Note 2723 — Chapter LXVIII
Reading edition
Bernard’s mention of eye-glasses in his Lilium medicinae, Venice, 1496, Partic. III, cap. v, fol. 94, is both more incidental and more specific. At the close of his “ninth experiment” for the eyes, a formidable mixture, he says, “et est tantae virtutis quod decrepitum faceret legere litteras minutas sine ocularibus.” Magnifying lenses have of course been mentioned earlier by Grosseteste; see above p. 441.
Bernard Gordon also mentions “experimenters,” Lilium V, 12, fol. 159, “et dicunt experimentatores.”