Putrefaction

Use in the book

Page 75 joins destruction, dissolution and putrefaction in the mother’s body. Metals must enter the watery field so that they may pass into new birth and more-than-perfection. The negative force matters: preparations made without the universal first matter cannot fulfil that purpose simply because they have been made subtle.

The fountain passage on page 83 identifies the relevant productive corruption more closely. In the catholic pri-material fountain alone lies the Philosophers’ dung, putrefactive for the work. Such putrefaction is mother of the corruption and destruction from which a new generation, and consequently regeneration, arises. “Destruction” here is not an ultimate annihilation; it is a necessary loss of the former constituted state within the promised generative transformation.

The universal route on page 98 also includes putrefaction, followed in the stated list by coagulation, fixation and inceration. This broadens the term beyond the treatment of added silver and gold: the catholic matter itself must be regenerated and more-than-perfected. It is therefore a feature of the account of transformation, not a synonym for corroding ordinary metal.

Opponents can borrow the same verb. Pages 113–11523 report a proposal to putrefy separated metallic constituents in digestion and subsequently coagulate and fix them. The reply rejects the ground of that work. In the margin of pages 119–1202, Khunrath makes his own causal claim explicit: the first matter causes true putrefaction, and the living pri-material catholic Mercury is the secret horse-dung of the Wise. Reading the verb alone, detached from the matter, would reproduce the literalism the book attacks.

Places to read

1. 1599 p. 75Right putrefaction in the mother’s body mediates new birth.
2. 1599 p. 83The pri-material fountain contains the Philosophers’ dung for the relevant corruption.
3. 1599 p. 98Putrefaction is included in the universal matter’s preparation.
4. 1599 p. 114Putrefaction in the opponents’ proposed metallic process is reported, not endorsed.
5. 1599 p. 119 · marginFirst matter is named as the cause of true putrefaction; the gloss continues on page 120.
6. 1599 p. 160Putrefying belongs to the work required before the wonder-working Stone can be claimed.

Translation in this edition

The translation’s “putrefying,” “corruption” and “destruction” preserve related but nonidentical words. None should be converted into an identification with a modern biological fermentation or a specified chemical decomposition. The text argues a causal and generative role without disclosing the material procedure.

Use in the book

Pseudo-Galen explicitly assigns digestion by putrefaction to Empedocles. In the Phaedo, Socrates recalls asking whether living creatures are nourished into being when the hot and cold undergo a kind of putrefaction, as some people said. Plato names no author of that view. The edition identifies it with Empedocles by comparison with other evidence, including B68. This distinction is essential: one passage reports a named digestion theory, while the other dramatizes a question in a retrospective account of natural inquiry. It is possible to use them together as evidence for the range of ancient physiological processes called putrefaction, but not to make Plato deliver a direct Empedoclean quotation. Nor does either excerpt specify microbial action or the modern biochemical processes associated with decay.

Places to read

1. A 77 (testimony)Pseudo-Galen, Medical Definitions. Explicitly names Empedocles as explaining digestion through sēpsis.
2. A 76 (reception)Plato, Phaedo. Presents an unnamed view of the hot and cold undergoing putrefaction before living things arise.
3. A 76 (apparatus)Diels and modern editorial commentary. Connect the unnamed position with Empedocles and B68.

Translation in this edition

Sprengel's conjecture substitutes “moist” for “cold” in the Platonic question. The printed passage retains cold; neither version should be treated as an independently quoted Empedoclean formula.

Use in the book

Plants and creatures apparently arising from decay are contrasted with those generated by propagation. Ficino's question is where the proper, determinate causes of the former reside. He rejects the inference that an absence of visible parental seed permits an absence of a specific formative cause. The proposed answer is the earth's common life and its incorporeal seeds. Even sowing and planting are contrasted with alleged spontaneous appearances; external fostering may also account for seeds remaining inactive for a time. The argument moves from what appears unseeded to what must, in his account, have an appropriate productive principle.

The final chapter-summary repeats unseeded plants and animals generated without mating as evidence against depriving the world of life and sensation. These are Ficino's examples under the Platonist account he reports. Neither the repetition nor the argument's confidence validates spontaneous generation by contemporary standards.

Places to read

1. IV.1.3 and IV.1.7apparent lack of bodily seeds poses the question of proper living causes
2. IV.1.14–1623putrefaction, sowing, planting, bodily shoots, delayed fostering, and spiritual seeds are distinguished
3. IV.1.96unseeded plants and creatures without mating return in the closing inference

Translation in this edition

“Seem” at IV.1.7 preserves videntur; it should not be silently dropped when describing the initial evidence. “Spontaneously” concerns the apparent reproductive process, while the entire argument supplies a cause for it.

pullulare

pullulare. Printed forms: pullulant.

To sprout or spring forth. Seeds cast away may develop long afterward, with or without evident external fostering. References: IV.1.14. See Putrefaction and propagation.

putrefactio / propagatio

putrefactio / propagatio. Printed forms: propagatione; putrefactione.

Decay; reproduction or propagation. Allegedly spontaneous organisms are contrasted with propagated ones, but both are required to have proper causes. References: IV.1.7, IV.1.14. See Putrefaction and propagation.

serere / plantare

serere / plantare. Printed forms: plantando; serendo.

To sow and plant. Ordinary cultivation is contrasted with the alleged spontaneous emergence of plants without bodily seed or shoot. References: IV.1.14. See Putrefaction and propagation.