Paedotrophia, or, The art of nursing and rearing children. A poem, in three books / translated from the Latin of Scevole de St. Marthe ; with medical and historical notes; with the life of the author, from the French of Michel and Niceron ... by H.W. Tytler.

Date:
1797
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Paedotrophia, or, The art of nursing and rearing children. A poem, in three books / translated from the Latin of Scevole de St. Marthe ; with medical and historical notes; with the life of the author, from the French of Michel and Niceron ... by H.W. Tytler. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    But, ah ! vvliat dire dlftrelTes throng around. Of difF'rent lhapes, and various natures found ! Not other than on Libya's burning lands, 75 Where winding Bagra cleaves the barren fands, Numidian hunters oft, of old, beheld; If o'er the defert Ihores, and herblefs field Ver. 76. JVhere tOniding Bagra cleaves the barrenfantis,] Sagfa, called by fome ancient authors Bragada, and by the nnoderns Mergarada, or Magerada, an African river near Utica, where Attilius Regulus is faid by Pliny, Lib. VIII. Cap. 14. to have filled a ferpent an hundred ells long. The combat betwixt the Roman army and this terrible monfter is particularly and beau- tifully defcribed in the fixth book of Silius Italicus. The ferpent put them to flight, killed a great number, and had almoft refcued Africa from the invafion ; when his back was broke by a huge ilone, thrown from one of thofe engines ufed in battering towns; which difabling him fo that he could not ftir from his place, he was attacked with darta and javelins ; and his head at length daflied to pieces by another ftone. Moft modern hiftorians have treated this narration as entirely fabulous, fuppofing no fuch monfter «ould exift, or that it could only have been a crocodile: bur, fince the difcovery of ferpents of equal magnitude in the Eaft- Indies, I can fee no reafon to doubt of its truth. On the con- trary, it fliould teach us not haftily to difcredit what we find in ancient authors, merely becaufe it does not coincide with our own ideas. And we find the teftimony of feveral ancient hillorians, particularly of Herodotus, thought nothing but fic- tion to become more credible, as ourfelves advance in know- ledge. They