A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins, Volume I (of 2)

Histor. Animal. viii. 31, p. 977.

1558

Hist. Nat. viii. 10, p. 440.

1559

Hist. Animal. ii. 18.

1560

Indica. Amst. 1668, 8vo, p. 537.

1561

Lib. xiii. cap. 7.

1562

De Simplic. Med. Facultat. lib. x. p. 151. Edit. Basil. ii. p. 134.

1563

De Aliment. Facultat. iii. cap. 15, p. 54. Edit. Basil. iv. p. 340.

1564

Cæsar de Bello Gall. iv. 1. vi. 22. Strabo, lib. iv. speaking of the Britons, says, “In their manners they are somewhat similar to Celts, but more simple and barbarous; so that many, although they abound in milk, are unable to make cheese, through want of skill.”

1565

Lib. xi. c. 41, p. 637.

1566

Ib. lib. xxviii. cap. 9, p. 465.

1567

In my opinion the passage ought to be arranged as follows: – prælirato. Quod est maximum coactum, in summo fluitat. Id exemptum, addito sale, butyrum est, oleosum natura. Quod reliquum est decoquunt in ollis. Additur paululum aquæ (aceti?), ut acescat. Id quod supernatat, oxygala appellant. Quo magis virus resipit, hoc præstantius indicatur. Pluribus compositionibus miscetur inveteratum. Natura ejus adstringere, mollire, replere, purgare. – Dithmar’s emendation may be found in Taciti Libel. de Moribus German. Francof. 1766, 8vo, p. 140.

1568

Lib. xii. 8, p. 786.

1569

De Aliment. Facultat. iii. cap. 16, p. 55.

1570

Ibid. cap. 17, p. 57.

1571

Lib. xviii. 12, p. 1188.

1572

See Mercurialis, p. 38.

1573

De Moribus Germ. cap. 23.

1574

On this account some conjecture, and not without probability, that the name also βούτυρος or βούτυρον is not originally Greek, but that it may have been introduced into Greece from some foreign country, along with the thing which it expresses. Conring, for example, is of opinion that it is of Scythian extraction. The Grecian and Roman authors, however, make it to be a Greek word, compounded of βοῦς, an ox or cow, and τυρὸς, cheese, as we learn from the passages of Galen and Pliny already quoted. Cheese was known to them much earlier than butter; and it is therefore possible, that at first they may have considered the latter as a kind of cheese, as it appears that τυρὸς once signified any coagulated substance. The first syllable of the word, indeed, one should hardly expect, as the Greeks used the milk of sheep and goats much earlier than cow’s-milk; and for this reason Schook conjectures that the first syllable was added, as usual among the Greeks, to magnify the object, or to express a superior kind of cheese. Varro De Re Rustica, ii. 5, p. 274, says, “Novi majestatem boum, et ab his dici pleraque magna, ut βούσυκον, βούπαιδα, βούλιμον, βοῶπιν; uvam quoque bumammam;” and we find in Hesychius, “βούπαις νέος μέγας· βούπεινα, μέγας λιμὸς· βουφάγος, πολυφάγος.” But this supposes that the Greeks preferred butter to cheese; whereas they always considered the former as of less importance, and less proper for use. The same word being still retained in most languages determines nothing; especially as the Swedes use the word smor, which is totally different, and which was the oldest German name, and that most used in the ninth century; and Lipsius, in an old dictionary of that period, found the word kuosmer butyrum, the first syllable of which is certainly the word kuh, a cow. See Lipsii Epist. ad Belgas, cent. iii. 44, and Wormii Litteratura Runica, cap. 27. These etymological researches, which must always be uncertain, I shall not carry further; but only remark that, according to Hesychius, butter, in Cyprus, where I did not expect it, was called ἔλφος, which word may also be foreign. See Martini Lexic. Philol. art Butyrum, who derives ἔλφος from albus.

1575

Lib. vi. 12, p. 582.

1576

Lib. xxviii. cap. 19, p. 486.

1577

A passage of Tertullian adversus Jud. alludes to this practice. The same words are repeated Adversus Marcion. iii. 13.

1578

Sidonius Apollinaris, carm. 12.

1579

Clemens Alexand. Pædag. i. p. 107.

1580

When Leodius accompanied the elector palatine Frederic II. in his travels through Spain, he was desirous of purchasing in that country several articles necessary for their journey. After much inquiry concerning butter, he was directed to an apothecary’s shop, where the people were much astonished at the largeness of the quantity he asked for, and showed him a little entirely rancid, which was kept in a bladder for external use. H. Th. Leodii Vita et Res Gestæ Frederici Palatini. Francof. 1665, 4to, lib. vi.

1581

Lib. x. p. 447.

1582