“Only a woman is an animal that menstruates. Through touching her
blood fruits will fail to get ripe. Mustard degenerates, grass dries up and
trees lose their fruit before time. Iron gets rusted and the air becomes dark.
When dogs eat it, they acquire rabies”.
Etymologiarum libri XI, 1; in Patres Latini 82, c.
414.
Isidore took the idea from J. Solinus’ third century
Collectanea rerum memorabilium (recogn. Mommsen, Berlin, 1864), p. 17,
which is in large measure dependent on Plinius’ Natural History.
