Therapeutic and prophylactic uses of invertebrates in contemporary Spanish ethnoveterinary medicine

Sensory organs (eye and adnexa)

To alleviate pain in cases of ocular contusions, in Huesca and Lugo honey was spread on the eye of the animal [72, 73].

To cure corneal ulcers caused by eye lesions, mainly scratches and cuts from branches or vegetation in general, in Asturias and Cantabria the eyes were also treated with honey [55, 66], and at Saelices el Chico (Salamanca) a cobweb was placed liberally on the affected eye [52]. However, such ocular lesions have usually been treated in Spain by administering (on the eye) a fine powder made of different animal elements. At Zafra (Badajoz) the valves of the shell of the common mussel (Mytilus edulis) were ground to a fine powder and sprinkled directly on the affected eye [43]. It is highly likely that in the interior areas of the country traditional use involved river mussel shells, of species such as the painter’s mussel, Unio pictorum (Linnaeus, 1758), or the swan mussel, Anodonta cygnea (Linnaeus, 1758), which can still be found in the south-east of the province of Badajoz [74]. In the District of Serrablo (Huesca) snail shells were gathered and roasted on coals. At first they turned black, and then white, after which they were ground and sieved, until a very fine powder was obtained. A tube of rolled-up paper was then filled with the powder, which was blown into the eye of the animal. It was claimed that this cure should be applied for nine consecutive days [75]. On the island of Gran Canaria, shepherds treated their sheep and goats with mierda de gaviota, i.e. the internal shell of Loligo vulgaris. They would scrape this with a knife and place the powder in the eye of the sick animal [76]. Despite this, the most common remedy was to put powder obtained by scraping a cuttlefish bone into the eye of sick animals. The powder was placed on a piece of paper, which was rolled up, and the powder was blown directly into the bad eye. In many districts and regions in the north of Spain this simple remedy was practised daily until the animal was cured [38, 49, 55, 56, 66, 67, 73, 77–79].

Likewise, to combat infectious bovine keratoconjunctivitis, also known as “pinkeye”, caused by the bacterium Moraxella bovis, in the Valle de Carranza (Vizcaya) and the Pallars region (Lérida), shepherds would blow the powder obtained from finely ground cuttlebone into the bad eye through a thin paper tube [67, 69].

In this same Catalan region, to treat keratoconjunctivitis in sheep, four or five caragols bovers (Cornu aspersum) were roasted in coals together with a stem of cabbage. After crushing all together, a pinch of salt was added. The mixture was sieved and applied to the conjunctiva of the sick animal [69].

In order to treat disorders of the lacrimal system (dacryocystitis, canaliculitis, stenosis) in Alburquerque (Badajoz) a scorpion was placed in a bell, sealed with cork, and hung from the neck of the sick animal [62]. Shepherds in the north of the province of Cáceres used to hang a needle case containing a scorpion around the sick animal’s neck [50]. In both cases, the scorpion and the eye problem were assumed to “dry out” at the same time.

Towards the middle of the last century, in Ibias (Asturias), to treat any type of ocular disorder, the animal’s eye was opened and home-made medicine was applied; this was a mixture of different plant products (rose petals, rosemary, garlic, rue, etc.) together with the innards of a black field slug [80]. In this case, the remedy has strong associated symbolisms. Plants considered to be universal panaceas are used such as rosemary, which appears in classic works such as Cervantes’ Don Quixote [81] and in pharmacopoeias such as the Hispana from 1794 (Spiritus Rosmarini or Aqua Reginae Hungariae), together with other plants with an apotropaic effect used to treat psychological problems, such as rue or rose petals [82, 83], all combined with the innards of a black mollusc. Disease is black and dirty, as opposed to the whiteness of health, and this is why antidotes tended to be dark in colour [84].