Ordeolum

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Ordeolum est pustula in palpebris proprie nascens ab ordeo ob similitudinem nominata que grece etiam crite dicitur quod est ordeum ut Cornelius celsus eam vocat et cetera.


Apparatus:

ab ordeo AC ef | ordei B

etiam om. f

crite AC ef | cute B ('ri' misread as 'u'}

et cetera om. B ef


Translation:

Ordeolum {"stye"} is a little red bump that grows characteristically at the base of the eyelashes. It is named due to its similarity to a "barley corn"{Latin (h)ordeum}, and this is also its Greek name: crite, which means ordeum {"barley"} in Latin; (h)ordeum is the word Cornelius Celsus uses for a stye, et cetera.


Commentary:

Simon is alluding to [Loeb] Cornelius Celsus De medicina, 7, 7, 2, ed. Spencer (1935-8: III.326), where it says: In eadem palpebra supra pilorum locum tuberculum parvulum nascitur, quod a similitudine hordei a Graecis crithe nominatur; the translation by W.G. Spencer, the editor, reads "A very small tumour forms in the same upper eyelid, above the line of the eyelashes, which from it resemblance to a barleycorn … is termed by the Greeks crithê."

N.b. The Latin text is also available online in ed. Marx (1915: 312) [[1]].

Latin hordeolum, which is still the medical term for stye, lives on in a number of Romance languages: Italian orzai(u)olo; Modern French orgelet, but Middle French horgeol; Spanish orzuelo.

WilfGunther 10:46, 20 October 2014 (BST)


See also: Kritharion, Krithe, Chrites

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