[62.] See note at chap. 24. book iv.
[63.] Sil.) Rhodius, together with Constantine and Ronsseus, are for reading seselis instead of silis, for sil is a species of ochre; and they take it for the seseli Creticum, or tordylium, hartwort of Candy.
[63a.] Between the fingers. Vel inter digitos.) Morgagni observes, that, instead of these words, his MS. and all his editions read In articulis which the reader, he says, cannot wonder at, if he considers what follows concerning the difficulty of curing wounds in the joints, p. 297. of the original. Ep. 6. p. 144.
[64.] Fibulæ.) The word fibula, in other classical authors is translated by a buckle; which from its connection in such places appears very proper. But upon comparing the several passages in our author, where the use of them is directed, it seems very difficult to give any account of them. The variety of opinions may very well be reduced to two, those of Guido de Cauliaco and Fallopius. The first believed them to be hooks, whose size was adapted to that of the wounded member, curved at both ends in the form of the letter S, that they might be fixed to both lips of the wound. According to Fallopius the fibula was nothing else but the interrupted suture now commonly used in wounds.
Fabricius was at first of opinion, that the fibula was not made of thread, but copper or iron, not hard, as Guido would have it, but softer and flexible, that it might be fixed through the lips of the wound and then twisted. But after mature consideration, he says he found Fallopius’s opinion to be most agreeable to truth.
Rhodius in his treatise de Acia, where his design is only to clear up the fibula and acia of Celsus, has been at immense pains to collect every thing extant in any of the ancients about their fibulæ; but as there is nothing which occurs in any of the old physicians more particular than in our author, it is not to be wondered, that every thing in his treatise of real importance to the scope of his enquiry, is contained in Fabric. ab Aquapendente, lib. ii. de Vulnerib. cap. 5. et de Chirurgic. Operation. cap. 108.
The principal places, in which our author mentions fibulæ, are lib. v. cap. 26. p. 292. in the original, p. 293.—Lib. 7. cap. 4. p. 412.—Cap. 19. p. 462. et 464.—Cap. 22. p. 469.—Cap. 25. p. 473.
The difficulty seems to rest here, that our author should use the term fibula, which in other classical authors is always taken for a buckle, or something of that kind made of metal, without distinguishing it from the ordinary fibula, as one should imagine he would have done, had he intended thread. Could it be a metal wire with a loop at one end, and the other first put through the wound, then passed into the loop, and twisted; which it would be easier to cut than pull out? This seems to obviate the strongest objection against its being of metal, drawn from the verb incido, which some moderns would have only applicable to thread.
Rhodius de Acia, cap. 6. will have the fibula used to the prepuce of boys (mentioned by our author lib. vii. cap. 25.) to be of metal; and according to Joann. Britannicus a small ring either of silver, gold, or copper.