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Donkey milk knowledge archive · Historical source
Aldrovandi (1616): how to keep and milk the she-ass for the sick
In the volume on solid-hoofed animals printed posthumously in 1616, the Bolognese naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi calls milk the foremost remedy the ass provides. He describes in detail how the she-ass should be kept and how her milk should be drawn for the sick.
- Author
- Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522–1605); edited from his papers by Johannes Cornelius Uterverius, published by Hieronymus Tamburinus
- Work
- De quadrupedibus solidipedibus volumen integrum, Bologna: Victorius Benatius 1616
- Passage
- Book I, ch. II “De asino” (from p. 295), section “Usus in medicina”, pp. 343–344
- Time & place
- 1616 (posthumous; Aldrovandi died in 1605) · Bologna
- Type of source
- Natural history (zoological compendium)
In the original words
What the original says
Inter illa autem lac precipuum semper vsum habuit, habet etiamque.
Among these [remedies from the ass], however, milk has always had the foremost use, and still has it.
Optimum erit, si asina sana sit, bene nutrita, iuuenis & non longè à partu.
It will be most suitable if the she-ass is healthy, well fed, young and not long past foaling.
Vbi mulgenda est asina, fiat in loco vicino cubiculo, ne lac ab aëre alteretur, & ne frigescat. Mulgeatur in vas duplex, hoc est, contineatur scyphus in alio vase pleno aquæ calidæ.
When the she-ass is to be milked, let it be done in a place near the sickroom, so that the milk is not altered by the air and does not grow cold. Let her be milked into a double vessel, that is, the cup should stand in another vessel full of warm water.
English rendering: our own translation by the DON DONKEY’S editorial team, following the sense of the text.
A look at the original
What the passage looks like
Page 343 of the first edition, Bologna 1616, with the heading “Usus in medicina” in the chapter on the ass and the rules for keeping and milking the she-ass.
The page comes from a freely accessible digitised copy. Click to open the passage at the library.
Biblioteca Nazionale di Napoli, Google-Digitalisat via Internet Archive; gemeinfrei (Public Domain Mark)
Background
Who, when, what kind of text
Ulisse Aldrovandi taught natural history at the University of Bologna and built up a large collection of animals, plants and minerals. Only a few volumes of his planned natural history appeared in his lifetime. The volume on solid-hoofed animals – horse, ass, mule and related animals – was compiled from his papers after his death by the Dutchman Johannes Cornelius Uterverius and printed in Bologna in 1616.
Aldrovandi’s chapters follow fixed headings: names, form, behaviour, proverbs, stories, use in the kitchen and “Usus in medicina”, medical use. The chapter on the ass begins on p. 295 and runs to several dozen pages. Like most naturalists of his time, Aldrovandi mainly gathers statements by earlier authors, here from Plutarch and Galen to Gessner.
Content
What the source reports about donkey milk
The section on medical use opens by stating that hardly any animal supplies more remedies than the ass, and that among them milk has always held first place. As evidence he retells an anecdote from Athens after Plutarch: the orator Pytheas mocked that a house into which ass’s milk was carried must be sick.
Practical rules follow. The she-ass should be healthy, well fed, young and not long past foaling. Her foal should be separated from her, she should be exercised a little every day and rubbed down with a strigil and rough cloths, and she should be fed good hay, oats, barley and herbs. Milking is to take place near the sickroom, into a cup standing in warm water, so that the milk does not cool.
On the following page Aldrovandi discusses whether ass’s milk is the “thinnest” of all milks, as Galen writes in one place, weighing Galen, Gessner, Pliny and Varro against each other.
At a glance
Figures & facts from the source
Timeline
Where this source stands in the history of donkey milk
Each dot is a source from our knowledge archive – from Greek antiquity to the present day.
Critical assessment
How reliable is this source?
Source value
An original print of 1616, verifiable page by page as a scan. The work is a compilation: much of it comes from earlier authors, especially Gessner’s book of animals of 1551. The milking rules nevertheless show what practical expectations people around 1600 had of ass’s milk for the sick.
Posthumous editing
Aldrovandi died in 1605. How much of the text is his own and how much was added by the editor Uterverius cannot be separated with certainty in every detail. The attribution to Aldrovandi follows the title page.
Today’s assessment
The rules rest on ancient humoral theory, for instance the worry that air could alter the milk. Drinking milk body-warm straight after milking is not advisable by today’s standards of food hygiene; raw milk should not be consumed without heating.
Our assessment
Aldrovandi is one of the few authors of his time to describe exactly how the she-ass should be kept and milked for milk production. For us this is an early glimpse of the practice behind donkey milk – from feeding to the milking vessel.
References
Sources to check
- Primary sourceUlisse Aldrovandi, De quadrupedibus solidipedibus volumen integrum, ed. Johannes Cornelius Uterverius and Hieronymus Tamburinus, Bologna: Victorius Benatius 1616, p. 343 (book I, ch. II “De asino”, section “Usus in medicina”); copy of the National Library of Naples, Google scan on the Internet Archive
https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_pvgxwFaHtTgC/page/n352/mode/1up - SupplementaryBeginning of the chapter “De asino. Cap. II” on p. 295 of the same edition
https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_pvgxwFaHtTgC/page/n305/mode/1up - SupplementaryContinuation on p. 344: discussion of whether ass’s milk is the “thinnest” milk (Galen, Gessner, Pliny, Varro)
https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_pvgxwFaHtTgC/page/n353/mode/1up
More sources and studies in the research archive. Summarised by the DON DONKEY’S editorial team, as of November 2026.