Conrad Gessner

Historiae animalium liber III qui est de Avium natura - 1555

De Gallina

transcribed by Fernando Civardi - translated by Elio Corti

443

 


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Amylon datur cum ovo his qui sanguinem reiecerint: in vesicae vero dolore, semuncia amyli cum ovo et passi tribus ovis (ea nimirum passi mensura, quantam tres ovorum testae caperent) suffervefacta{,} a balineo, Plin[1]. Ad vomitum nimium reprimendum sulphuris vivi pusillum, et ramenti de cornu cervi tantumdem, in ovo sorbili tritum et permixtum bibi utile est, Marcellus. Sulfur cum ovo sorptum expurgat in icteris, ut legitur in libello de cura icteri qui Galeno tribuitur. {Tussem} <Tussim> quamvis gravem maiorum natu intra quinque dies, parvulorum etiam intra triduum sanat, qui sulphuris triti quantum tribus digitis capere potest, in ovo semicocto sorbili per triduum ieiuno, aut per quinque dies dederit, Marcellus. In ovo sorbili cimicem unum contritum ieiunus ignorans qui sorbuerit, desinet vomere, hoc saepe expertum est, Idem. Medici liquida resina raro utuntur, et in ovo fere e larice, propter tussim ulceraque viscerum, Plinius[2]. Eadem ratione sunt qui etiam catapotia ex ovo sorbili deglutiant, quod ita facile commodeque devorentur: sed hic ovum aliud nihil confert, ad tussim vero ulceraque viscerum ipsum quoque per se nonnihil iuvat.

Starch with an egg is given those people who vomited blood: but in bladder's pain one-half ounce [13.64 g] of starch with an egg and three eggs of raisin wine (obviously that quantity of raisin wine that three eggshells were able to contain) almost boiled in bain-marie, Pliny. To repress an excessive vomit it comes useful to drink a little bit of pure sulphur and the same amount of splintered horn of deer minced in a fresh egg, Marcellus Empiricus. The sulphur drunk with an egg makes to recover during jaundice, as it can be read in a little treatise about the care of the jaundice attributed to Galen. Will heal also a serious cough in the turn of five days in adults, in the turn of three days in children, he who will have administered consecutively for three or five days at empty stomach in an egg à la coque a quantity of powdered sulphur corresponding to that amount that can be taken with three fingers, Marcellus Empiricus. He who unaware will drink on empty stomach a bug minced in an egg à la coque, will stop vomiting, and this has often been experimented, still Marcellus. The physicians rarely use liquid resin, and generally of that of larch put in the egg, for cough and ulcerations of bowels, Pliny. Of the same opinion are those people swallowing also pills with an egg to be sipped, since in this way they are easily taken and without uneasiness: but at this point the egg is useful to nothing else, in fact also alone it is rather useful in case of cough and ulcers in inner organs.

¶ Pars IIII. Remedia ex ovis crudis integris (id est cum albumine et vitello) absorptis, primum per se extra et intra corpus: deinde aliis admixtis. Ovum crudum utiliter mox imponitur ambustis, sive albumen tantum imponas lana molli exceptum, sive totum una cum vitello agitatum[3], (ἀναδεύσας:) refrigerat enim moderate et sine morsu siccat, Galenus. Ad ignem sacrum[4]: Ovo crudo linies corpus ubi fervor fuerit, et desuper folium betae impones: miraberis sanitatem, Sextus. Ad epiphoras oculorum sedandas: Limaces complures tere in mortario novo et nitido, et adijce ibi ovum gallinaceum incoctum, et tinge illic lanam succidam, et fronti impone, Marcellus. Saepe boum languor et nausea discutitur, si integrum gallinaceum crudum ovum ieiunis faucibus inferas, ac postero die spicas Ulpici[5] vel allii cum vino conteras, et in naribus infundas, Columella[6]. Ovum si sorbeatur crudum, prodest contra sanguinis fluxum, eiusdemque mictum, Avicen. Alexander Trallianus ova cruda in renum inflammatione sorberi consulit. Ovum crudum si sorbeatur, sistit fluxum muliebrem, et reiectionem sanguinis superiorem, et arteriam attenuat, et clarificat. Facit etiam ad inflammationem ani, et rupturas, et ad omnem dolorem perfecte, Kiranides.

Section 4 - Remedies gotten from raw eggs taken whole (that is, with egg white and yolk), at first alone externally and internally: then mixed with other ingredients. The raw egg is effectively and immediately applied on burns, either you only apply the egg white placed on a cloth of soft wool,  or the whole beaten egg (anadeúsas) together with the yolk: in fact it refreshes enough and dry without giving burning, Galen. Against the holy fire – Persian fire, carbuncle, erysipelas, herpes zoster: you will have to sprinkle with raw egg that part of the body where is some burning, and you will put over a leaf of beet: you will be marvelled of the recovery, Sextus Placitus Papiriensis. In order to abolish the draining of liquids from eyes: crush in a new and shining mortar a lot of snails and add a raw egg of hen, dip dampened wool and apply it on the forehead, Marcellus Empiricus. Often the tiredness and the inappetence of cattle is removed if on empty stomach you introduce in mouth a raw egg of hen, and the following day you mince some cloves of great-headed garlic or of garlic with wine and introduce them in the nostrils, Columella. The egg if drunk raw is effective against menorrhagia and haematuria, Avicenna. Alexander of Tralles  prescribes to drink raw eggs in case of kidney's inflammations. If a raw egg is drunk, it stops the menstruations as well as the haemoptysis - to spit blood, and mitigates the tracheal irritations, and clears the voice. It is also effective against the inflammation of the anus and its lacerations, and perfectly acts against whatever pain, Kiranides.

Ovum crudum sitim prohibet, et raucedinem emendat, ut in nothis Galeno attributis legimus. Raucus si ova incocta recentia singula per triduum ieiunus hauserit, statim remediabitur, Marcellus. Caeterum toto ovo crudo utimur, admixto rosaceo, ad inflammationes circa palpebras, aures et mamillas, quae ex ictu istarum partium vel aliter oboriuntur: item circa corpora nervosa, ut cubitum, tendines digitorum, vel articulos in manibus pedibusque, Galenus. Andromachus apud Galenum in opere de compos. med. sec. locos, ova cruda integra duo immiscet medicamento cuidam composito ad sedem. Ova cruda cum passo oleique pari modo tussientibus dantur, Plin.[7] Si quis purulentum tussit, (Ad puris et sanguinis excreationem, Plinius[8]) ovum crudum cum pari mensura succi de porro sectivo expressi, tantundemque optimi mellis (Graeci, Plin.) permixtum, calefactum ieiunus sorbeat, Marcellus. Ad phthisicos: Ova cruda duo in calicem verguntur, eo adijciuntur olei optimi, gari floris, passi Cretici, singulorum unciae quinque. cumque haec in calicem conieceris, axungiae vetustissimae tantundem in vase igne dissolves, eundemque liquorem calidum caeteris rebus adijcies: omniaque pariter super aquam ferventem remittes, et calida phthisicis bibenda praebebis, Marcellus.

The raw egg removes the thirst and takes away the hoarseness, as I have read in the spurious works attributed to Galen. One having hoarseness if on empty stomach will drink for three days a fresh raw egg, immediately will recover, Marcellus Empiricus. Moreover we use the whole raw egg, mixing oil of roses, against the inflammations of eyelids, ears and mammae taking origin from a trauma of these regions or from anything else: likewise for the sensitive areas as elbow, tendons of fingers or small articulations of hands and feet, Galen. Andromachus in Galen, in the treatise De compositione medicamentorum secundum locos, mixes two whole raw eggs with a compound medicine against the diseases of the buttocks. To those people having cough are given raw eggs with raisin wine and the same quantity of oil, Pliny. If someone has a cough with purulent expectoration (Against a purulent and haemorrhagic expectoration, Pliny), he has to drink on empty stomach a warmed raw egg and mixed with an identical quantity of juice gotten by squeezing some kitchen's leek and mixed with the same quantity of good honey (Pliny says Greek), Marcellus Empiricus. For consumptive patients: Two raw eggs are poured in a cup, are added five ounces each of good oil, of best sauce of fish, of Crete's* raisin wine. And after you put these things in a cup, you will melt with the fire in a vase the same quantity of very old fat, and you will add this warm liquid to the other things: and similarly you will put all of them above boiling water and give them warm to drink to consumptive patients, Marcellus.

Ova in aceto macerata ut emolliatur putamen, cum farina in pane subigunt: quibus coeliaci recreantur. quidam ita resoluta (aceto mollita) in patinis torreri utilius putant. quo genere non alvos tantum, sed et menses foeminarum sistunt: aut si maior sit impetus, cruda (praemollita aceto) cum farina ex aqua hauriuntur, Plinius[9]. Ova ex aceto decocta ardores urinae, renum ulcera ac vesicae mirifice tollunt: et multo magis, si nuper nata et cruda excusso albamento deglutieris, Platina. vide etiam in Vitelli remediis infra. Ova cruda dysentericorum qui ardorem sentiunt clysteribus adduntur, cum vino modico ac largo rosaceo conquassata, Aetius. Qui praecordiorum ardore vexantur, si etiam febres et lumbricos habeant, hoc remedio sanabuntur: Ovum crudum summiter apertum exinanies, idque implebis oleo viridi, et defundes: et lotio virginis pueri implebis, et defundes: tum adijcies parum mellis, et in unum cum ovi ipsius interioribus permiscebis, et potandum ieiuno dabis. hoc et stercus vetustissimum et lumbricos noxios pellit, et febrem acutissimam relevat, Marcellus. Ad secundas mulieris morantes: Sapae cyathos duos, ovum crudum unum, et aquae calidae quod satis est, simul mixta bibenda praebeto. Et si sequitur quidem, confestim ipsam subvertet, eaque vomente statim {secunda eijcietur} <secundae eijcientur>. Si vero non excideri<n>t, {foenungraecum} <foenumgraecum> cum aqua coquito ad tertias. praebe bibendum. est enim probatum, Nic. Myrepsus.

They work the eggs soaked in vinegar, so that the shell softens, with flour in order to bake bread: those suffering from intestinal pains are relieved by them. Some think as more profitable that they are toasted in frying pan after having so softened them (softened in vinegar). Prepared in this way they not only stop the diarrhoea, but also the menstruations: or if the flow is rather intense, they are swallowed raw (at first softened in vinegar) with flour and water, Pliny. The eggs cooked in vinegar make to regress in a marvellous way the strangury, the renal and vesical ulcerations, and they do this very more if you swallow them just laid and raw after the egg white has been removed, Platina. See also more ahead among the remedies gotten from the yolk. The raw eggs are added to the clysters for dysenteric people complaining burnings, beaten with little wine and a good quantity of oil of roses, Aetius of Amida. Those people suffering from burning of breast, even if having fever and being infested by worms, will be recovered by this remedy: You will empty a raw egg open at the top and you will fill it with green oil and you will pour out it: and you will fill it with urine of a virgin boy and you will pour out it: then you will put a small quantity of honey and you will mix up to make it to become an organic whole with the content of the egg itself, and you will give it to drink on empty stomach. This preparation expels the faeces stagnating since a lot of time and the harmful worms, and it reduces the very high fever, Marcellus Empiricus. Against the delay of placenta's expulsion of the woman: Give to drink two cyathi [around 100 ml] of cooked must, a raw egg and just about enough of warm water mixed together. And if she conforms herself to the prescription, it will put her immediately upside-down, and while she is vomiting the placenta will be expelled. But if it won't be gone out, cook some fenugreek with water up to reduce it to a third. Give it to be drunk. In fact it is tested, Nicolaus Myrepsus.

¶ Pars V. Remedia ex ovis duris et ustis. Ova elixando indurata, assa et frixa, miscentur medicamentis iis quae humores (fluxiones) exiccare possunt, Galenus. In ovis est astrictio, et proprie in vitello eorum assato, Avicenna. Alvum astringunt dura ova, magisque si assa sunt, Celsus[10]. Ova assata in cinere sine fumo, medentur solutioni ventris et dysenteriae, (quod et in nothis quibusdam Galeno adscriptis legitur) cum sumuntur cum aliquibus astringentibus et aqua agrestae: item asperitati (ulcerationi) intestinorum ac vesicae, Avicenna. Galenus hoc scribit de ovis in aceto coctis, ut inferius referetur. Ova tota sistunt et menses mulierum cocta et ex vino pota, (dura intelligo,) [444] Plinius[11] ut quidam citat.

Section 5 - Remedies gotten from hard-boiled and roasted eggs. The hard-boiled, roasted and fried eggs, are mixed with those medicines being able to stop the humours (the flows of liquids), Galen. In the eggs an astringent power resides, and specifically in their roasted yolk, Avicenna. The hard eggs act as intestinal astringent, and still more if roasted, Celsus. The eggs roasted in ash without smoke heal diarrhoea and dysentery (it can also be read in spurious texts attributed to Galen) when taken with some astringent and with water of agresta - verjuice: likewise they are useful in case of roughness (ulceration) of bowel and bladder, Avicenna. Galen writes this when speaking of the eggs cooked in vinegar, as it will be later reported. The whole eggs also stop the menstrual fluxes if cooked and drunk with wine (I mean hard-cooked), Pliny, as someone quotes.


443


[1] Naturalis historia XXII,137: Datur cum ovo iis, qui sanguinem reiecerint, in vesicae vero dolore semuncia amyli cum ovo et passi tribus ovis subfervefacta a balineo.

[2] Naturalis historia XXIV,33: Medici liquida raro utuntur et in ovo fere, e larice propter tussim ulceraque viscerum — nec pinea magnopere in usu —, ceteris non nisi coctis. Et coquendi genera satis demonstravimus.

[3] Citazione già presente a pagina 436 e 438. In ambedue i casi dopo totum c’è ovum. – La citazione è tratta dall’XI libro del De simplicium medicamentorum temperamentis et facultatibus. Il verbo anadeúø significa bagnare, irrorare, inzuppare, impregnare.

[4] Discussa è l’interpretazione di cosa fosse l’ignis sacer, che magari fu anche chiamato ignis Persicus – fuoco persiano. Umberto Capitani e Ivan Garofalo (Naturalis historia di Plinio, libro XXVIII, Einaudi, 1986) non citano il carbonchio, e puntualizzano che Celso in De medicina V,26,31 e 28,4  fa una distinzione fra erisipela e herpes zoster (o fuoco di Sant’Antonio), per cui il fuoco sacro dovrebbe poter corrispondere all’herpes zoster. Affascinanti problemi insoluti di medicina antica!

[5] Secondo Margaret R. Mezzabotta (What Was Ulpicum? - The Classical Quarterly, New Series, Vol. 50, No. 1 (2000), pp. 230-237) per i botanici moderni l'ulpicum corrisponderebbe all'Allium ampeloprasum – great-headed garlic in inglese. § Plinio Naturalis historia XIX,111-112: Alium ad multa ruris praecipue medicamenta prodesse creditur. Tenuissimis et quae spernantur universum velatur membranis, mox pluribus coagmentatur nucleis, et his separatim vestitis, asperi saporis; quo plures nuclei fuere, hoc est asperius. Taedium huic quoque halitu, ut cepis, nullum tamen coctis. [112] Generum differentia in tempore — praecox maturescit LX diebus —, tum in magnitudine. Ulpicum quoque in hoc genere Graeci appellavere alium Cyprium, alii antiskorodon, praecipue Africae celebratum inter pulmentaria ruris, grandius alio. Tritum in oleo et aceto mirum quantum increscit spuma. Quidam ulpicum et alium in plano seri vetant, castellatimque grumulis inponi distantibus inter se pedes ternos. Inter grana digiti IIII interesse debent, simul atque tria folia eruperunt, sariri. Grandescunt, quo saepius sariuntur. § Garlic is generally supposed, in the country more particularly, to be a good specific2 for numerous maladies. The external coat consists of membranes of remarkable fineness, which are universally discarded when the vegetable is used; the inner part being formed by the union of several cloves, each of which has also a separate coat of its own. The flavour of it is pungent, and the more numerous the cloves the more pungent it is. Like the onion, it imparts an offensive smell to the breath; but this is not the case when it is cooked. The various species of garlic are distinguished by the periods at which they ripen: the early kind becomes fit for use in sixty days. Another distinction, too, is formed by the relative size of the heads. Ulpicum3 , also, generally known to the Greeks as "Cyprian garlic," belongs to this class; by some persons it is called "antiscorodon," and in Africa more particularly it holds a high rank among the dishes of the rural population; it is of a larger size than ordinary garlic. When beaten up with oil and vinegar, it is quite surprising what a quantity of creaming foam is produced. There are some persons who recommend that neither ulpicum nor garlic should be sown on level ground, but say that they should be planted in little mounds trenched up, at a distance of three feet apart. Between each clove, they say, there should be a distance of four fingers left, and as soon as ever three leaves are visible, the heads should be hoed; the oftener they are hoed, the larger the size they will attain. (http://cts.perseus.tufts.edu - Editions and translations: English ed. John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S., H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A.)

[6] De re rustica VI,4,2: Saepe etiam languor et nausea discutitur, si integrum gallinaceum crudum ovum ieiunis faucibus inseras, ac postero die spicas ulpici vel alii cum vino conteras, et in naribus infundas; neque haec tantum remedia salubritatem faciunt.

[7] Naturalis historia XXIX,47: Dantur et tussientibus cocta et trita cum melle et cruda cum passo oleique pari modo

[8] Naturalis historia XXIX,47: Ad puris et sanguinis excreationes ovum crudum cum porri sectivi suco parique mensura mellis Graeci calefactum hauritur.

[9] Naturalis historia XXIX,49: Maceratorum in aceto molliri diximus putamen; talibus cum farina in panem subactis coeliaci recreantur. Quidam ita resoluta in patinis torrere utilius putant, quo genere non alvos tantum, sed et menses feminarum sistunt, aut, si maior sit impetus, cruda cum farina et aqua hauriuntur. Et per se lutea ex iis decocuntur in aceto, donec indurescant, iterumque cum trito pipere torrentur ad cohibendas alvos.

[10] De medicina II,30,2: Contra astringunt panis ex siligine vel ex simila, magis si sine fermento est, magis etiam si ustus est, [...] [2] dura ova, magisque si assa sunt; [...].

[11] Si traduce ova tota con uova intere, ma secondo Plinio sarebbe scorretto. Infatti egli sta parlando di lutea, di tuorli, ma quel totis ovis pridie maceratis diventa fuorviante in una citazione enucleata dal resto, inducendo ad assumere intere le uova per arrestare le mestruazioni anziché solo i tuorli: Naturalis historia XXIX,44: Et, cum opus sit, abellanae nucis magnitudine ex aqua pota, item ex oleo fricta terna, totis ovis pridie maceratis in aceto; sic et lientericis, sanguinem autem reicientibus cum III cyathis musti. Utuntur isdem ad liventia, si vetustiora sint, cum bulbis ac melle. Sistunt et menses mulierum cocta et e vino pota, inflationes quoque vulvae cruda cum oleo ac vino inlita.