1. Sometimes _like a small tongue_, viz. the epiglottis.
2. _Below the last ribs_, &c.) I have here translated, according to
an emendation proposed by Morgagni[JC], who would read, _Qui lumbis sub
imis costis inhærent, a parte earum rotundi, ab altera resimi_. Where
a small alteration renders the description just: whereas in the way
it stands in all the editions, _Qui lumbis sub imis coxis inhærent, a
parte earum resimi, ab altera rotundi_, it plainly contradicts truth,
as will be very obvious to any person the least conversant in anatomy.
[JC] Ep. 1. p. 32.
3. _They are stocked with vessels, and covered with coats._)
In Almeloveen, _Et venosi sunt, et tunicis super conteguntur_.
Morgagni[JD] informs us, that after the three first words, all his
editions agree in inserting _Et ventriculos habent_, _and they have
ventricles_; and it is not probable our author would take no notice of
these; and to the same purpose speaks Hippocrates de Ossium Natur. no.
8.
[JD] Ep. 6. p. 144.
4. _Relaxation of the nerves._) _Resolutio nervorum_ he commonly uses
for a palsy, yet he cannot intend that here, but a langour or slight
relaxation of the solids.
5. _Cervicalia._) Cervicale was used in a double sense by the Romans,
either for a bolster, or a piece of dress resembling the neckcloth.
6. _And venery_, _A venere_.) It is probable that Almeloveen is wrong
in omitting after this _a vino_, which is in Morgagni’s[JE] MS and all
his editions especially as a few lines after, our author mentions the
condition of allowing wine.
[JE] Ep. 6. p. 149.
7. _Nostrils are more open._) In Almeloveen _magis pallent_. Though
the MS and Cæsar and Ruellius read thus, yet it is plain from the text
itself that the other editions are right, which have it _magis patent_;
for our author presently adds, in a worse state of the disorder, the
contrary symptom: _Si nares æque clausæ videntur._ Morgagni, Ep, 6. p.
140.
8. _Aminean wine._) This, says Pliny, has the preference of all other
wines, upon account of its strength, and its growing better by age.
Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. xiv. cap. 2. And thus Virgil says, Georg. 2.
line 97.--_Sunt et Amineæ vites, fortissima vina._
9. _Liquid cerate_, says Ægineta, such as is used for fractures, is
prepared from two parts of oil and one of wax. Lib. vii. cap. 17.
10. _Syrian oil._) I suppose our author must here mean what was
called from its sweetness _elæomeli_--which Pliny says is produced
spontaneously in the maritime parts of Syria. It flows from the trees,
fat, thicker than honey, thinner than resin, of a sweet flavour, and
is used by the physicians. Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. xv. cap. 7.--And
to the same purpose Dioscorid. lib i. cap. 37.--To this account P.
Ægineta adds, that about two cyathi of this taken in a hemina of water
discharge crude and bilious humours by stool; but that this draught is
apt to stupefy a person, which, however, is not dangerous, but he would
require to be excited. P. Æginet. lib. vii. cap. 3.
11. _Synanche_, or _Cynanche_.) According to Aretæus, the latter of
these names was given to the distemper, either because it was common to
dogs, or because these animals, even in health, hang out their tongues.
Lib. i. de Caus. et Sign. Morb. Acut. cap. 7.
12. _His belly must be opened._ _Si non febrit, venter solvendus
est._) This I take to be the general direction; if he has no fever,
the intestinal discharge must be promoted--_Liquenda alvus_, by which
I understand the accomplishment of this by diet or medicines, and
_Interdum etiam ducenda_, the use of clysters.
13. _Lycium_ or puxacantha, _box-thorn_, a tree of the thorn-kind.
The branches, with the leaves, are bruised and macerated for some days
in water, then boiled, and after straining it, is boiled again to the
consistence of honey. The best lycium is what will burn. It has an
astringent quality. They adulterate it by mixing lees of oil, or the
inspissated juice of wormwood or ox-gall in the boiling. Dioscorid.
lib. i. cap. 133.
14. _Frankincense, thus._) It is generally allowed, that what the
ancients called _thus_, goes now under the name of olibanum.
15. _Stomach._) When our author mentions the gullet and stomach
together, as in the first chapter of this book, he calls the former
_stomachus_, and the latter _ventriculus_; but he often comprehends
both under the name of _stomachus_, as in this place, which appears by
the disorders mentioned.
16. _A powder with oil._) This word is _pulvis_--Our author does not
say what powder. He had mentioned rose-oil just before: can he intend
the powder of rose-leaves? or any of those powders he prescribes in the
cardiac disorder, the last of which is _quilibet ex via pulvis_, any
common dust? Or has the word, denoting the kind, been omitted by the
copiers?
17. _Sulphurated wool._) I suppose he means wool impregnated with the
fumes of sulphur.
18. _Cutiliæ, &c._) The waters of Cutiliæ in the country of the
Sabines, Pliny says, are extremely cold, and by a kind of suction
excite a sensation in the body like a bite; they are very useful to the
stomach, nerves, and the whole body. Lib. xxxi. cap. 2. Our industrious
critics and collectors have not been able hitherto to find any such
place as _Subruinæ_ or _Sumbruinæ_, and therefore to cut the knot they
cannot loose, propose to read here, as well as in the forecited place
of Pliny, _Subcutiliæ_.
19. _Rhetic or Allobrogic._) These wines, whose qualities are here
described, had their names from the countries where they were produced;
the first was the Grisons, and the latter Savoy.
20. _Signine._) This wine by reason of its great austerity was used
as an astringent medicine in fluxes. It had its name from the town of
Signia in Latium. Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. xiv. cap. 6.
21. _Sesanum._) Dioscorides gives no description of this, but says,
it is bad for the stomach, and produces a bad smell in the mouth. Lib.
ii. cap. 369. Pliny tells us it is brought from India, and the colour
of it is white, and it resembles the _erysimum_ or hedge mustard in
Greece and Asia. Lib. xviii. cap. 10. The moderns give this name to the
oily purging grain.
22. _Over it._) That is, through the teguments, so as to bring the
part affected into view. I have here followed the old reading _contra
id_, which Constantine upon the authority of an ancient MS. changed
into _ultra id_; which I think does not afford so good a sense, though
followed by Linden.
23. _Cytisus_ is a shrub, all white like the buckthorn, sending out
branches of a cubit’s length or more, about which are the leaves,
resembling fenugreek; which being rubbed between the fingers smell like
rocket. Dioscorid. lib. iv. cap. 695.
24. _Acorns._) Dioscorides calls this βάλανος μυρεψική. It is the
fruit of a tree like the myrica.--It resembles the Pontic nut: upon
being squeezed like bitter almonds, it emits a moisture, which is used
for ointments instead of oil.--It grows in Ethiopia, Egypt, and Arabia.
Lib, iv. cap. 742.
25. _Ferula_ answered to _narthex_ among the Greeks, and was a
general name for several herbs of the same genus, from whence some
of the fetid gums are obtained, as sagapenum, and galbanum.--The
ancients made use of the stalks of these herbs, in the same manner as
paste-boards are now used for fractures, as will be seen in the eighth
book.
26. _Refreshing to nature._) I have given a sense of the phrase
_secundum naturam_ (which is the reading of Linden and Almeloveen) very
near to that, in which the philosophers use it, because I can find
no other.--Pinzius, Junta, and the Manutii read _vel mentha secundum
naturam est_. As the books vary, and none of them make the meaning
quite clear, it might perhaps be plainer, if it be read, _vel quod
secundum eam naturam est_, that is, _Or mint, or something of the same
nature_.
27. _Regimen for such patients I have already mentioned._) Vid. book
i. chap. 7.
28. _Minium._) Pliny complains that _minium_, which was used by the
painters, was of a poisonous nature, and through ignorance often given
in medicine instead of the _Indian cinnabar_. This last, he says, is
believed to be the gore of a dragon crushed by the weight of a dying
elephant, with the mixture of the blood of these animals. _Minium_ was
found in the silver mines in both the Spains, but hard and sandy; also
at Colchos in a certain inaccessible rock, but this was a spurious
kind: the best was got near Ephesus.----_Minium_ some of the Greeks
call _cinnabar_, others _miltos_. Plin. lib. xxix. c. i. & lib. xxxiii.
c. 7. _Cinnabar_, says Dioscorides, some mistake for what is called
_ammion_: for this last is prepared from a certain stone mixed with the
silver sand in Spain, and no where else. In the melting pot it changes
into a very florid and flame colour: it has a suffocating steam in the
mines: the painters make use of it. But _cinnabar_ is brought from
Libya, and sold at a great price, in so much that painters can hardly
have it for their use: the colour of it is deep, whence some have
imagined it to be the blood of a dragon: it has the same virtues as the
hæmatites stone. Lib. v. c. 883.--_Miltos Sinopica_, the best is solid
and heavy, of a liver colour, not stony, very thin when melted. It is
gathered in Cappadocia in certain caves; it is strained and brought
to Sinope, and sold there, whence its name. It possesses a drying
quality, and agglutinating, for which reason it is mixed with vulnerary
plaisters, and drying and styptick troches. It binds the belly if taken
with an egg, and is given in clysters to hepatick patients, Lib. v. c.
885.----Our author elsewhere prescribes _minium_ from _Sinope_, which
makes it probable, that he intended the _miltos_ of Dioscorides. But
upon comparing these several descriptions, which it is needless to
enlarge upon, the learned reader may determine for himself.
29. _Tetrapharmacum_, or compounded of four medicines. Vid. lib. v.
c. 19.
30. _Myrrhapia._) So called, according to Pliny, from the likeness of
their flavour to that of myrrh. Lib. xxv. c. 15.
31. _If the hardness continue._) _Si durities manet._ This appears
suspicious, as our author had mentioned no hardness before. In this
chapter he first describes hysterick fits, then prescribes the proper
treatment both during the paroxysms, and after they are over. We have
very great reason to believe the whole chapter to be corrupted, for
reasons which will be mentioned in a following note. With regard to
this particular place, my opinion is, that after Celsus had finished
what he had to say concerning hysterick fits, he next proceeded to
treat of a hardness of the uterus; and after directing some remedies,
in case of their failing, and the hardness continuing, he orders other
medicines to be tried.--What renders this conjecture the more probable,
is, that Aretæus, amongst the chronick diseases of the uterus, mentions
σκληριη, _a hardness_. “There is,” says he, “another species of
cancer, where there is no ulcer, but a hard and resisting tumour. The
whole uterus is stretched, violent pains distress, and all the other
symptoms are the same as in a cancerous ulcer of this part.” Lib. ii.
de caus. et sig. morb. chron. c. 2.
32. _Restringents must be used._) _Si maligna purgatio est,
subjicienda sunt coërcentia_: thus Linden and Almeloveen.--Morgagni
observes, that the MS. copy of Alex. Paduan, after the words
_subjicienda sunt_, not only has a great vacuity to the end of the
page, but in the beginning of the next _coëuntia_, and in the margin
opposite to this chasm are written these words, _Desunt in vetustissimo
exemplari duo folia_. _Two leaves are wanting in the oldest copy._ In
this also, where the indexes were prefixed to each book, he found the
following in the fourth--Vulva exulcerata est--De vesica--De calculis
in vesica--In omni dolore vesicæ. And in the margin of the book,
he found, _Vulva ulcerata est_, written opposite to _Si vero vulva
exulcerata est_. Then should have followed the two other--And the last,
namely, _In omni dolore vesicæ_, was set over against _Præter hæc in
omni dolore vesicæ_, and not _vulvae_, as Linden and Almeloveen read it.
In the MS. in the library of St Anthony at Venice, he found the
preceding chasm much larger, 42 large pages, the same observation
in the margin, and the correspondent numbers in the contents of the
book.--Morgagn. ep. ii. p. 45.--ep. iii. p. 50. So that it is probable
our author had first finished the diseases of the uterus, as being
peculiar to women, and then proceeded to those of the urinary bladder,
as common to both sexes.
33. _And especially rue with vinegar, &c._) Almeloveen and Linden
read, _praecipueque ex aceto; vitare autem oportet rutam, et ne supinus
dormiat_. This is making Celsus condemn what all physicians almost
have approved, and therefore with Constantine and Ronsseus, I read
_praecipueque ex aceto rutam: vitare etiam oportet ne supinus dormiat_:
which Morgagni prefers. Ep. i. p. 27.
34. _At such seasons as it returns._) I have here followed the
correction offered by Morgagni _his_ for _hi_ which last would
manifestly destroy our author’s meaning, as may appear from the general
sense of the whole sentence--Instead of the present translation it
would be, _by those upon whom it returns_.
35. _Sarcophagus_, or _flesh-eating_.) This is found at Assos, a city
of Troas. Dead bodies interred in it are said to be consumed in forty
days, bones and every thing, except the teeth. Plin. l. xxxvi. c. 17.
36. _Asian stone._) Dioscorides says this ought to be of the colour
of the pumice, spongy, light, and easily friable. Lib. v. c. 916.
37. _Acopon_, according to the derivation of the word, signifies
something that relieves lassitude, which was rubbed upon the
joints.--Our author exhibits some forms of them lib. v. cap. 24. where
their consistence varies.--P. Ægineta for _acopa_ orders four parts of
oil to one of wax, lib. vii. cap. 17.--In later ages the word was used
in a more extensive sense, for compositions of the consistence of oil,
or as a liniment even when the intention was not to relieve fatigue.
38. _Most agreeable to his humour._) That is, Celsus supposes a man
in good health, who is his own master, to be confined to no laws, lib.
i. cap. i. but upon account of a preceding illness he must return to
that gradually.
NOTES
TO