1) Greek philosophers, including Hippocrates and Plato, viewed the womb as a living creature that wandered through a woman’s body, often causing disease.
2) It was once believed that a fox’s genitals tied to one’s forehead was a sure cure for a headache.
3) To deal with a piece of bread stuck in the throat, one Gaius Plinius Secundus (23 AD – August 25, 79 AD), better known as Pliny the Elder, suggested sticking a piece of the same loaf of bread in each ear.
4) The French philosopher Descartes believed that all humans could live as long as the "patriarchs", as those old figures from the Bible are known, and he believed he was right on the brink of inventing a way that would make us live for at least a thousand years, when he died. Aged 54.
5) Aristotle thought and taught that buzzards had three testicles. (Not true)
6) The Greeks regarded small testicles as rather artistic.
7) Aristotle had a theory about the function of the testicles, which was that they served to deepen the voice as a boy grew to manhood. He actually had pretty good reasons. He thought that the change in size of the testes as a boy grew to become a man served to pull down the voice, as it were, and make it deeper.
"All animals when castrated change over to the female state, and as their sinewy strength is slackened at its source they emit a voice similar to that of females. This slackening may be illustrated in the following way. It is as though you were to stretch a cord and make it taut by hanging some weight on to it, just as women do who weave at the loom; they stetch the warp by hanging stone weights on to it. This is the way in which the testes are attached to the seminal passages, which in their turn are attached to the blood-vessel which has its starting-point at the heart near the part which sets the voince in movement. And so, as the seminal passages undergo a change at the approach of the age when they can secrete semen, this part undergoes a simultaneous change. And as this changes, so too does the voice . . . If the testes are removed, the tautness of the passages is slackened, just as when the weight is removed from the cord or from the warp; and as this slackens, the source (or principle) which sets the voice in movement is correspondingly loosened. This then is the cause on account of which castrated animals change over to the female condition both as regards the voice and the rest of their form: it is because the principle from which the tautness of the body is derived is slackened." (Generation of Animals, V.vii, Loeb translation)
8) Aristotle thought that rotten flesh gave birth to maggots.
YOU ARE READING
Random Facts You Didn't Need to Know
RandomThis is a totally random compilation of facts, collected for my own enjoyment. After all my years of storing them up, I felt it was time to share them with you. Well... enjoy this bundle of totally random awesomeness!
