Book 5 — NOTES TO BOOK V.
James Greive translation
From this account it seems plain, that our author means the genuine tear, or the opos of Dioscorides.
Fabricius was at first of opinion, that the fibula was not made of thread, but copper or iron, not hard, as Guido would have it, but softer and flexible, that it might be fixed through the lips of the wound and then twisted. But after mature consideration, he says he found Fallopius’s opinion to be most agreeable to truth.
Rhodius in his treatise de Acia, where his design is only to clear up the fibula and acia of Celsus, has been at immense pains to collect every thing extant in any of the ancients about their fibulæ; but as there is nothing which occurs in any of the old physicians more particular than in our author, it is not to be wondered, that every thing in his treatise of real importance to the scope of his enquiry, is contained in Fabric. ab Aquapendente, lib. ii. de Vulnerib. cap. 5. et de Chirurgic. Operation. cap. 108.
The principal places, in which our author mentions fibulæ, are lib. v. cap. 26. p. 292. in the original, p. 293.—Lib. 7. cap. 4. p. 412.—Cap. 19. p. 462. et 464.—Cap. 22. p. 469.—Cap. 25. p. 473.
The difficulty seems to rest here, that our author should use the term fibula, which in other classical authors is always taken for a buckle, or something of that kind made of metal, without distinguishing it from the ordinary fibula, as one should imagine he would have done, had he intended thread. Could it be a metal wire with a loop at one end, and the other first put through the wound, then passed into the loop, and twisted; which it would be easier to cut than pull out? This seems to obviate the strongest objection against its being of metal, drawn from the verb incido, which some moderns would have only applicable to thread.
Rhodius de Acia, cap. 6. will have the fibula used to the prepuce of boys (mentioned by our author lib. vii. cap. 25.) to be of metal; and according to Joann. Britannicus a small ring either of silver, gold, or copper.
I have only to add, that instead of paulatim according to Linden and Almeloveen, I have read paulum with Pinzi, Junta, Aldus, and others.