[1544] The works with which I am acquainted that treat on this subject,
are the following:--M. Schoockii Tractatus de Butyro: accessit ejusdem
Diatriba de aversatione Casei. Groningæ, 1664, 12mo.--H. Conring De
habitus corporum Germanicorum antiqui et novi caussis. Helmst. 1666,
4to, or Frankf. 1727, 8vo.--Vossii Etymologicon, art. Butyrum.--Traité
de la Police, par De la Mare, lib. v. 7. ii. p. 799.--Tob. Waltheri
Dissert. de Butyro. Altorfii, 1743.--Conr. Gesneri Libellus de lacte
et operibus lactariis, 1543, 8vo. This small treatise I have hitherto
sought for in vain.
[1545] Bochart, Hierozoicon, ii. 45, p. 473.
[1546] Genesis, chap. xviii. ver. 8: “And he took butter and milk, and
the calf which he had dressed, and set before them.” Deuteron. chap.
xxxii. ver. 14: “Butter of kine and milk of sheep.” Judges, chap. v.
ver. 25: “He asked water, and she gave him milk; she brought forth
butter in a lordly dish.” 2 Samuel, chap. xvii. ver. 29: “And honey,
and butter, and sheep.” Job, chap. xx. ver. 17: “He shall not see the
rivers, the floods, the brooks of honey and butter.” Ibid. chap. xxix.
ver. 6: “When I washed my steps with butter and the rock poured me out
rivers of oil.” Proverbs, chap. xxx. ver. 33: “Surely the churning of
milk bringeth forth butter.” Isaiah, chap. vii. ver. 15: “Butter and
honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil and choose the
good.” Ibid. ver. 22: “And it shall come to pass, for the abundance of
milk that they shall give, that he shall eat butter; for butter and
honey shall every one eat that is left in the land.”
[1547] Michaelis Suppl. ad Lex. Hebr. v. i. p. 807; and his Mosaisches
Recht (on the Laws of Moses), § 291 and 295.
[1548] iv. 2. p. 281: “Postquam emulxere lac, in cava vasa lignea
diffundunt; et compungentes ad illa vasa cæcos lac agitant (δονέουσι τὸ
γάλα) cujus quod summum est, delibatur, pretiosiusque habetur; vilius
autem quod subsidit.”--That δονέειν signifies to shake or beat, there
can be no doubt. Theocritus uses the same word in speaking of a tree
strongly agitated by the wind. It is used also to express the agitation
of the sea during a storm; and in Geopon. xx. 46, p. 1270, where the
preparation of that sauce called _garum_ is mentioned, it is said that
it must be placed in the sun, and frequently shaken.
[1549] De Morbis, lib. iv. edit. 1595, fol. v. p. 67. Also in his
treatise De Aëre, Locis, et Aquis, sect. iii. p. 74, he says the
Scythians drink mares’-milk, and eat cheese made of it.
[1550] De Natura Mulierum, sect. v. p. 137.--De Morbis Mulier. 2. sect.
v. p. 191, 235, and in several other places. Vossius therefore, in his
Etymolog. p. 84, says erroneously, that this word was first used by
Dioscorides.
[1551] Edition of Basle, 1538, fol. v. p. 715.
[1552] It occurs however in Phavorinus.
[1553] Athenæus, iv. p. 131. Respecting Anaxandrides see Fabricii Bibl.
Gr.
[1554] Historia Animal. iii. 20, p. 384: πᾶν δὲ γάλα ἔχει ἰχῶρα
ὑδατώτη, ὃ καλεῖται ὀῤῥὸς, καὶ σωματῶδες, ὃ καλεῖται τυρός. Omne lac
habet succum aquosum, qui dicitur serum, et alterum corpulentum, qui
vocatur caseus.--P. 388: ὑπάρχει δ’ ἐν τῷ γάλακτι λιπαρότης, ἣ καὶ
ἐν τοῖς πεπήγοσι γίνεται ἐλαιώδης. Inest in lacte pinguedo, quæ in
concreto oleosa fit. This is the translation of Scaliger; but by Gaza
the latter part of the passage is translated as follows: “quæ etiam
concreto oleum prope trahit.” It appears to me doubtful what
ἐν τοῖς πεπήγοσι properly means. The comparison of oil occurs also
in Dioscorides and Pliny. Aristotle, in all probability, intended to
say that the fat part of milk was observed under an oily appearance in
cheese made of sweet milk from which the cream had not been separated;
and that indeed is perfectly agreeable to truth.
[1555] Lib. iii. p. 233; xvii. p. 1176; xv. p. 1031.
[1556] Histor. Æthiop. lib. iv. 4, 13.
[1557] Histor. Animal. viii. 31, p. 977.
[1558] Hist. Nat. viii. 10, p. 440.
[1559] Hist. Animal. ii. 18.
[1560] Indica. Amst. 1668, 8vo, p. 537.
[1561] Lib. xiii. cap. 7.
[1562] De Simplic. Med. Facultat. lib. x. p. 151. Edit. Basil. ii. p.
134.
[1563] De Aliment. Facultat. iii. cap. 15, p. 54. Edit. Basil. iv. p.
340.
[1564] Cæsar de Bello Gall. iv. 1. vi. 22. Strabo, lib. iv. speaking
of the Britons, says, “In their manners they are somewhat similar to
Celts, but more simple and barbarous; so that many, although they
abound in milk, are unable to make cheese, through want of skill.”
[1565] Lib. xi. c. 41, p. 637.
[1566] Ib. lib. xxviii. cap. 9, p. 465.
[1567] In my opinion the passage ought to be arranged as
follows:--prælirato. Quod est maximum coactum, in summo fluitat. Id
exemptum, addito sale, butyrum est, oleosum natura. Quod reliquum est
decoquunt in ollis. Additur paululum aquæ (aceti?), ut acescat. Id quod
supernatat, oxygala appellant. Quo magis virus resipit, hoc præstantius
indicatur. Pluribus compositionibus miscetur inveteratum. Natura ejus
adstringere, mollire, replere, purgare.--Dithmar’s emendation may be
found in Taciti Libel. de Moribus German. Francof. 1766, 8vo, p. 140.
[1568] Lib. xii. 8, p. 786.
[1569] De Aliment. Facultat. iii. cap. 16, p. 55.
[1570] Ibid. cap. 17, p. 57.
[1571] Lib. xviii. 12, p. 1188.
[1572] See Mercurialis, p. 38.
[1573] De Moribus Germ. cap. 23.
[1574] On this account some conjecture, and not without probability,
that the name also βούτυρος or βούτυρον is not originally Greek,
but that it may have been introduced into Greece from some foreign
country, along with the thing which it expresses. Conring, for example,
is of opinion that it is of Scythian extraction. The Grecian and Roman
authors, however, make it to be a Greek word, compounded of βοῦς, an
ox or cow, and τυρὸς, cheese, as we learn from the passages of Galen
and Pliny already quoted. Cheese was known to them much earlier than
butter; and it is therefore possible, that at first they may have
considered the latter as a kind of cheese, as it appears that τυρὸς
once signified any coagulated substance. The first syllable of the
word, indeed, one should hardly expect, as the Greeks used the milk
of sheep and goats much earlier than cow’s-milk; and for this reason
Schook conjectures that the first syllable was added, as usual among
the Greeks, to magnify the object, or to express a superior kind of
cheese. Varro De Re Rustica, ii. 5, p. 274, says, “Novi majestatem
boum, et ab his dici pleraque magna, ut βούσυκον, βούπαιδα,
βούλιμον, βοῶπιν; uvam quoque bumammam;” and we find in Hesychius,
“βούπαις νέος μέγας· βούπεινα, μέγας λιμὸς· βουφάγος, πολυφάγος.” But
this supposes that the Greeks preferred butter to cheese; whereas they
always considered the former as of less importance, and less proper for
use. The same word being still retained in most languages determines
nothing; especially as the Swedes use the word _smor_, which is totally
different, and which was the oldest German name, and that most used in
the ninth century; and Lipsius, in an old dictionary of that period,
found the word _kuosmer_ butyrum, the first syllable of which is
certainly the word _kuh_, a cow. See Lipsii Epist. ad Belgas, cent.
iii. 44, and Wormii Litteratura Runica, cap. 27. These etymological
researches, which must always be uncertain, I shall not carry further;
but only remark that, according to Hesychius, butter, in Cyprus, where
I did not expect it, was called ἔλφος, which word may also be foreign.
See Martini Lexic. Philol. art _Butyrum_, who derives ἔλφος from
_albus_.
[1575] Lib. vi. 12, p. 582.
[1576] Lib. xxviii. cap. 19, p. 486.
[1577] A passage of Tertullian _adversus Jud._ alludes to this
practice. The same words are repeated Adversus Marcion. iii. 13.
[1578] Sidonius Apollinaris, carm. 12.
[1579] Clemens Alexand. Pædag. i. p. 107.
[1580] When Leodius accompanied the elector palatine Frederic II.
in his travels through Spain, he was desirous of purchasing in that
country several articles necessary for their journey. After much
inquiry concerning butter, he was directed to an apothecary’s shop,
where the people were much astonished at the largeness of the quantity
he asked for, and showed him a little entirely rancid, which was
kept in a bladder for external use. H. Th. Leodii Vita et Res Gestæ
Frederici Palatini. Francof. 1665, 4to, lib. vi.
[1581] Lib. x. p. 447.
[1582] What Hippocrates calls ἔλαιον ὑὸς Erotian explains by τὸ ὕειον
στέαρ.
[1583] Suhm, in the eighth vol. of the Transactions of the
Copenhagen Society, where a reference is made, p. 53, respecting the
above-mentioned circumstance, to Torfæi Histor. Norveg. pars. i. vi.
sect. iii. cap. 2, p. 319.