“If the excrement of an elephant should be smeared on skin in which lice appear and left until it dries upon the skin, the lice will not remain on it but will depart immediately. If the fat of an elephant is smeared with it, it is said to cure the pain of one who suffers a headache; it is even said that if an ounce of elephant bone is drunk with ten ounces of wild mountain mint from something which a leper first touched, it does the most for a headache.”

— Albertus Magnus

Twenty-Six Books on Animals [De animalibus libri XXVI]; cited in: Plinio Prioreschi (1996) A History of Medicine: Medieval Medicine. p. 94.

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Albertus Magnus 5

Dominican friar 1206–1280

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