Leechdoms, wortcunning, and starcraft of early England. Being a ...

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PREFACE.
XXVll
This is to be compared with Lb. I. xviii. The correspondence
is so close as to leave no doubt but that
the work before us drew from Paulus, or from one
of the Greek authors, from whom he compiled his
work. The number of passages the Saxon thus draws
from the Greek is great ; they would make perhaps one
fourth
occurs
of the first two books, and the question of course
strongly to the mind whether they came direct
from the study of Greek manuscripts.
At first sight a passage ^ which says that the ficus Internal
in the eyes is called *' on Iseben" chymosis, may seem *^^''^°^°°^'
to resolve the question as that this author copied Latin
works. So it may have been ; but the place is not
conclusive, those words may come from Oxa, Dun, or
other writers of the native school of medicine ;
or Iseben,
leben, may be used as it often is in a loose sense for
language,^ foreign language. It is not at this point,
that it will repay our trouble to stay for consideration
we shall much more profitably form an opinion whether
the Saxon leeches in general had access to the sense
of the Greek authors, than whether in particular the
author of these books knew anytliing of them. If the
best men among our leeches of the tenth century could
avail themselves of what Paulus of /Egina, Alexander
of Tralles, and Philagrios wrote, that will suffice to
raise our estimate of that day into approbation.
M. Brecliillet Jourdain ^ has shewn that in those Greek
early days, before the invention of printing, the wise beaming,
men of the middle ages possessed Latin translations of
Aristoteles.
There was therefore no reason for their not
possessing other authors. Some am.ong them were able
to translate, some to speak Greek. The Byzantine
authors in our own hands come down to a late date.
'
Lb. p. 38.
- Ealle his rpjieca'S an lyben,
Genesis xi. 6.
' Recherches critiques sur Page
et origine des traductions Latines.
d'Aristote. Paris. 1819.