XXXV Here It Is Told of Master Thaddeus of Bologna
Master Thaddeus, as he was instructing his medical scholars, propounded that whoever should continue for nine days to eat egg-plant1 would go mad.
And he proved it according to the law of psychic2.
One of his scholars, hearing this lesson, decided to put it to the test. He began to eat egg-plant, and at the end of nine days went before his master and said: master, that lesson you read us is not true, because I have put it to the test, and I am not mad.
And he rose and showed him his behind.
Write, said the master, that all this about the egg-plant has been proved, and he wrote a fresh essay on the subject.
Notes
1 Solanum insanum. Another reading is melon.
2 Medicine or science.