Vivere quidem Spongias adhaerendo
_Aristoteles_ censet: absolute vero minime: sensumque aliquem habere, vel
eo argumento (inquit) credantur, quod difficillime abstrahantur, nisi
clanculum agatur: Atq; ad avulsoris accessum ita contrahantur, ut eas
evellere difficile sit, quod idem etiam faciunt quoties flatus
tempestatesque urgent. Puto autem illis succum sordidum quem supra diximus
carnis loco a natura attributum fuisse: atque meatibus latioribus tanquam
intestinis aut interaneis uti. Caeterum pars ea quae Spongiae cautibus
adhaerent est tanquam folii petiolus, a quo veluti collum quoddam gracile
incipit: quod deinde in latitudinem diffusum capitis globum facit.
Recentibus nihil est fistulosum, haesitantque tanquam radicibus. Superne
omnes propemodum meatus concreti latent: inferne vero quaterni aut quini
patent, per quos eas sugere existimamus_. From which Description, they
seem to be a kind of Plant-Animal that adheres to a Rock, and these small
_fibres_ or threads which we have described, seem to have been the Vessels
which ('tis very probable) were very much bigger whil'st the _Interstitia_
were fill'd (as he affirms) with a mucous, pulpy or fleshy substance; but
upon the drying were shrunk into the bigness they now appear.
The texture of it is such, that I have not yet met with any other body in
the world that has the like, but onely one of a larger sort of Sponge
(which is preserv'd in the _Museum Harveanum_ belonging to the most
Illustrious and most learned Society of the _Physicians_ of _London_) which
is of a horney, or rather of a _petrify'd_ substance.
Pages:
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326