NOTES 327

1538, he says, in effect: "How erudite is your letter on the emera!d.
. . . Voucan help the medical profession by uprooting errors . . .
you have refuted Galen on the Critical Days. . . . Do publish your
finished work De Contagione . . . you write me about the seminaria
of contagion, the substance which is readyto corrupt, etc. . . . you
advise cold and dry remedies . . . Galen did not give Armenian
bole for putrid fever and the plague. . . . The doctors who met
you at Brescia long to see you again.*? " In August 1541 he writes to
Fracastorius on the treatment of pestilent fever, and says in effect:
*The causes are vapors which ascend from the recesses of the earth
laid open by earthquake, putrefying bodies, e. g. corpses, stagnant
water; but the air is the most potent cause because we must breathe
it;othercauses arebadfoodand water. . . . Southern airs are un—
healthy. . . . Nou would like to know what people are saying
about your opwsc4a. B. Sabatius of Naples has written me some
eriticisms of your Homocentrica (published 1538). He is at Brescia
now. . . . I will send his letter to youif you wish.? " To another
correspondent he says: ^^Fracastorius has written to me about
Senna, and says Ruellius is wrong in his description, and that
senna grows in all Etruria, if sown, and is brought to Verona.*?
I quote Mundella at length because, so far as I know, these Letters
have not been used by the biographers of Fracastorius, and they
are interesting evidence that he and his friends were discussing
and investigating with the aim of identifying medicinal plants.
Mundella often compares the descriptions of Dioscurides, Pliny,
M6su6e, Ruellius (J. Ruel, the physician of Francis I), Fuchs and
other herbalists. Other extant works by Mundella are Dialog?*
Medicinales decem, 1551, and a treatise on venesection, in which
Gaiono of Verona collaborated, 1567.

6s An arcanum was a 'secret' specific remedy with occult proper—
ties; the word is often used by alchemists. Paracelsus is the chief
authority on arcana; they arouse the vis medicafriz of nature.

64 For ponlic see Sympathy Ch. 14, where he distinguishes certain
flavors, sapores, as acerbus, 'harsh?/, acidus, acetosus, 'subaecid?,
and so on; in this list he describes the flavor 'pontic! as more unpleas—
ant to the palate than what is acid or harsh, because the substance
that has that flavor is ""earthy, ill—digested and ill—combined?'.
Rhubarb and wormwood were known as ^Pontic'!, i. e. came from
'lohe Black Sea; hence arose this epithet, *bitter' or 'sour', now obso—

ete.

6s For ovyacanthus see note 43.

66 Powdered red coral is still used in this way. ^Salts of coral
are excellent to purify the blood', says Burton in 1621.

6; For the emerald, see note 62.

65 Cinarum, or Cynarum, is Smilaz Sinensis, Chinese sarsaparilla,
tuber Chinae, used since the early 16th cent. in decoction or syrup
for chronic skin affections, syphilis etec., as a sudorific. For its
importation, see p. 283; use in phthisis, p. 253; in syphilis, p. 283.
Vesalius in 1546 wrote an Epis8fe on China—rooi. Burton quotes