Menticon
Menticon grece Cassius felix capitulo de ycteritia apoflantismum quem greci menticon appellant.
Apparatus:
Menticon ABC f | Menacon e
ycteritia (-ricia e) AC e | ictericia B f
apoflãtismũ AC | apoflatismõ B | apoflãtissiuruʒ? e | apofl'atislũ f
menticon (mẽti- e) AC e | meaticõ B | menciocon f
appellant AC ef | appellant B
Translation:
Menticon is a Greek word occurring in Cassius Felix's chapter De ycteritia {"About jaundice"}. It is an apoflegmatism, which the Greeks call menticon.
Commentary:
Simon is referring to Cassius Felix De medicina, 49, 8, ed. Fraisse (2001: 145) Ad ictericos {"For the jaundiced"}: Aliud. Apoflegmatismum qui naribus infunditur, et a Graecis appellatur rinenchyton - "Another recipe. An apophlegmatism [[1]], which is injected into the nose and is called by the Greeks rinenchyton...".
The Greek word in question is ῥινέγχυτον /rhinénkhyton/, a neuter form of an adjective meaning "injected at the nose" and as a noun "injection for the nose". It is a Greek compound consisting of ῥιν- /rhin-/ {"nose"/ + εν /en/ in its pre-velar form –εγ- /-eg-/ {"in(to)"} + χυτον /-khyton/ ultimately related to χέω /khéō/ "to pour", i.e. "injection into the nose". Medical authors Latinize the word as rhinenchyton.
Simon's menticon shows more than the usual corruption Greek words suffered in the transmission by scribes largely ignorant of Greek. But it seems that Simon's Cassius text was already corrupted. Rose and Fraisse, the modern editors of De medicina, have given the word in their editions a closer transcription of the Greek, although their source mss. have renenticon (Rose, 1879: 130: renẽticõ) and mentiton (Rose, ibid. mẽtitõ), the latter being very close to Simon's menticon, since the letters 't' and 'c' were easily confused in the mss. and even in the early prints. A possible pathway of corruption was rinenciton > *menciton > menticon.
WilfGunther 22/12/13
See also: Apoflegmatismus, Caputpurgium , Mansuemen
