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A Suggested Emendation of Isidore of Seville, ‘Etymologiae’ 4.8.9

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2016

William D. Sharpe
William D. Sharpe*
Affiliation:
Medical Service, Jersey City Hospital, and Department of Medicine, Seton Hall University School of Medicine
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Extract

In this passage, Lindsay prints ‘Verrucae aliud sunt: satiriasis aliud. Verrucae singulatim sunt, satiriasis vero una fortior, et circa ipsam plures inveniuntur.’ This seems corrupt, and it is known that Isidore did not live to revise his Etymologiae. ‘Verrucae’ can refer both to common warts and to pigmented nevi, the familiar brown moles; cf. Scribonius Largus, Conpositiones 228: ‘Si quando non exulceratas eminentias tollere sine ferro voluerimus, ut verrucas, naevos aliave eius generis …’ (ed. G. Helmreich [Leipzig 1887] p. 91f.). However, ‘satiriasis’ is discussed at Etymologiae 4.7.34 as sexual excitement of unusual degree, and may veil a reference to abnormal sexual acts or be confused with priapism. Some of, the MSS cited by Otto read phtiriasis for satyriasis, and this would demand translation as ‘louse infestation’; cf. Cassius Felix, De medicina 3: ‘In cachecticis corporibus id est mala habitudine affectis pediculosa passio generator quam Graeci pthiriasin vocant’ (ed. V. Rose [Leipzig 1879] p. 11). Other MSS read circa ipsam pruritus ex squammatione inveniuntur in place of circa ipsam plures inveniuntur, and the phrase pruritus ex squammatione suggests that pityriasis might correctly be read for satiriasis.

Type
Miscellany
Information
Traditio , Volume 14 , 1958 , pp. 377 - 378
Copyright
Copyright © Fordham University Press 

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References

1 Lindsay, W. M., Isidori Hispalensis Episcopi Etymologiarum sive Originum libri (Oxford 1911).Google Scholar

2 Otto, F. V., Isidorus Hispalensis Etymologiarum libri. in Lindermann, J. F. (ed.), Corpus grammaticorum latinorum veterum 3 (Leipzig 1833).Google Scholar

3 Luis Cortés y Gongora, Etimologías: versión castellana (Madrid 1951). Google Scholar

4 Rose's MS Paris, lat. 6114 (13th cent.) reads petiriasin. Google Scholar

5 Besides Ernest Brehaut, An encyclopedist of the Dark Ages: Isidore of Seville (New York 1912), abook which must be read with caution, see Otto Probst, ‘Isidors Schrift « de Medicina, »’ Archiv für Geschichte der Medizin 8 (1915) 22 and Fletcher, G. R. J., ‘St. Isidore of Seville and his book on medicine,’ Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine : Section of the History of Medicine 12 (1919) 70. On Isidore's science generally, see Lear, F. S., ‘St. Isidore and mediaeval science,’ The Rice Institute Pamphlet 23 (1936) 75.Google Scholar

6 Drabkin, I. E., Caelius Aurelianus: On acute diseases and on chronic diseases (Chicago 1950) 944.Google Scholar

7 Adams, Francis, The seven books of Paulus Aegineta translated from the Greek (London 1844) I 347.Google Scholar

8 Faustinus Arevalo, ad Isid. Etym. loc. cit. (PL 82.91 note d). Google Scholar