[2082] See end of B. xx.
[2083] See end of B. xx.
[2084] See end of B. xx.
[2085] The trees and plants.
[2086] On the contrary, this and the four following Books are full of the most extravagant assertions, which bear ample testimony to his credulity notwithstanding the author’s repeated declarations that he does not believe in Magic. As Ajasson says, he evidently does not know what he ought to have inserted in his work, and what to reject as utterly unworthy of belief. His faults, however, were not so much his own as those of his age. Want of space, equally with want of inclination, compels us to forego the task of entering into an examination of the system of Animal Therapeutics upon which so much labour has been wasted by our author.
[2087] See B. viii. c. 97, et seq., and B. xxv. c. 89, et seq.
[2088] See B. xxviii. c. 3.
[2089] This practice is mentioned with reprobation by Celsus and Tertullian. It was continued, however, in some degree through the middle ages, and Louis XV. was accused by his people of taking baths of infants’ blood to repair his premature decrepitude.
[2090] In recent times, Guettard, a French practitioner, recommended human marrow as an emollient liniment.
[2091] Hence, as Ajasson remarks, the ignorance of anatomy displayed by the ancients.