NOTES TO BOOK VIII.
[1.] Morgagni[ JR ], with Paaw, thinks it probable, that there is some chasm in the text, because Celsus does not describe the coronal suture, which he could not be ignorant of.
[2.] Over these muscles too, &c. Super bos quoque musculos, qui tempora contegunt, os medium, in exteriorem partem inclinatam, positum est.) Thus Linden and Almeloveen. All the other copies have, sub his musculis, qui tempora connectunt; in the following words they differ, which Ronsseus would read thus, os medium in interiorem partem inclinatam; in this he was followed by Paaw, who was of opinion, that Celsus intended here the processus petrosus; which Morgagni thinks quite foreign to the question. It is probable, says the same author, that Linden changed sub his musculis into super hos musculos, to make the description answer to the processus zygomaticus, which our author describes a little after, under the name of jugale. His own conjecture is, that Celsus wrote sub his musculis, qui tempora continent, and that he meant that part of the temporal bone which is covered by the crotaphite muscle. Morgag. Ep. 7. p. 212. 214. But as this description of a bone is inserted in the midst of the sutures, there is some foundation to suspect the whole to be an interpolation.
[3.] The maxilla is a soft bone. Maxilla vero est molle os.) Thus all the editions read, but Morgagni[ JS ] suspects molle should be mobile, a moveable bone; for Celsus himself calls the sternum a strong and hard bone, which is not to be compared in that respect with the maxilla.—It is no objection to this reading, that the author adds, solaque ea movetur, for that is to exclude the upper jaw-bone. The reader will please to observe, that maxilla, by our author, is applied only to the lower jaw-bone, for he includes the upper jaw-bones under the malæ.
[4.] Is broader below.) I have here followed the proposed emendation of Morgagni, infra for intra. Ep. 1. p. 40.
[5.] And all the vertebræ.) What follows relating to the structure and connection of the vertebræ, appears to be very much corrupted, in so much, that the reading in all the copies makes our author contradict himself. I shall be content with mentioning some observations of Morgagni’s upon the reading of Linden. The words in the parenthesis (says he) exceptis tribus summis, except the three uppermost, were surely never wrote by Celsus, at least not as they stand; for if the three first vertebræ want depressions in their superior surfaces, how comes the first to receive into its depressions the two small processes of the head, as our author immediately adds?
The adding of parvis to tuberibus he judges to be superfluous, because Celsus had said just before exiguis ejus processibus. He conjectures that secunda superioris parti inferiori inseritur is interpolated, because the connection is more natural without these words. A little after follows tertia eodem modo secundam excipit, as if a process stood out from the inferior part of the second vertebra, to be surrounded by the third in the same manner, that its processus dentatus is surrounded by the first; so that all these five words he seems with justice inclined to expunge.
After these Linden adds, Jamque vertebra tertia tubercula, quæ inferiori inserantur, excipit; which at first view must appear highly absurd. I therefore have followed, in the translation, the reading of Nicolaus, Pachel, Pinzi, Stephens, and Morgagni’s manuscript, exigit for excipit.—See Morgagni Ep. vii. from 173 to 177.