est, si Galenus, Avicenna, et Serapio ovi albumen medicamentis sanguinis profluvium ex cerebri involucris, supprimentibus, quae citra morsum obstruere, et astringere possunt, utiliter misceant. Laudat et Avicenna contra sanguinis fluxum eiusdemque mictum si sorbeatur, ovum crudum: quod ob albuminis vim astringentem infarcientemque solam dixisse videri posset, nisi Plinium[11] authorem haberemus, cruenta excreantibus luteum ovi prodesse.

In truth the physicians are always very busy in order that patients can enjoy of some sleep: the albumen of the egg assures also this in an excellent way when placed on forehead with a handkerchief. People think that also eating chickens' feet makes sleepy. Some people report that a hen’s feather dipped in vinegar is useful for a sound sleep: if this is true, it will be an excellent remedy of negligible cost for the terrible sleeplessness when patients are often tossing and turning because of a high fever. Dioscorides wrote as specific of the albumen that the acrochlíaron egg – lukewarm, that is, lightly heated and drunk, is a remedy for catarrhs and rheumatisms, and thus has to be understood Avicenna when he said elsewhere that eggs are helpful when we have a cold. For the albumen placed on forehead prevents the liquids flowing down from head. For it is endowed with a so excellent astringent property that Pliny says: The white obtained from eggs mixed with quicklime joins the fragments of glass: in truth the strength in it is so great (obviously in egg white, as Ermolao Barbaro clarifies) that a wood piece sprinkled with egg doesn’t burn, and even a clothing smeared with it doesn’t catch fire. Hence it is no wonder that Galen, Avicenna and Serapion usefully mix egg albumen with those medicines which staunch blood from the membranes enveloping the brain, since without irritating they can act as haemostatics and astringents. Also Avicenna against menorrhagia and blood in urine praises the egg if drunk raw: and it would seem that he has told this only because of the astringent and haemostatic property of the albumen, unless we take in greater account that Pliny said that egg yolk is helpful to those who are spitting blood.

Gallinarum item cerebrum comestum conferre iis, qui ex percussione fluxum sanguinis narium pariuntur, legimus, sed diversimode: Cerebellum Gallinarum, inquit Marcellus[12], naribus sanguine fluentibus prodest. Dioscorides[13], et Plinius[14] sic: Cerebellum Gallinarum sanguinem a cerebri membrana profluentem sistit. Avicenna per nares a cerebri velaminibus, Rasis contra fluxus sanguinis a cerebro. Idem etiam praestare sanguinem Gallinae nonnulli voluerunt, et apud Serenum[15] habemus.

Aut Galli cerebro, vel sanguine tinge Columbae

Quod nisi supprimitur sanguis potandus et ipse est.

We read that likewise to eat hen's brain is helpful to those showing a nose bleed from a blow, but in different way: Marcellus Empiricus says: The hen's brain is helpful when nostrils are bleeding: Dioscorides and Pliny are expressing themselves in this way: The hen's  brain stops the blood flowing out from the membrane enveloping the brain. Avicenna says that it is useful for blood flowing from the membranes enveloping the brain and going along nostrils, Razi says that it is useful against flows of blood arising from brain. Some were of the opinion that the same result is achieved by hen’s blood, and in Serenus Sammonicus we have:

Apply either brain of rooster, or blood of dove

And if the blood is not stopped it is to be drunk too.

Sed Galenus[16] eiusmodi facultatem non agnovit, quando dis{s}ertissimis verbis eos reprehendit, qui id asserant, inquiens. Sunt qui scribant, sanguinem Galli, et Gallinae ad meningum, id est, membranarum cerebri sanguinis profluvium prodesse. Quem ego cum nihil egregium praestiturum sperare, experimentum de eo sumere nolui, ne vel curiosus, vel stolidus esse indicarer, si multis probatisque remediis ad hunc usum neglectis, maiorem e sanguine istarum alitum non compertam hactenus utilitatem expectarem, praesertim cum sanguinis ab hac parte profluvium valde periculosum sit. Est enim omnino experientia huiusmodi periculosa et a solis regibus circa facinorosos homines usurpanda.[17]

But Galen didn’t admit this property, since he confutes with very clear words those who assert this in saying: Some write that blood of rooster and hen are helpful in meningeal bleeding, that is, of the membranes enveloping the brain. Since I didn’t have any hope in assuring something unusual, I didn’t wish to undertake an experiment on this subject, with the purpose of not to be branded either as curious or as foolish if, having set aside many and proven remedies for this use, I expected a greater hitherto undiscovered utility from the blood of these birds, chiefly because the hemorrhage from this district is rather dangerous. For such a testing is dangerous at all and it must be done only by important persons in criminals.

Alibi vero idem Galenus[18] ex Asclepiade, ad sanguinis narium eruptionem tale medicamentum praescribit. Putaminis ovi partem unam, gallae omphacitidis[19] partem unam, trita linamento torto aqua, aut aceto madefacto excipito, et indito: frontem vero, aut nasum gypso aut luto figulino integito: aures autem obturare iubeto. Sunt qui ad hoc remedium putamine usto uti malint. Alibi[20] rursus ad eandem profusionem hoc medicamentum recenset: Ovi putamen integrum {cumburito} <comburito>, et liquorem ex eo extractum cum fissili arsenico permisceto, in naresque patientis immittito: si arsenicum praesto non fuerit, solus ovi liquor sufficiet.

But elsewhere Galen himself, drawing information from Asclepiades the Younger, prescribes the following remedy for nose bleed. One part of eggshell, one part of nut of gall, after you ground them place them in a twisted bandage soaked with water or vinegar and apply it: but you must cover forehead or nose with chalk or with potter clay: the ears are prescribed to be sealed up. Some would prefer to use burnt eggshell for this remedy. Then elsewhere he reports the following medicament for the same kind of bleeding: Burn up an intact eggshell and mix the extracted liquid with crushed arsenic and put it into the nostrils of the patient: if arsenic is not available, the juice of the egg alone will be enough.

Putaminis cinis, inquit Plinius[21], in vino potus sanguinis eruptioni medetur; quod Kiranides etiam repetiit: alii tamen etiam non usto utuntur.

Pliny says: The ash of an eggshell drunk in wine heals bleedings; a thing which also Kiranides repeated: however others use it even if unburned.