THREE CENTURIES' PERSPECTIVES 393
ter 4: "That a bever [sic] to escape the hunter, bites off his testicles
or stones"—a harsh tactic that, according to legend, either distracts
the pursuer or persuades him to settle for a meal smaller than an
entire body. Browne labels this belief as "a tenet very ancient; and
hath had thereby advantages of propagation.... The Egyptians
also failed in the ground of their hieroglyphick, when they ex-
pressed the punishment of adultery by the bever depriving himself
of his testicles, which was amongst them the penalty of such inconti-
nency."
Browne prided himself on using a mixture of reason and obser-
vation to achieve his debunking. He begins by trying to identify the
source of error—in this case a false etymological inference from the
beaver's Latin name, Castor, which does not share the same root with
"castration" (as the legend had assumed) but derives ultimately from
a Sanskrit world for "musk"; and an incorrect interpretation of pur-
poseful mutilation from the internal position, and therefore near
invisibility, of the beaver's testicles. He then cites the factual evi-
dence of intact males, and the reasoned argument that a beaver
couldn't even reach his own testicles if he wanted to bite them off
(and thus, cleverly, the source of common error—the external invis-
ibility of the testicles—becomes the proof of falsity!).
The testicles properly so called, are of a lesser magnitude, and seated in-
wardly upon the loins: and therefore it were not only a fruitless attempt,
but impossible act, to eunuchate or castrate themselves: and might be an
hazardous practice of art, if at all attempted by others.Book 7, Chapter 2 debunks the legend "that a man hath one rib
less than a woman"—"a common conceit derived from the history
of Genesis, wherein it stands delivered, that Eve was framed out of
a rib of Adam." (I regret to report that this bit of nonsense still
commands some support. I recently appeared on a nationally tele-
vised call-in show for high school students and one young woman,
a creationist, cited this "well-known fact" as proof of the Bible's
inerrancy and evolution's falsity.) Again, Browne opts for a mixture
of logic and observation in stating: "this will not consist with reason
or inspection." A simple count on skeletons (Browne was a physician
by trade) affirms equality of number between sexes. Moreover, rea-
son provides no argument for assuming that Adam's single loss
would be propagated to future members of his sex: