NOTES TO BOOK I.
[1.] Their gods. Though Æsculapius lived so near to the time of the Trojan war, yet the Greeks knew very little about him. The superstition of those times gave him a place among the gods: and as he was adored under the character of the genius of physick, it came at last to be doubted whether he was ever a mortal. This blind devotion, however, produced one happy consequence: his priests were obliged, for their own interest, to make themselves masters of all the physic that was known in that country, that they might be qualified to give advice to the people, who applied to them. Their prescriptions passed for the suggestions of the god; their cures for miraculous. But both diseases and remedies were carefully recorded.——Strabo tells us, that from these registers in the temple of Æsculapius at Cos, Hippocrates formed his plan for a proper diet.——Strabon. Geograph. lib. 14. p. 657. Edit. Casaub.
[2.] Immortal gods.) That this was really the opinion of the ancients, may be seen by many passages in Homer’s poems, where he mentions Jupiter punishing wicked nations by diseases, as well as famine, wars, and other calamities.
[3.] Principles.) Some of the ancient philosophers maintained, that the human body, as well as the whole material system, was composed of four principles or elements, viz. fire, air, earth, and water.
[4.] Vessels, in the original, vena; which is used by our author as a general term for arteries and veins. In this place it is evident he means arteries; for mentioning the same opinion again, page 16, he says, At si sanguis in arterias transfusus; and he often speaks of the motion of the veins, where, it is plain, he intends the pulsation of the arteries. Arteria he uses to signify the wind-pipe, and likewise the sanguiferous arteries, as in chap. 1. of book 4. Circa guttur venae grandes, quae sphagitides nominantur; item arteriæ, quas carotidas vocant.
[5.] Distribution of the same.) The word in the original is digero, which, by the modern physicians, is generally applied to the digestion of the aliment in the stomach. But that is what our author never intends by it. Digero he uses in three different senses; 1st, for the distribution of the aliment from the stomach (after its concoction) to all the other parts of the body, which appears to be his meaning here: 2dly, for any evacuation made by the pores of the skin, as sudore digerit in the end of the ninth chapter of this book: 3dly, for discussing any collection of humour, so as to prevent its coming to suppuration; vel avertenda concurrens eo materia, vel digerenda, vel ad maturitatem perducenda est: si priora contigerunt, nihil praeterea necessarium est. Lib. vii. c. 2. ad fin. p. 408. Unless we restrain the meaning of this last passage to discussing by the skin, which would bring it under the second sense.
[6.] Asperity.) Ten of the most ancient editions mentioned by Morgagni[ ID ] read contactum; but as that seems to convey no convenient sense, others prefer contractum, which is found in one of the manuscripts, and suppose it to mean asperity, a sense which it is not found to bear elsewhere; and therefore, Constantine boldly enough substitutes confractum, which he thinks agreeable to this interpretation. The same reason may, perhaps, have led him to that alteration, as induced the others to explain contractum by asperity, that it might stand in opposition to smoothness. For my own part, though confractus is not found in any other classic, yet I have given this translation, because I can find no other sense of the place, as it now stands. If I durst offer my own conjecture, ἀπόζυμος γαστὴρI would rather chuse to read anfractum, which, I think, is applicable to the windings of some of the internal parts.
[7.] Lippitudo is used by Celsus, and the more ancient Latins in the same sense as the Greek term Ophthalmia.
[8.] Abdomen.) The word in the original is uterus, which our author generally uses for the cavity of the abdomen.