Notes

Qui tirent des flans

Voiez Pline, l. 20 chap. pénultiéme. Le même réméde fur emploié heureusement en Alsace l’an 1705 à guerir une espéce de colique qui régnoit parmi les chevaux de l’armée Françoise.

tirent des flans

Urquhart translates as, “And such as strike at their own Belly.” Ozell notes, “See Pliny, l. xx, last chapter but one. The same Remedy was successfully employ’d in Alsace in 1705 in the Cure of a kind of Cholic with which the Horses of the French Army were very much disorder’d.”

tirent des flans

Smith translates as “broken-winded.” Fr. tirer des flancs = Lat. ilia ducere. Hor. Epp. i. I. 9. Pliny N.H. 16, §15: “Verbascum … jumentis non tussientibus modo sed ilia quoque trahentibus auxiliatur potu.”

Et eſt l’eaue ainsi caillée remede preſent aux cheuaulx coliqueux, & qui tirent des flans.

tussi et purulenta excreantibus obolis tribus in passi totidem, verbascum cuius est flos aureus. huic tanta vis ut iumentis etiam non tussientibus modo sed ilia quoque trahentibus auxilietur potu, quod et de gentiana reperio.

For cough and spitting of pus, the dose being three oboli in the same amount of raisin wine, the golden-flowered verbascum is a good remedy. The potency of this plant is so great that beasts of burden that are not only suffering from cough but also broken-winded, are relieved by a draught, and the same I find is true of gentian.

les vertus du pantagruelion

Toute les vertus du pantagruélion que Rabelais va énumérer jusqu’a [voulez guerir une bruslure] sont attribués par Pline au chanvre (XX, 23 et 97) (LD/EC). Notons que R. accepte, comme tout le monde alors, la génération spontanée, notion faisant toujours autorité chez les médecins de la seconde moitié du XVIe siècle. Cf. J. Riolan, In libri Fernelii de Procreatione comment., Paris, 1578, 4: « Non est tamen necessarius congressus ad procreationem, nam plurima animalia de putridine excitantur … ».

Et eſt l’eaue ainsi caillée remede preſent aux cheuaulx coliqueux, & qui tirent des flans.

Cannabis in silvis primum nata est, nigrior foliis et asperior. semen eius extinguere genituram dicitur. sucus ex eo vermiculos aurium et quodcumque animal intraverit eicit, sed cum dolore capitis, tantaque vis ei est ut aquae infusus coagulare eam dicatur. et ideo iumentorum alvo succurrit potus in aqua. radix articulos contractos emollit in aqua cocta, item podagras et similes impetus. ambustis cruda inlinitur, sed saepius mutatur priusquam arescat.

Hemp at first grew in woods, with a darker and rougher leaf. Its seed is said to make the genitals impotent. The juice from it drives out of the ears the worms and any other creature that has entered them, but at the cost of a headache; so potent is its nature that when poured into water it is said to make it coagulate. And so, drunk in their water, it regulates the bowels of beasts of burden. The root boiled in water eases cramped joints, gout too and similar violent pains [Cf. § 228 and note on XXII. § 122]. It is applied raw to burns, but is often changed before it gets dry.

tirent des flans

Pliny 20.23: «On tient que le chanvre a si grande vertu, que mis en infusion en eau, il la fait prendre: aussi la baille-on à boire aux Jumens, pour les fair retentir» (trad. Du Pinet).