He affirms that the hen-partridge is affected by the mere breath of the cock or by a breeze from his direction.[1] He thinks that insects are spontaneously generated from mud, dung, wood, or flesh.[2] He says it is plain that the Narce causes stupefaction in both fish and men.[3] He has not only an idea that those with lice in their hair are less subject to headaches, but also a notion that those who have lice and take baths become more liable to the pest when they change the water in which they wash themselves.[4] Another amusing illusion which he records is that calves will suffer less in their feet if their horns are waxed.[5] Thus the pages of Aristotle give ground for belief that the fantasticalness of mediæval science was due to "the clear light of Hellas" as well as to the gloom of the "Dark Ages."
The book by a Roman which we are to consider as illustrative of the condition of science before the age of the Empire is Cato's treatise on agriculture. Several passages emphasize the importance of such conditions as that the moon should be new or waning or not shining during the performance of such acts as the transplanting of trees or the manuring of meadows.[6] It is also directed that in administering medicine to oxen the man giving the dose shall have fasted previously and that both he and the ox stand upright during the operation.[7] One medicine prescribed
- ↑ Bk. v, ch. iv, sec. 7 and bk. vi, ch. ii, sec. 9. See also bk. vi, ch. xvii, sec. 4.
- ↑ Bk. v, ch. xvii, sec. 2.
- ↑ Bk. ix, ch. xxv, sec 2.
- ↑ Bk. v, ch. xxv, sec. 2.
- ↑ Bk. viii, ch. ix, sec 1.
- ↑ De Re Rustica, chs. 26, 31, 37, 40, 50. Scriptores Rei Rusticae Veteres Latini. Tomus Primus. lo. Matthias Gesnerus, Lipsiae, 1773. The speed with which I progressed through the De Re Rustica was accelerated by the fact that Mr. E. H. Oliver, Ph. D., then of the School of Political Science, Columbia University, kindly lent me an English translation which he had made of that work.
- ↑ De Re Rustica, ch. 71. See also ibid., ch. 70.
