8 GENERATION OF INSECTS 



in penny prints in open stalls. This festive song describes 

 Bacchus in the act of sampling the Tuscan vintages, which 

 he praises and offers to Ariadne. 



In a sequel to this composition, v^ritten in similar 

 vein, Ariadne is ill from excessive potations, and tells 

 her maidens to bring water from all the fountains of 

 Europe, that her thirst may be quenched. From the 

 equal justice done both subjects, it is apparent that the 

 Author's mind was ever in equilibrium and that he ap- 

 preciated the value of opposite things. In true Ana- 

 creontic spirit, he sings of the vivifying power of wine, 

 and again he wisely lauds the healing virtue of water. 

 Indeed Redi was the first to reintroduce the use of 

 water in medical treatment, much to the disgust of his 

 father, Gregory, who disliked Hippocratian remedies and 

 preferred prescriptions " a mile long " after the Arabian 

 fashion. Francesco believed with Galen that Nature 

 possesses a healing power of her own, which the phy- 

 sician can only aid. Levi calls him " the Father of Tus- 

 can medicine." 



In the latter part of his life, Redi suffered from senile 

 debility and other ailments, but he bore all patiently, 

 and when a friend asked if he did not dread the approach 

 of death, he replied that it was useless to do so, as he 

 had never observed that death could be kept away through 

 fear. He died suddenly in Pisa, March ist, 1697. Abbe 

 Salvini writes of his end : " Death, his great enemy, 

 whom he had so often fearlessly encountered and de- 

 feated, not daring to look into his face, approached him 

 stealthily as he lay unconscious, and took him unawares, 

 so he passed in an instant from sleep to eternal repose." 



As has been said, Redi was able to delve deeply in the 

 Aristotelean mine of thought by aid of Galileo's meth- 



