Roman Authors Quoted.—M. Varro,[2898] Nigidius,[2899] M. Cicero,[2900] Sextius Niger[2901] who wrote in Greek, Licinius Macer.[2902]
Foreign Authors Quoted.—Eudoxus,[2903] Aristotle,[2904] Hermippus,[2905] Homer, Apion,[2906] Orpheus,[2907] Democritus,[2908] Anaxilaüs.[2909]
Medical Authors Quoted.—Botrys,[2910] Horus,[2911] Apollodorus,[2912] Menander,[2913] Archidemus,[2914] Aristogenes,[2915] Xenocrates,[2916] Diodorus,[2917] Chrysippus,[2918] Nicander,[2919] Apollonius[2920] of Pitanæ.
BOOK XXXI.
REMEDIES DERIVED FROM THE AQUATIC PRODUCTIONS.
CHAP. 1. (1.)—REMARKABLE FACTS CONNECTED WITH WATER.
We have now to speak of the benefits derived, in a medicinal point of view, from the aquatic productions; for not here even has all-bounteous Nature reposed from her work. Amid waves and billows, and tides of rivers for ever on the ebb and flow, she still unceasingly exerts her powers; and nowhere, if we must confess the truth, does she display herself in greater might, for it is this among the elements that holds sway over all the rest. It is water that swallows up dry land, that extinguishes flame, that ascends aloft, and challenges possession of the very heavens: it is water that, spreading clouds as it does, far and wide, intercepts the vital air we breathe; and, through their collision, gives rise to thunders and lightnings,[2921] as the elements of the universe meet in conflict.
What can there be more marvellous than waters suspended aloft in the heavens? And yet, as though it were not enough to reach so high an elevation as this, they sweep along with them whole shoals of fishes, and often stones as well, thus lading themselves with ponderous masses which belong to other elements, and bearing them on high. Falling upon the earth, these waters become the prime cause of all that is there produced; a truly wondrous provision of Nature, if we only consider, that in order to give birth to grain and life to trees and to shrubs, water must first leave the earth for the heavens, and thence bring down to vegetation the breath of life! The admission must be surely extorted from us, that for all our resources the earth is indebted to the bounteousness of water. It will be only proper, therefore, in the first place to set forth some instances of the powerful properties displayed by this element; for as to the whole of them, what living mortal could describe them?
CHAP. 2. (2.)—THE DIFFERENT PROPERTIES OF WATERS.
On all sides, and in a thousand countries, there are waters bounteously springing forth from the earth, some of them cold, some hot, and some possessed of these properties united: those in the territory of the Tarbelli,[2922] for instance, a people of Aquitania, and those among the Pyrenæan[2923] Mountains, where hot and cold springs are separated by only the very smallest distance. Then, again, there are others that are tepid only, or lukewarm, announcing thereby the resources they afford for the treatment of diseases, and bursting forth, for the benefit of man alone, out of so many animated beings.[2924]