But it may be that the reason why Apuleius abstains in the _Apology_ from suggesting any connection or confusion between magic and natural science is that the accusers have already laid far too much stress upon this point for his liking. He has been charged with the composition of a tooth-powder,[1078] with use of a mirror,[1079] with the purchase of a sea-hare, a poisonous mollusc, and two other fish appropriate from their obscene shapes and names for use as love-charms.[1080] He is said to have had a horrible wooden image or seal constructed secretly for use in his magic,[1081] to keep other instruments of his art mysteriously wrapped in a handkerchief in the house,[1082] and to have left in the vestibule of another house where he lodged “many feathers of birds” and much soot on the walls.[1083] All these charges make it evident that natural and artificial objects are, as in the _Metamorphoses_, considered essential or at least usual in performing magic. Moreover, so ready have the accusers shown themselves to interpret the interest of Apuleius in natural science as an evidence of the practice of magic by him, that he sarcastically remarks[1084] that he is glad that they were unaware that he had read Theophrastus _On beasts that bite and sting_ and Nicander _On the bites of wild beasts_ (usually called _Theriaca_),[1085] or they would have accused him of being a poisoner as well as a magician. [Sidenote: Medical and scientific knowledge of Apuleius.] Apuleius shows that he really is a student, if not an authority, in medicine and natural science. The gift of the tooth-powder and the falling of the woman in a fit were incidents of his occasional practice of medicine, and he also sees no harm in his seeking certain remedies from fish.[1086] He repeats Plato’s theory of disease from the _Timaeus_ and cites Theophrastus’s admirable work _On Epileptics_.[1087] Mention of the mirror starts him off upon an optical disquisition in which he remarks upon theories of vision and reflection, upon liquid and solid, flat and convex and concave mirrors, and cites the _Catoptrica_ of Archimedes.[1088] He also regards himself as an experimental zoologist and has conducted all his researches publicly.[1089] He procures fish in order to study them scientifically as Aristotle, Theophrastus, Eudemus, Lycon, and other pupils of Plato did.[1090] He has read innumerable books of this sort and sees no harm in testing by experience what has been written. Indeed he is himself writing in both Greek and Latin a work on _Natural Questions_ in which he hopes to add what has been omitted in earlier books and to remedy some of their defects and to arrange all in a handier and more systematic fashion. He has passages from the section on fishes in this work read aloud in court. [Sidenote: He repeats familiar errors.]