[364] Causae et curae (1903), p. 27.
[365] Ibid., p. 28.
[366] Vitruvius held that rain-water was unusually wholesome, but Pliny disputed this notion.
[367] Causae et curae (1903), p. 30, “si quis eam bibit, ulcera et scabies in eo saepissime crescunt ac viscera eius livore implentur.” Pliny noted the belief that ice-water and snow-water were unhealthy, and both he (XXXVII, 11) and Vitruvius speak of Alpine streams which cause diseases or swellings in the throat.
[368] Causae et curae (1903), pp. 24-25.
[369] Causae et curae (1903), p. 26.
[370] Both Vitruvius and Pliny mention the practice, and the latter calls it an invention of the emperor Nero. A note, however, in Bostock and Riley’s translation of the Natural History states that Galen ascribed the practice to Hippocrates and that Aristotle was undoubtedly acquainted with it. When Pliny goes on to say, “Indeed, it is generally admitted that all water is more wholesome when it has been boiled,” another translator’s note adds, “This is not at all the opinion at the present day,” that is, 1856. But apparently the progress of medical and biological science since 1856 has been in this respect a retrogression to Pliny’s view.
[371] Causae et curae (1903), p. 1. Somewhat similarly Moses Maimonides, the Jewish philosopher, who was born thirty-seven years after Hildegard, held that evil was mere privation and that the personal devil of scripture was an allegorical representation thereof. He also denied the existence of demons, but considered belief in angels as second only in importance to a belief in God. See Finkelscherer (1894) pp. 40-51; Mischna Commentary to Aboda-zara, IV, 7; Lévy (1911) 89-90.
[372] Causae et curae (1903), p. 11.
[373] Ibid., p. 5.