Disputatio physica expendens rationes & caussas, cur plurimi ab esu casei abhorreant

was so averse to the smell of roses that he would faint from it. The most noble Kenelm Digby has a fifth in his Treatise on the Nature of Bodies, book 1, chapter 38, page 330. It is a known story, he says, among the English courtiers regarding the noblewoman Heneage (once one of the ladies of the bedchamber to Queen Elizabeth), upon whose knee pustules arose while she slept when some had placed a rose near her, to test if she truly had such an antipathia aversion/contrary feeling toward that flower as she was accustomed to boast. Cronenburgius, in Schenckius, book 7 of Medical Observations, the last chapter, suggests a sixth, speaking thus: Doctor Ioannes Echtius, our friend, from the slightest occasion of a hot scented object, arrives at a severe affection of the brain: and what is to be wondered at vehemently, he is provoked into sneezing by the constant smell of a red rose. Schenckius, in the same place, notes a seventh from Ingrassia regarding Henry of Cardona, a Cardinal, whose fainting was caused by the smell of roses. Martin Cromer has an eighth in book 8 of History of Poland, concerning Laurentius of Wroclaw, the Bishop, who was killed by the smell of roses. If the most pleasant scent of roses has caused these inconveniences for many, we shall not wonder that the harsher smell of rue forced a soldier to flee, as recorded by Marcellus Donatus in book 6 of Medical Miraculous History, chapter 4, nor shall we doubt that the smell of cheese can effect the same. But, since many can indeed bear the smell of cheese, as we have just noted, yet are averse to eating it, we cannot in any way be satisfied with this reason for many. Although, in the meantime, concerning the reason for odors, this saying of Petronius Arbiter will remain true forever: