Treatment of Elephantiasis

Abstract

It is barely possible to eliminate elephantiasis, once established in the parts or giving rise to cancer in the organs: however, the attempt was made by Podalirius, of whom the Muses sing. Give Calabrian manna frequently to drink, and Indian cassia and senna soaked in whey: or plums and raisins, in both of veal or kid. Open the veins, apply leeches to the blemishes to suck the black blood from various parts: attach cupping-glasses to extract a flow after scarifying the skin, and blisters to the swollen limbs. Give frequent warm baths to open the skin pores and release the vapour that makes the body drowsy and inert, to be replaced by a gentler vapour to warm the inner parts. And then hyeris with colocynth is useful, and hamech and pills of fumitory containing black hellebore: or, if you like, indigo or famed lapis lazuli. The food should be young turkeys, and our own cooks, capons and tender veal, which please when roasted in the acid juice of pomegranate, oxyacantha or red currant: or if they are boiled, it is more fitted to the disease to cook with sorrel, lettuce, plantain, violet, chicory, borage and bugloss.