Y’all I know we joke about the abysmal state of critical reading and thinking on this site but I cannot believe we’re to the point of citing PLINY THE ELDER.
This guy (who died in 79 AD which I only mention bc his name was tossed in here like a contemporary source) wrote a whole bunch about what he considered to be every topic to ever exist. He had a LOT of ideas about the natural world, animals, and how we could use them to treat disease. Do you suffer from a tooth ache? Here’s a passage for you:
To eat a snake's heart, or to wear it, attached to the body, is considered highly efficacious. There are some among the magicians, who recommend a mouse to be eaten twice a month, as a preventive of tooth-ache. Earth-worms, boiled in oil and injected into the ear on the side affected, afford considerable relief [...] (source).
This is the tip of the iceberg with this guy. Moreover, I know at this point most people realize that TIL is a useless source, but I’ve seen this a few times on my dash this month unironically.
We Have to check our sources. I’m begging y’all
Pliny also claimed;
There are 176 types of fish in the sea
That lions give themselves C sections with their claws when giving birth
That there was a kind of tree you had to sneak up on to cut because if you startled it it would turn to stone
And that there was a kind of fish that could control storms.
So NOT perhaps someone you want to cite, folks.
The last one is true I was the fish
PERSONALLY MY FAVORITE PLINY BIT WAS THE GIANT MAN-EATING PAKISTANI HIPPOS