[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.