INTRODUCTION

Latine · Mayhoff 1906

Dictae erant naturae omnium rerum inter caelum ac terram nascentium, restabantque quae ex ipsa tellure fodiuntur, si non herbarum ac fruticum tractata remedia auferrent traversos ex ipsis animalibus, quae sanantur, reperta maiore medicina. quid ergo? dixerimus herbas et florum imagines ac pleraque inventu rara ac difficilia, iidem tacebimus, quid in ipso homine prosit homini, ceteraque genera remediorum inter nos viventia, cum praesertim nisi carenti doloribus morbisque vita ipsa poena fiat? minime vero, omnemque insumemus operam, licet fastidii periculum urgeat, quando ita decretum est, minorem gratiae quam utilitatium vitae respectum habere. quin immo externa quoque et barbaros etiam ritus indagabimus. fides tantum auctores appellet, quamquam et ipsi consensu prope iudicii ista eligere laboravimus potiusque curae rerum quam copiae institimus. illud admonuisse perquam necessarium est dictas iam a nobis naturas animalium et quae cuiusque essent inventa—neque enim minus profuere medicinas reperiendo quam prosunt praebendo—, nune quae in ipsis auxilientur indicari, neque illic in totum omissa; itaque haec esse quidem alia, illis tamen conexa.

Incipiemus autem ab homine ipsum sibi exquirente, inmensa statim difficultate obvia. sanguinem quoque gladiatorum bibunt, ut viventibus poculis, comitiales [morbi], quod spectare facientes in eadem harena feras quoque horror est. at, Hercule, illi ex homine ipso sorbere efficacissimum putant calidum spirantemque et vivam ipsam anrimam ex osculo vulnerum, cum plagis omnino ne ferarum quidem admoveri ora mos sit humanus. alii medullas crurum quaerunt et cerebrum infantium. nec pauci apud Graecos singulorum viscerum membrorumque etiam sapores dixere, omnia persecuti ad resigmina unguium, quasi vero sanitas videri possit feram ex homine fieri morboque dignum in ipsa medicina, egregia, Hercules, frustratione, si non prosit. aspici humana exta nefas habetur: quid mandi? quis ista invenit, Osthane? tecum enim res erit, eversor iuris humani monstrorumque artifex, qui primus ea condidisti, credo, ne tui vita oblivisceretur. quis invenit singula membra humana mandere? qua coniectura inductus? quam potest medicina ista originem habuisse? quis veneficia innocentiora fecit quam remedia? esto, barbari externique ritus invenerant: etiamne Graeci suas fecere has artes? extant commentationes Democriti ad aliud noxii 5 hominis ex capite ossa plus prodesse, ad alia amici et hospitis. iam vero vi interempti dente gingivas in dolore scariphari Apollonius efficacissimum scripsit, Meletos oculorum suffusiones felle hominis sanari, Artemon calvaria interfecti neque cremati propinavit aquam e fonte noctu comitialibus morbis. ex eadem suspendio interempti catapotia fecit contra canis rabiosi morsus Antaeus. atque etiam quadrupedes homine sanavere, contra inflationes bou perforatis cornibus inserentes ossa humana, ubi homo occisus esset aut crematus, siliginem, quae pernoctasset, suum morbis dando. procul a nobis nostrisque litteris absint ista. nos auxilia dicemus, non piacula, sicubi lactis puerperarum usus mederi poterit, sicubi saliva tactusve corporis, ceteraque similia. vitam quidem non adeo expetendam censemus, ut quoquo modo trahenda sit. quisquis es, talis aeque moriere, tamquam obscaenus vixeris aut nefandus. quapropter hoc primum quisque in remediis animi sui habeat, ex omnibus bonis, quae homini tribuit natura, nullum melius esse tempestiva morte, idque in ea optimum, quod illam sibi quisque praestare possit.

English · Bostock & Riley 1855–57

We should have now concluded our description of the various things that are produced between the heavens and the earth, and it would have only remained for us to speak of the substances that are dug out of the ground itself; did not our exposition of the remedies derived from plants and shrubs necessarily lead us into a digression upon the medicinal properties which have been discovered, to a still greater extent, in those living creatures themselves which are thus indebted [to other objects] for the cure of their respective maladies. For ought we, after describing the plants, the forms of the various flowers, and so many objects rare and difficult to be found—ought we to pass in silence the resources which exist in man himself for the benefit of man, and the other remedies to be derived from the creatures that live among us—and this more particularly, seeing that life itself is nothing short of a punishment, unless it is exempt from pains and maladies? Assuredly not; and even though I may incur the risk of being tedious, I shall exert all my energies on the subject, it being my fixed determination to pay less regard to what may be amusing, than to what may prove practically useful to mankind.

Nay, even more than this, my researches will extend to the usages of foreign countries, and to the customs of barbarous nations, subjects upon which I shall have to appeal to the good faith of other authors; though at the same time I have made it my object to select no facts but such as are established by pretty nearly uniform testimony, and to pay more attention to scrupulous exactness than to copiousness of diction.

It is highly necessary, however, to advertise the reader, that whereas I have already described the natures of the various animals, and the discoveries due to them respectively—for, in fact, they have been no less serviceable in former times in discovering remedies, than they are at the present day in providing us with them—it is my present intention to confine myself to the remedial properties which are found in the animal world, a subject which has not been altogether lost sight of in the former portion of this work. These additional details therefore, though of a different nature, must still be read in connexion with those which precede.

We will begin then with man, and our first enquires will be into the resources which he provides for himself—a subject replete with boundless difficulties at the very outset.

Epileptic patients are in the habit of drinking the blood even of gladiators, draughts teeming with life, as it were; a thing that, when we see it done by the wild beasts even, upon the same arena, inspires us with horror at the spectacle! And yet these persons, forsooth, consider it a most effectual cure for their disease, to quaff the warm, breathing, blood from man himself, and, as they apply their mouth to the wound, to draw forth his very life; and this, though it is regarded as an act of impiety to apply the human lips to the wound even of a wild beast! Others there are, again, who make the marrow of the leg-bones, and the brains of infants, the objects of their research!

Among the Greek writers, too, there are not a few who have enlarged upon the distinctive flavours of each one of the viscera and members of the human body, pursuing their researches to the very parings of the nails! as though, forsooth, it could possibly be accounted the pursuit of health for man to make himself a wild beast, and so deserve to contract disease from the very remedies he adopts for avoiding it. Most righteously, by Hercules! if such attempts are all in vain, is he disappointed of his cure! To examine human entrails is deemed an act of impiety; what then must it be to devour them?

Say, Osthanes, who was it that first devised these practices; for it is thee that I accuse, thou uprooter of all human laws, thou inventor of these monstrosities; devised, no doubt with the view that mankind might not forget thy name! Who was it that first thought of devouring each member of the human body? By what conjectural motives was he induced? What can possibly have been the origin of such a system of medicine as this? Who was it that thus made the very poisons less baneful than the antidotes prescribed for them? Granted that barbarous and outlandish tribes first devised such practices, must the men of Greece, too, adopt these as arts of their own?

We read, for instance, in the memoirs of Democritus, still extant, that for some diseases, the skull of a malefactor is most efficacious, while for the treatment of others, that of one who has been a friend or guest is required. Apollonius, again, informs us in his writings, that the most effectual remedy for tooth-ache is to scarify the gums with the tooth of a man who has died a violent death; and, according to Miletus, human gall is a cure for cataract. For epilepsy, Artemon has prescribed water drawn from a spring in the night, and drunk from the skull of a man who has been slain, and whose body remains unburnt. From the skull, too, of a man who had been hanged, Antæus made pills that were to be an antidote to the bite of a mad dog. Even more than this, man has resorted to similar remedies for the cure of four-footed beasts even—for tympanitis in oxen, for instance, the horns have been perforated, and human bones inserted; and when swine have been found to be diseased, fine wheat has been given them which has lain for a night in the spot where a human being has been slain or burnt!

Far from us, far too from our writings, be such prescriptions as these! It will be for us to describe remedies only, and not abominations; cases, for instance, in which the milk of a nursing woman may have a curative effect, cases where the human spittle may be useful, or the contact of the human body, and other instances of a similar nature. We do not look upon life as so essentially desirable that it must be prolonged at any cost, be it what it may—and you, who are of that opinion, be assured, whoever you may be, that you will die none the less, even though you shall have lived in the midst of obscenities or abominations!

Let each then reckon this as one great solace to his mind, that of all the blessings which Nature has bestowed on man, there is none greater than the death which comes at a seasonable hour; and that the very best feature in connexion with it is, that every person has it in his own power to procure it for himself.