In college, before becoming an English major — and therefore borderline unemployable — I was in something called The General Program. “General” in the sense that it was designed to be a survey of human thought — all the greatest hits. This of course was before the discovery of Asia or Africa or South America — or minorities. We did know about women. We even read Emily Dickenson. And most of us were vaguely familiar with Cleopatra and Susan B. Anthony, and that seemed to pretty much cover the topic.
So, in an educational universe very different from today’s, I got a scattershot classical education. Discussing Plato, Shakespeare, Newton, Freud, and the boys. Exploring THE BIG QUESTIONS in small seminars. (Actual discussion question: “If Newton discovered gravity in 1666, where was it until then?”)
The patron saint of this sort of thing was another dead white guy, a Roman known as Pliny the Elder. Back in the first century CE, Pliny set out to collect all human knowledge — all of it! — in his Naturalis Historia. Though little of the massive work remains. we do have Pliny’s handy medical tips.
Say you’ve got an inflamed tumor, for example. Pliny recommends panace herb, sprinkled with wine, wrapped in a warmed leaf and “applied hot by a naked, fasting maiden.”
Having had a tumor of my own, I can understand how this would help. Though I see no need for the woman to be fasting. To Pliny, panace was the real key. It cured almost everything. Thus the word “panacea.” Unfortunately, back then panace was in somewhat short supply. Perhaps because it was entirely mythical.
Other cures in the book were more practical. To reduce excessive sexual desire, simply drown a lizard in the urine of a eunuch and gulp it all down. A nice glass of olive oil and pigeon feces would also work. And it is hard to imagine anyone wanting sex after either of those.
On the other hand, “the right half of a vulture’s lung, wrapped in a crane’s skin and worn as an amulet” is a powerful aphrodisiac. As you would expect.
Bull urine and a pinch of sulfur are recommended for hair loss, dandruff, and the dreaded affliction of “scanty eyebrows.” For hiccups or sneezing, simply kiss the nose of a mule. A compound of vinegar and boiled frogs is just the thing for toothaches. For a headache, rub crushed snails on your forehead or swallow owl brains.
Any questions?
As extensive as Naturalis Historia was, unfortunately it was never completed. One day in 79 CE, Pliny the Elder was at his day job fighting pirates in the Bay of Naples for the Roman Empire. Curious about a strange cloud over Mount Vesuvius, he led his fleet to Pompeii and disembarked. Apparently one useful piece of human learning he hadn’t yet uncovered was the bit about avoiding active volcanos.
Pliny was as sincere in his search for knowledge as any modern scholar, though perhaps he could have been a tad more skeptical of his sources. And there was far more to Naturalis Historia than unlikely cures. Leonardo da Vinci considered the work indispensable. And Leonardo was nobody’s fool. For better or worse, Naturalis Historia served as a primary authority on scientific information for the next 1,500 years. (I’ll be lucky if anyone’s reading this article next week.)
My generation of students laughed at Pliny. But we took Freud and Jung seriously, and they could be just as bizarre. (Penis envy, anyone?) I’m not sure which of today’s disciplines future generations will find the funniest, but have you ever really listened to competing economists? (Don’t.)
Then there’s quantum physics. By the time The General Program got around to quantum physics, I was already an English major and well on my way to unemployability. I know just enough about it to be confused.
One theory is that quantum physics is an elaborate joke made up by a bunch of physicists sitting around smoking pot — making everything more and more complicated:
“Okay, so far we’ve got quarks, gravitons, gluons, haptons, leptons, and bosons. An atomic particle called moron would be giving the game away, so let’s call the next one a muon — moo-on. We can claim it’s cow-shaped.”
That’s one theory. (Mine.) The generally accepted theory (everybody else’s) is that quantum physics is a reasonably accurate depiction of the building blocks of … well, everything. If that’s true, everything is much weirder than Pliny — or Plato or Newton or any of the old boys — could have ever imagined.
I’m sticking with the theory that it’s all a joke. That makes more sense, and it requires less memorization.
No vultures were harmed in the making of this column. You can reach Barry Maher and/or sign up for his occasional newsletter at www.barrymaher.com.