Читать книгу Of Medicine, in Eight Books онлайн

9 страница из 100

I might have urged many passages in this book to prove that he was a physician, if I had not reason to think the present age is already satisfied in that point. There are two, however, so remarkable, that they ought not to be omitted. When our author is considering the proper time for allowing nourishment, after saying that some gave their patients food in the evening, he gives reasons against that method, and then adds, “Ob haec ad mediam noctem decurro, i. e. For these reasons I defer it till midnight.” Thus most of the older copies read, and also Morgagni’s manuscript; so that Linden is not easily to be forgiven for making alterations in so material a place[P]. In the other passages there is no variation in the reading. In that species of the ancyloblepharon, where the eye-lid unites with the white of the eye, our author, after describing the method of cure, immediately adds, “Ego sic restitutum neminem memini. Meges se quoque multa, &c. i. e. I do not remember an instance of any person cured in this way. Meges also has told us that he has tried many methods, and never was successful, because the eye-lid always united again to the eye[Q].” The form of expression here used by our author, in a manner peculiar to a practitioner, would come very improperly from a mere compiler. The connection of these two sentences by quoque seems to put our author’s own observation upon the same footing with that of Meges, whom he quotes on several occasions as a most accomplished surgeon[R].