Questions concerning Aristotle’s On Animals

"This text, the Questions concerning Aristotle's On Animals [Quaestiones super de animalibus], recovered only at the beginning of the twentieth century and never before translated in its entirety, represents Conrad of Austria's report on a series of disputed questions that Albert the Great addressed in Cologne ca. 1258. The Questions, in nineteen books, mixes two distinct genres: the scholastic quaestio, with arguments pro et contra, a determination, and answers to the objections; and the straightforward question-and-response found, for example, in The Prose Salernitan Questions." "Here, even more dearly perhaps than in his slightly later and much larger paraphrastic commentary On Animals [De animalibus], Albert adduces his own views - often criticizing other medieval physicians and natural philosophers - on comparative anatomy, human physiology, sexuality, procreation, and embryology. This translation, based on the critical edition that appeared in the Cologne edition of Albert's work, helps to explain the title "patron saint of scientists" bestowed upon Albert by Pope Pius XII." "This work should find its audience among medievalists and historians of science and culture. More so than the massive On Animals, it should prove useful in the classroom as an encyclopedia or handbook of medieval life."--BOOK JACKET.