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#110336 - 08/17/03 03:35 AM Operator
Bingley Offline
Carpal Tunnel

Registered: 04/09/00
Posts: 3065
Loc: Jakarta
From the Dryden translation of Plutarch's Life of Caius Marius:

Marius is praised for both temperance and endurance, of which latter he gave a decided instance in an operation of surgery. For having, as it seems, both his legs full of great tumours, and disliking the deformity, he determined to put himself into the hands of an operator; when, without being tied, he stretched out one of his legs, and silently, without changing countenance, endured most excessive torments in the cutting, never either flinching or complaining; but when the surgeon went to the other, he declined to have it done, saying, "I see the cure is not worth the pain."

Bingley
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Bingley

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#110337 - 08/17/03 08:43 AM Re: Operator
wwh Offline
Carpal Tunnel

Registered: 01/18/01
Posts: 13858
And not even a bullet to bite on.


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#110338 - 08/17/03 04:04 PM Re: Operator
wofahulicodoc Offline
Carpal Tunnel

Registered: 08/06/01
Posts: 3794
Loc: Worcester, MA
or a bottle of bourbon to ease his pain.

What did the Romans call what they drank? Was it all wine ("...one-half so precious as the stuff they sell...") or did they have any fortified beverages?


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#110339 - 08/17/03 05:04 PM Re: Operator
wwh Offline
Carpal Tunnel

Registered: 01/18/01
Posts: 13858
I'm prettty sure that stills were not invented for over a thousand years. I can't think of any drugs they had that would have been worth using. Maybe Bulgarian anaesthesia,
a knock on noggin with a mallet. The Delphic oracle is said to have inhaled gases with aome anaesthetic properties, but
no way that could have helped Marius.

P.S. I found a site claiming Aristotle knew about distilling.Still don't think it could have helped our hero.
"The process of distillation is old enough to have been mentioned by Aristotle—who lived from 384 to 322 B.C.—but Pliny the Elder (A.D. 23–79), a Roman, first described a still. At its most basic, a still consists of a retort, in which the liquid to be distilled is heated; a coil, called a condenser, at the top of the still, to cool and condense the vapor; and a receiver, a vessel that collects the distillate. Over the years, various elaborate industrial stills have been created, but they all consist essentially of the same three parts. "


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#110340 - 08/17/03 08:22 PM Re: Operator
wofahulicodoc Offline
Carpal Tunnel

Registered: 08/06/01
Posts: 3794
Loc: Worcester, MA
...the Delphic oracle is said to have inhaled gases with aome anaesthetic properties

That's also in a very recent Scientific American! Last month's, I think


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