Conrad Gessner

Historiae animalium liber III qui est de Avium natura - 1555

De Capo - De Gallina

transcribed by Fernando Civardi - translated by Elio Corti

414

 


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¶ Vir nobilis quidam [414] in colico affectu post multa remedia frustra tentata, liberatus est tandem epoto cyatho (duarum aut trium unciarum) pinguedinis capi pinguis decocti in aqua (ut fieri solet ad cibum) absque sale. oportet autem pinguedinem iuri innatantem separatam bibere quam calidissimam, Ex libro manuscripto. Ei qui patitur varices, sevi hircini selibram, et adipis de capone libram simul permisce, et in linteo die Iovis cerati more adpone. potenter subvenies, Marcellus. Ad fistulam cum emortua est, (hoc est, ut mihi videtur, cum nullus in ea doloris sensus superest,) pelliculam interiorem de ventriculo capi quae abiici solet[1], in Sole arefactam tere et insperge, Obscurus. ¶ Sunt qui ossa crurum capi compositis ad alba mulierum profluvia medicamentis admisceant.

¶ An intestinal colicky noble man, after uselessly several remedies had been tried, was finally freed after he drunk a cup (of two or three ounces - around 50-75 g) of fat of an obese capon cooked in water (as we usually do to prepare a food) and without salt. Nevertheless it is necessary that the fat floating on the broth is separately drunk and as warmest as possible, from a manuscript book. For a person suffering from varicose veins mix half a pound [163.72 g] of fat of he-goat with a pound [327.45 g] of fat of capon and, after has been put in a flax cloth, apply it by way of plaster on Thursday. You will help him enormously, Marcellus Empiricus. For a fistula, when it entered in a silent phase (that is, in my opinion, when feeling of pain is no longer present), mince and sprinkle the inner membrane of the stomach of the capon dried in the sun, which is usually thrown away, an unknown author. ¶ Some people are mixing the bones of the legs into composite medicaments against the leucorrhoea of women. 

De gallina, item de Ovis tum
Gallinaceis, tum in genere in C. E. F. G. et H.c.  et c.
Errore factum est per festinationem, ut superius gallinacei iconis loco gallinae posita sit:
cuius occasione hic contra gallinaceum pro gallina ponimus.

The Hen as well as the Eggs
both of hens and in general in the paragraphs C, E, F, G and Hc and c.
Thanks to the hurry it happened that previously by mistake in place of the image of the rooster
has been placed that of the hen: conversely, for such a reason, we put here the rooster instead of the hen
.

A.

A

Gallinae proprie dicuntur foeminae in gallinaceo genere villatico, sed interdum pro genere toto nominantur, ut ὄρνιθες etiam vel ὄρνις, id est aves, apud Graecos. Vide in Gallinaceo A. Domesticae vel vernaculae gallinae sunt, quas Varro[2] villaticas nuncupat, Gyb. Longolius[3]. Plinius villares[4]. Cohortalis est avis quae vulgo per omnes fere villas conspicitur, Columella[5]. ¶ Hebraica nomina et תרנגולת, tarnegolet, et סכויא sakuia, pro gallina, ponuntur a Munstero in Dictionario trilingui. Vide supra in Gallinaceo. Gigeg, gallina vel gallus, Sylvaticus. Alibi apud eundem legitur digegi, ut apud Serapionis interpretem digedi. Tefese, gallina [415] Saracenis, ut alicubi legimus.

Among the courtyard's gallinaceous genus the females are properly said hens, but sometimes we say in this way for the whole genus, as it also happens among Greeks for órnithes or for órnis, that is, birds. See in the paragraph A of the rooster. Those whom Varro calls of courtyard, are the domestic or breeding hens, Gisbert Longolius. Pliny calls them villares, of farm. The courtyard's hen is that usually seen in almost all farms, Columella. By Sebastian Münster in his trilingual dictionary for the hen are reported the Hebrew terms tarnegolet and sakuia. See before about the rooster. Gigeg is the hen or the rooster, Matteo Silvatico. Still in his treatise, elsewhere, digegi is read, as in the translation of Serapion - by Gerard of Cremona? by Andreas Alpago? - digedi is read. For Saracens tefese is the hen, as I have read anywhere.


414


[1] Si tratta della membrana di coilina.

[2] Rerum rusticarum III,9,4: Qui spectat ut ornithoboscion perfectum habeat, scilicet genera ei tria paranda, maxime villaticas gallinas. E quis in parando eligat oportet fecundas, plerumque rubicunda pluma, nigris pinnis, imparibus digitis, magnis capitibus, crista erecta, amplas; hae enim ad partiones sunt aptiores.

[3] Dialogus de avibus (1544) pag. 17: longolius. Si Athenaeo credimus, aves sunt transatione(?), at passim omnibus in locis nunc vernaculae sunt, commodeque mihi istius verbi memoriam restituisti(?). Sic enim dicuntur et domesticae istae gallinae, quas Varro quoque villaticas nuncupat. – Il testo č molto alterato e dobbiamo dire grazie a Fernando Civardi per essere riuscito a decifrarlo, spesso con molti punti interrogativi.

[4] Naturalis historia XXIII,28: In frutectis et harundinetis maxume nascitur. radix foris nigra, intus buxeo colore. Ossa infracta vel efficacius extrahit quam supra dicta, cetera eadem. Peculiare quod iumentorum cervicibus unice medetur. aiunt, si quis villam ea cinxerit, fugere accipitres tutasque fieri villares alites.

[5] De re rustica VIII,2,2: De cohortalibus gallinis Cohortalis est avis quae vulgo per omnes fere villas conspicitur, rustica, quae non dissimilis villaticae per aucupem decipitur - eaque plurima est in insula quam navitae Ligustico mari sitam producto nomine alitis Gallinariam vocitaverunt.