[838] Ajasson remarks, that trees have two barks, an outer, and an inner and thinner one; but seems to think that by the word “gemino” here, Pliny only means that the bark of trees is sometimes double its ordinary thickness.
[839] It seems to have been the custom among the ancients to place the newborn child upon the ground immediately after its birth.
[840] Pliny appears to have followed Lucretius in this gloomy view of the commencement of human existence. See B. v. l. 223, et seq.
[841] This term of forty days is mentioned by Aristotle, in his Natural History, as also by some modern physiologists.—B.
[842] We may hence conclude, that the practice of swathing young infants in tight bandages prevailed at Rome, in the time of Pliny, as it still does in France, and many parts of the continent; although it has, for some years, been generally discontinued in this country. Buffon warmly condemned this injurious system, eighty years ago, but without effect.—B.
[843] “Feliciter natus;” this appears so inconsistent with what is stated in the text, that it has been proposed to alter it into infeliciter, although against the authority of all the MSS.; but it may be supposed, that Pliny, as is not unusual with him, employs the term ironically.—B.
[844] This reminds us of the terms of the riddle proposed to Œdipus by the Sphinx: “What being is that, which, with four feet, has two feet and three feet, and only one voice; but its feet vary, and where it has most it is weakest?” to which he answered, That it is man, who is a quadruped (going on feet and hands) in childhood, two-footed in manhood, and moving with the aid of a staff in old age.
[845] He alludes to the gradual induration of the bones of the head which takes place in the young of the human species, and imparts strength to it. Aristotle, in his Hist. Anim., states the general opinion of the ancients, that this takes place with the young of no other class of animated beings.
[846] There is little doubt that new forms and features of disease are continually making their appearance among mankind, and even the same peoples, and have been from the earliest period; it was so at Rome, in the days of the Republic and of the Emperors. It is not improbable that these new forms of disease depend greatly upon changes in the temperature and diet. The plagues of 1348, 1666, and the Asiatic cholera of the present day, are not improbably various features of what may be radically the same disease. At the first period the beverage of the English was beer, or rather sweet-wort, as the hop does not appear to have been used till a later period. At the present day, tea and coffee, supported by ardent spirits, form the almost universal beverage.
[847] Pliny forgets, however, that infants do not require to be taught how to suck.