[184] Among other virtues of vinegar, besides its supposed property of breaking rocks, Pliny mentions that if one holds some in the mouth, it will prevent one from feeling the heat in the baths.
[185] XXV, 6 and 21 and 50; XXVII, 2.
[186] XVI, 24; XXVI, 60.
[187] XXIII, 59.
[188] XXVIII, 7.
[189] In the opening chapters of Book XXX, unless otherwise indicated by specific citation.
[190] Aulus Gellius, X, 12, and Columella, VII, 5, dispute this (Bouché-Leclercq, L’Astrologie grecque, p. 519). Berthelot (Origines de l’alchimie, p. 145) believes in a Democritan school at the beginning of the Christian era which wrote the works of alchemy attributed to Democritus as well as the books of medical and magical recipes which are quoted in the Geoponica and the Natural History.
[191] XVI, 95.
[192] XXX, 2. ” ... quamquam animadverto summam litterarum claritatem gloriamque ex ea scientia antiquitus et paene semper petitam.”
[193] Examples are: XXV, 59, “Sed magi utique circa hanc insaniunt”; XXIX, 20, “magorum mendacia”; XXXVII, 60, “magorum inpudentiae vel manifestissimum ... exemplum”; XXXVII, 73, “dira mendacia magorum.”