Hellebore and quails

Meaning

Veratre is hellebore in the historical botanical vocabulary. The quail example distinguishes the receiving body from the plant's power: a thing may be beneficial to one recipient and deadly to another without possessing simultaneous contrary effects in the same recipient.

II.3.4 says hellebore nourishes and fattens quails but kills humans, then expressly denies that it can nourish and kill the same quail, or poison and nourish a human, all at once. The qualification “in one and the same subject” carries the reasoning. This is an asserted historical example, not a safe-use claim or reliable advice about feeding wildlife. Its argumentative purpose is to defend the unity of a substance while allowing different effects through different recipients.

The English keeps both un mesme subject and tout ensemble. Note 136 gives the historical name without narrowing it to an unproved modern species or validating the toxicological assertion.