CHAP. XXVI.
¶ Who first shewed the riuer-Horse and Crocodiles at Rome. Also the medicinable [unspec H] means found out by the said dumbe creatures.
MArcus Scaurus was the first man, who in his plaies and games that he set out in his Aedile∣ship, made a shew of one water-Horse and foure Crocodiles, swimming in a poole or mote made for the time during those solemnities.
The riuer-Horse hath taught physitions one deuice in that part of their profession called Surgerie: for he finding himself ouer-grosse & fat by reason of his high feeding so continual∣ly, gets forth of the water to the shore, hauing spied afore where the reeds and rushes haue bin newly cut: and where he seeth the sharpest cane and best pointed, hee sets his body hard vnto it, to pricke a certaine veine in one of his legs, and thus by letting himselfe bloud maketh eua∣cuation: [unspec I] whereby his body, otherwise inclining to diseases and maladies, is well eased of the superfluous humor: and hauing thus done, hee stoppeth the orifice againe with mud, and so stancheth the bloud, and healeth the wound.