Complete Works of Celsus, Vitruvius, Censorinus, and Frontinus

... he gave the Lexicon Celsianum Celsian Lexicon, which he had announced for many long years. Despite these real advantages, the first edition having prevailed in the esteem of scholars, hesitation was not permitted; but one did not believe oneself dispensed for this serious consideration from this second publication of a man who, at two periods of his life so distant one from the other, did not fear to begin in a way the work of his youth and his virility. One therefore imposed upon oneself the duty, while adopting the text of 1769, of confronting it rigorously with that of 1810, in order to be able, if necessary, to correct Targa by Targa himself. There have been sometimes between two or more lessons determining reasons for which one will find in the notes why one had to stop. This comparative examination, which has not been done until now for any French edition, has really permitted the securing of rights, and consequently the clarification of the meaning of these passages, troubled by manifest alterations. However, there is here and there such a part of the Treatise on Medicine where the disorder is so great that no one can mark the route that one must follow; also, the translator will be less than anyone tempted to accuse Targa of exaggeration, when, in a letter to Morgagni, he complains, notably for the eighth book, of encountering an obstacle at every line. It is not out of place to remark here that, for difficulties of this kind, the index of Targa, that of André Mathié, the dictionary of Forestus, that of Porcellini, and others, never being of useful help, it becomes superfluous to ask of these vast collections of words the clarifications that one believes oneself at first entitled to expect from them. But, without insisting longer on this subject, if by a natural transition one arrives at seeking what have been until this day the efforts attempted to render the Latin author in French, one finds oneself soon in the presence of the only translation that we have ever had of Henri Ninnin. The translation of Henri Ninnin appeared in 1754. To this physician, therefore, returns the honor of the initiative; that is, without any doubt, a real title that no one can think of contesting, and which remains legitimately acquired to him. But for the small number of those who by duty or by inclination will have scrupulously compared the ancient author to this first version, it will be none the less evident that Celsus, in many respects, still remained to be translated. Henri Ninnin did not join a Latin edition to his translation, and says he followed those of Van der Linden and Almeloveen, and made great use of the manuscript of the King's library; as well as the observations of Morgagni. That he gave proof therein of zeal, of patience, and of discernment, one will willingly recognize; but it remains nonetheless that the text he constituted for his personal use remained very inferior to that of Targa; so that the exactitude of the French version had necessarily to suffer in many places from this manifest inferiority. That is not all: apart from the numerous errors for which one will hasten to return the responsibility

to the incorrectness of the text, there are others, too frequent still, which must be left to the account of the translator. When the Latin says simply, lævitas intestinorum quæ lævitas? vocatur "smoothness of the intestines which is called smoothness", why does Ninnin translate it thus: "The lightness which depends on the too great lubricity of the intestines" (II, 1)? Why does he make Celsus commit enormous anatomical errors, in the very places where by chance he is in the truth (VIII)? The surgical part especially swarms, one can say, with gross errors, which one would hardly expect from a physician. In book VIII, 4, Celsus, regarding the caries of the bones of the skull, treated by cauterization with fire, says that a small portion of thin and narrow bone detaches itself, which for this reason the Greeks call λεπις lepis original Greek: "λεπις", that is to say, scale. Ninnin gravely transforms these splinters into "fleshy buds"; and as these "flesh" (textual) ordinarily have the figure of a thin and narrow splinter, the Greeks call them λεπις. Is it a question of the ligaments of the vertebrae? Celsus, always appealing to the quod Graeci vocant, adds that these τενοντες tenontes original Greek: "τενοντες" (tendons) are called in Greek τενοντες. In place of τενοντες, in truth, νεφροτεσ nephrotes original Greek: "νεφροτεσ"; but, without bothering about the value of the word, he translates it ingenuously as karolte. These examples are not the only ones, and they are not even the most salient.

As for the style, it suffices to leaf through this translation at random to remain convinced that it distances itself as much from the literary language as from the scientific language; and from there is born a painful contrast with the elegant precision of the Latin author. It must be permitted to provide two or three proofs, among a thousand. Celsus reproduces in these terms an aphorism of Hippocrates:

Cui vero sano subitus dolor capitis ortus est, ac somnus oppressit, sic ut stertereus usque ad septimum diem perirendum est. "But to him who, while healthy, is suddenly seized by a headache, and sleep overcomes him, in such a way that he snores until the seventh day, he must perish." (II, 8.)
Here is probably how everyone would have rendered this passage:
"The man surprised in health by a sudden headache, and who then falls into a deep and stertorous sleep from which one cannot rouse him, must perish towards the seventh day."
But let us let Ninnin speak:
"He who, being in health, is suddenly attacked by a pain in the head, and then falls into a sleep so deep that he snores and one cannot awaken him, perishes at the end of seven days."
Elsewhere, Celsus moves abruptly from the danger of abstinence to satiety:
Neque enim convenit juxta inediam protinus salietatem attem esse. "For it is not fitting immediately after starvation to reach satiety."
The translator replaces the Latin phrase, so neat and so precise, with this one:
"It is in no way appropriate to overfill oneself, immediately after having suffered from hunger and thirst." (II, 16.)
These trailing phrasings and vulgar locutions, which the translator does not refrain from, have nothing surely that can dazzle the readers; but one knows at least what he wants to say; and if he sins against elegance, he still respects the most essential rules of the language. Now, that is a limit within which Ninnin did not always know how to maintain himself; and,