[29.] Fever.) Our author here means, either an acute continued fever, or the paroxysm of an intermitting one; as will appear by the following paragraph.
[30.] Bottles filled with hot oil, Utriculi.) Their bottles were made of leather. The nearest to this kind of practice among the moderns are the tin cases made in different shapes, and adapted to the abdomen, breast, or joints, filled with hot water.
[31.] Lentils.
[32.] The Cetus.) Cetus is generally translated whale in English; but it cannot be understood of what we call a whale, but is a general name for all the larger fishes that are viviparous.
[33.] Particular kind of bread, Opus pistorium.) The English reader will perceive, by the ingredients mentioned, that there is no such bread in modern use, and consequently no proper name for it. Pliny mentions the same composition. lib. xviii. cap. 11.
[34.] Phœnicopter.) This signifies a bird with purple wings; its tongue was of a delicious taste. Plin. lib. x. cap. 48.
[35.] Snails.) Cochlea, without distinction, is used to signify a snail and periwinkle, which last is only the marine snail. The Romans were at prodigious expence and trouble, to feed their snails to an almost incredible size.
[36.] Conchylia, according to Pliny, in different places, a delicate shell-fish, the greatest plenty of which came from the river Indus, of the same nature and properties with the purple fish.
[37.] Siligo was a kind of wheat, very delicious to the taste, extremely white, growing best in moist ground. Plin. lib. xviii. cap. 8.—The same author says it never grows so ripe as the other kinds; for when it is suffered to stand too long, it drops its grains, Id. ibid. cap. 10. Columella says that all wheat in a watery soil, after the third sowing, turns into siligo. Lib. ii. cap. 9.
[38.] Than the mealy, Fragilia.) Which translation appears to be just, from its opposition to succosa.