Curiosities of Medical Experience
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SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION.
The singular fact of persons, more especially individuals who were in the habit of indulging in the use of spirituous liquors, having taken fire and been consumed, is authenticated beyond the slightest doubt.Little confidence, it is true, can be placed in the reports on this subject which occasionally appear in the newspapers of different countries; but many celebrated practitioners have witnessed and recorded the event, and physiologists have endeavoured to account for its causes.The celebrated Le Cat mentions a woman of Rheims, of the name of Millet, who was found consumed at the distance of two feet from her chimney; the room exhibited no appearance of fire, but of the unfortunate sufferer nothing was found except her skull, the bones of the lower extremities, and some vertebræ.A servant-girl was accused of the murder, and condemned to death; but on her appeal, and a subsequent investigation, her innocence was fully ascertained.
Joseph Battaglia, a surgeon of Ponte Bosio, relates the following case:—Don G.Maria Bertholi, a priest of Mount Valerius, went to the fair of Filetto, and afterwards visited a relation in Fenilo, where he intended to pass the night.Before retiring to rest, he was left reading his breviary; when, shortly afterwards, the family were alarmed by his loud cries and a strange noise in his chamber.On opening the door, he was lying prostrate on the floor, and surrounded by flickering flames.Battaglia was immediately sent for, and on his arrival the unfortunate man was found in a most deplorable state.The integuments of the arms and the back were either consumed or detached in hanging flaps.The sufferer was sufficiently sensible to give an account of himself.He said that he felt all of a sudden as if his arm had received a violent blow from a club, and at the same time he saw scintillations of fire rising from his shirt-sleeves, which were consumed without having burned the wrists; a handkerchief, which he had tied round his shoulders, between the shirt and the skin, was intact.His drawers were also sound; but, strange to say, his silk skull-cap was burnt, while his hair bore no marks of combustion.The unfortunate man only survived the event four days, when mortification of the burnt parts was most extensive, and the body emitted intolerable putrid effluvia.The circumstances which attended this case would seem to warrant the conclusion that the electric fluid was the chief agent in the combustion.
Bianchini relates the death of the Countess of Cornelia Bandi, of Cesena, who was in the habit of using frictions of camphorated spirits.She was found consumed close to her bedside.No traces of fire could be observed in the room—the very lights had been burnt down to their sockets; but the furniture, closets, and linen were covered with a grayish soot, damp and clammy.
The Annual Register mentions two facts of a similar nature which occurred in England, one at Southampton, the other at Coventry.In the transactions of the Royal Society of London, an extraordinary instance of combustion is also recorded.The fact is thus related.Grace Pitt, the wife of a fishmonger of Ipswich, aged about sixty, had contracted a habit, which she continued for several years, of coming down every night from her bedroom, half dressed, to smoke a pipe. On the night of the 9th of April, 1744, she got up from her bed as usual; her daughter who slept with her, did not perceive she was absent till next morning when she awoke; soon after which she put on her clothes, and going down into the kitchen, found her mother stretched out on her right side, with her head near the grate; the body extended on the hearth, with the legs on the floor, which were of deal, having the appearance of a log of wood consumed by a fire without any apparent flames. On beholding this spectacle, the girl run in great haste and poured over her mother’s body some water contained in two large vessels, in order to extinguish the fire, while the fetid odour and smoke that exhaled from the body almost suffocated some of the neighbours who had hastened to the girl’s assistance.
The trunk was in some measure incinerated, and resembled a heap of wood covered with white ashes.The head, the arms, the legs, and the thighs, had also participated in the burning.This woman, it is said, had drank a large quantity of spirituous liquor, in consequence of being overjoyed at hearing of the return of one of her daughters from Gibraltar.There was no fire in the grate, and the candle had burnt down to the socket of the candlestick, which was close to her.Besides, there were found close to the consumed body, the clothes of a child and a paper screen, which had sustained no injury from the fire.The dress of the woman consisted of a cotton gown.
It is possible that this accident may be attributed to the escape of hydrogen gas; the presence of this inflammable body in animals is evident, and it is also proved that it is liable to ignite.Morton saw flames coming from the body of a pig.Bonami and Ruysh, with a lighted candle, set fire to the vapour arising from the stomach of a woman whom they were opening.In the Memoirs of the Academy of Science of Paris, of 1751, we find the case of a butcher, who, on opening the body of an ox that had died after a malady which had swollen him considerably, was severely burnt by an explosion and a flame which rose to the height of about five feet.Sturm, Bartholini, and Gaubius record fiery eructations in which, no doubt, phosphurated hydrogen had been generated in the stomach, from some combination of alcohol and animal substances, and inflamed upon coming into contact with atmospheric air; the fetid odour which invariably accompanies these combustions appears to warrant the conclusion.Fodéré remarks that hydrogen gas is developed in certain cases of disease even in the living body, and he agrees with Mere in attributing spontaneous combustion to the united action of hydrogen and electricity. The case of a Bohemian peasant is narrated, who lost his life in consequence of ignited inflammable air issuing from his mouth which could not be extinguished. It seems evident that this accident only occurs under certain conditions of the body; generally in aged persons upwards of sixty years old; more frequently in women than in men, and chiefly when of indolent habits, a debilitated frame, and intemperate in their mode of living. That the body has been usually consumed long before the head and the extremities is evident, since these parts have been more commonly found than the trunk. It also has been ascertained by observation that this strange accident seldom occurs in summer, but principally during severe cold and frosty weather. It appears that some experiments have been recently made in the United States, when the blood flowing from the arm of a man addicted to spirituous liquors actually took fire, being placed in contact with a lighted taper!
Medical observers differ in opinion on this singular yet well-authenticated phenomenon.Lair, Vicy d’Argou, and Dupuytren maintain that to produce it, the contact of fire is necessary.Le Cat and Kopp, on the contrary, affirm that this combustion may be spontaneous without the intervention of any external agent, and resulting from some peculiar predisposition.According to Le Cat animals contain inflammable substances which ignite of themselves.De Castro relates the cases of several individuals from whom friction could draw sparks.Daniel Horstius mentions a gouty patient, from whose limbs, on being rubbed, vivid sparks arose.These physicians consider that these electric sparks are sufficient to ignite the spirituous liquor which may have saturated any organic tissue of the body, the combustion being afterwards fed by animal oil.
This theory is, however, subject to many objections.It is difficult to imagine that any substance introduced into the organ of digestion should retain its former principles of inflammability.Although Cuvier and Dumeril relate, that in opening the body of a man who died from excess of drinking, the effluvia of the liquor arose from every cavity.
On this subject, fraught with much interest, nothing positive has been ascertained, despite the late progress of chemical investigation.This combustion indeed differs widely from all other burning; sometimes a flickering and bluish flame arises; at other times a smothered heat or fire, without visible flames, is the consuming agent. Water increases the combustion instead of allaying it. It is moreover a well-known fact, that a considerable quantity of fuel is required to consume a dead body, whereas in this combustion, incineration is most rapid. The human body, indeed, is not easily consumed; a case is related of a baker-boy, named Renaud, who was sentenced to be burnt at Caen; two large cart-loads of fagots were required to consume the body, and at the end of more than ten hours, some remains were still visible.
The extreme incombustibility of the body was singularly exemplified in the case of Mrs. King, whose murderer was engaged for several weeks in endeavouring to burn her remains without effecting his purpose.
It has also been affirmed by various medical observers, that the human body will occasionally secrete an inflammable matter emitted by perspiration.Thus, it is stated, that the perspiration of the wife of a physician of the Archbishop of Toledo was of such a combustible nature, that a ribbon which she had worn, being exposed to the air, took fire.Borelli relates the case of a peasant, whose linen would ignite in a similar manner, whether it was laid up in a chest or hung up to dry.Amongst the many curious stories of the kind, we quote De Castro, who affirms that he knew a physician, from whose back-bone fire issued so vividly as to dazzle the eyes of the beholders.Krautius informs us, that certain people of the territory of Nivers (?)were burning with an invisible fire, and that some of them lopped off a foot or a hand to cut off the conflagration!
BRASSICA ERUCA, OR THE ROCKET PLANT.
This plant, now in total disuse, was considered by the ancients as a most powerful aphrodisiac, and consecrated to Venus.Hence Martial and Ovid—
Et Venerem revocans eruca morantem.
——
Nec minus erucas jubeo vitare salaces.
But the most curious document regarding this obnoxious weed is found in Lobel, who states that it was carefully cultivated in the gardens of monasteries and nunneries, to preserve their chastity.
“Hæc eruca, major Hispanica, vel quia in condimentis lautior, vel ad venerem vegetior erat, gentilis vulgò vocata fuit; quo vocabulo Hispanica et Itala gens designat quamlibet rem aptam reddere hominem lætum et experrectum ad munia vulgò pausibilia, ut joca ludicra et venerem; quæ commoda ut ex eâ perciperet monachorum saginata caterva, in perquàm amœna Magalonæ, insula maris Narbonensis, hujus gentilis erucæ semine à fratre quodam Hispano ambulone donato, quotannis hocce serebat, et in mensis cuilibet, vel maximo gulæ irritamento, vel blandimento, præferebat; nimirum usu gnara quantum frequens esus conferret ad calorem venereum in illis otio et frequenti crapula obrutum, ad vigorem animi excitandum, et præsertim corpus obesum extenuandum, somnumque excutiendum, quo illi veluti ursi gliresve tota hyeme saginati, fermè adipe suffocabantur.Verùm isto Hispanico remedio adeò hilarescebant et gentiles fiebant, ut plerumque recinctis lumbis castitate, coacti essent vota et cœnobii mœnia transilire, et aliquid solatii venerei ab vicinis plebanis efflagitare.Nobis hæc visa et risa.Eruca verò inibi superstes est copiosissima, monumentum futura monasticæ castitatis et rei veritatis.”—Adv.p.68.
CAGLIOSTRO.
The first appellation the Grecians gave to those who exercised the art of healing was iatros. Originally it merely signified a man possessed of the power of relieving accidents, either by manual exertions, or the hidden virtues of some amulet or charm. Sextus tells us that in ancient times it applied to an extractor of arrows, sagittarum extractorNo doubt, this operation constituted the chief business of the surgeon in the infancy of the art; and warriors and heroes themselves performed it on the field of battle, as fully exemplified in Homer.
The primitive title of iatros gradually descended to surgical practitioners. We find that Nebrus and Heraclides were the chief iaters of Cos, the birthplace of Hippocrates. To this day the same name is given to medical men in Greece, where, until lately, they were in the habit of perambulating the streets, and seeking occupation by crying out at certain distances, Callos iatros! (The good doctor!) Balsamo, a celebrated mountebank, being at Cairo, where he died, one of his disciples repaired to Europe, and, anxious to bear a singular name, assumed this cry, and called himself Calloiatro, or, according to the corrupt pronunciation, Cagliostro: his history is well known, and he certainly excelled in impudence and industry all his predecessors. These Greek iaters, when going over to Italy to practise, called themselves medici, which Cato wanted to change into mendici, for, said he, “These creatures, (Illi Græculi,) quit their native country, where they were starving, to seek their fortune in Rome (ut fortunam sibi mendicent).” Under this austere censor few of these emigrants dared to settle in the Roman territories, but after his demise they inundated the country to such an extent, that it was said that Rome had more physicians than patients who needed their attendance. This influx of practitioners occasioned constant competition, and each iater endeavoured to obtain fame and emolument by underrating his opponents, and endeavouring to introduce novel doctrines, seeking a livelihood, as Pliny observed, inter mortes et mendaciaIt was on these adventurers that the following epigram was written:
Fingunt se cuncti medicos,—idiota, sacerdos,
Judæus, monachus, histrio, rasor, anus.
The quackery of these candidates for popularity became the subject of bitter satire; and Martial thus speaks of the Iatre Symmachus:
Languebam, sed tu comitatus protinus ad me
Venisti centum, Symmache, discipulis;
Centum me tetigere manus, aquilone gelatæ,
Non habui febrem, Symmache; nunc habeo.[7]
This Symmachus, it appears, invariably moved abroad surrounded by hundreds of his disciples, whose cold investigating hands produced upon their patients the effects to which Martial alludes.
LUNAR INFLUENCE ON HUMAN LIFE AND DISEASES.
The ancients, who were chiefly guided in their medical notions by the simple operations of nature, attached great importance to the influence of the moon.As the stars directed their navigators, so did the planets in some degree regulate their other calculations.Finding that the state of the weather materially acted on our organism whether in health or in sickness, they attributed this influence to the appearance of the moon, which generally foretold the vicissitudes in the atmospheric constitution.Thus Hippocrates advises his son Thessalus to study numbers and geometry, as the knowledge of astronomy was indispensable to a physician, the phenomena of diseases being dependent on the rising or the setting of the stars.Aristotle informs his disciples that the bodies of animals are cold in the decrease of the moon, that blood and humours are then put into motion, and to these revolutions he ascribes various derangements of women.To enter into these medical opinions would be foreign to the present purpose, but the notions of the ancients regarding lunar influence in other matters are curious.
Lucilius, the Roman satirist, says that oysters and echini fatten during lunar augmentation; which also, according to Gellius, enlarges the eyes of cats: but that onions throw out their buds in the decrease of the moon, and wither in her increase, an unnatural vegetation, which induced the people of Pelusium to avoid their use.Horace also notices the superiority of shell-fish in the increase.
Pliny not only recognises this influence on shell-fish, but observes, that the streaks on the livers of rats answer to the days of the moon’s age; and that ants never work at the time of any change: he also informs us that the fourth day of the moon determines the prevalent wind of the month, and confirms the opinion of Aristotle that earthquakes generally happen about the new moon.The same philosopher maintains that the moon corrupts all slain carcasses she shines upon; occasions drowsiness and stupor when one sleeps under her beams, which thaw ice and enlarge all things; he further contends, that the moon is nourished by rivers, as the sun is fed by the sea.Galen asserts that all animals that are born when the moon is falciform, or at the half-quarter, are weak, feeble, and shortlived; whereas those that are dropped in the full moon are healthy and vigorous.
In more modern times the same wonderful phenomena have been attributed to this planet.The celebrated Ambroise Paré observed, that people were more subject to the plague at the full.Lord Bacon partook of the notions of the ancients, and he tells us that the moon draws forth heat, induces putrefaction, increases moisture, and excites the motion of the spirits; and, what was singular, this great man invariably fell into a syncope during a lunar eclipse.
Van Helmont affirms, that a wound inflicted by moonlight is most difficult to heal; and he further says, that if a frog be washed clean, and tied to a stake under the rays of the moon in a cold winter night, on the following morning the body will be found dissolved into a gelatinous substance bearing the shape of the reptile, and that coldness alone without the lunar action will never produce the same effect.Ballonius, Diemerbroeck, Ramazzini, and numerous celebrated physicians, bear ample testimony to its baneful influence in pestilential diseases.The change observed in the disease of the horse called moon-blindness is universally known and admitted.
Many modern physicians have stated the opinions of the ancients as regards lunar influence in diseases, but none have pushed their inquiries with such indefatigable zeal as the late Dr. Mosely; he affirms that almost all people in extreme age die at the new or at the full moon, and this he endeavours to prove by the following records:
Thomas Parr died at the age of 152, two days after the full moon.
Henry Jenkins died at the age of 169, the day of the new moon.
Elizabeth Steward, 124, the day of the new moon.
William Leland, 140, the day after the new moon.
John Effingham, 144, two days after full moon.
Elizabeth Hilton, 121, two days after the full moon.
John Constant, 113, two days after the new moon.
The doctor then proceeds to show, by the deaths of various illustrious persons, that a similar rule holds good with the generality of mankind:
Chaucer, 25th October 1400, the day of the first quarter.
Copernicus, 24th May 1543, day of the last quarter.
Luther, 18th February 1546, three days after the full.
Henry VIII, 28th January 1547, the day of the first quarter.
Calvin, 27th May 1564, two days after the full.
Cornaro, 26th April 1566, day of the first quarter.
Queen Elizabeth, 24th March 1603, day of the last quarter.
Shakspeare, 23rd April 1616, day after the full.
Camden, 9th November 1623, day before the new moon.
Bacon, 9th April 1626, one day after last quarter.
Vandyke, 9th April 1641, two days after full moon.
Cardinal Richelieu, 4th December 1642, three days before full moon.
Doctor Harvey, 30th June 1657, a few hours before the new moon.
Oliver Cromwell, 3rd September 1658, two days after full moon.
Milton, 15th November 1674, two days before the new moon.
Sydenham, 29th December 1689, two days before the full moon.
Locke, 28th November 1704, two days before the full moon.
Queen Anne, 1st August 1714, two days after the full moon.
Louis XIV, 1st September 1715, a few hours before the full moon.
Marlborough, 16th June 1722, two days before the full moon.
Newton, 20th March 1726, two days before the new moon.
George I, 11th June 1727, three days after new moon.
George II, 25th October 1760, one day after full moon.
Sterne, 13th September 1768, two days after new moon.
Whitfield, 18th September 1770, a few hours before the new moon.
Swedenburg, 19th March 1772, the day of the full moon.
Linnæus, 10th January 1778, two days before the full moon.
The Earl of Chatham, 11th May 1778, the day of the full moon.
Rousseau, 2nd July 1778, the day after the first quarter.
Garrick, 20th January 1779, three days after the new moon.
Dr. Johnson, 14th December 1784, two days after the new moon.
Dr. Franklin, 17th April 1790, three days after the new moon.
Sir Joshua Reynolds, 23rd February 1792, the day after the new moon.
Lord Guildford, 5th August 1722, three days after the full moon.
Dr. Warren, 23rd June 1797, a day before the new moon.
Burke, 9th July 1797, at the instant of the full moon.
Macklin, 11th July 1797, two days after full moon.
Wilkes, 26th December 1797, the day of the first quarter.
Washington, 15th December 1799, three days after full moon.
Sir W. Hamilton, 6th April 1803, a few hours before the full moon.
The doctor winds up this extract from the bills of mortality by the following appropriate remark: “Here we see the moon, as she shines on all alike, so she makes no distinction of persons in her influence:
“———æquo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas,
Regumque turres.”
Hor. Lib. i. Od. 4.
Not only did the ancients consider the animal creation as constantly under planetary influence, but all vegetable productions and medicinal substances were subject to its laws. The Druids of Gaul and Britain gathered the famed misletoe with a golden knife when the moon was six days old. The vervain, held in such high repute by the Romans, was gathered, after libations of honey and wine, at the rising of the dog-star, and with the left hand, and thus collected served, for various sacerdotal and medical purposes: its branches were employed to sweep the temples of Jupiter; it was used in exorcisms for sprinkling lustral water; and moreover it cured fevers, the bite of venomous reptiles, and appeased discord; hence it was borne by those heralds who were sent to sue for peace, and called verbenarii; and when its benign powers were shed over the festive board, mirth and good temper were sure to prevail.So generally and so highly appreciated was this all-powerful plant, that Pliny tells us,
Nulla herba Romanæ nobilitatis plus habet quam hierabotane.
However, it is somewhat doubtful whether the vervain of the ancients was similar to the plant which now bears that name. It would appear that formerly the appellation of verbenæ or sagmina was given to various plants employed in religious ceremonies: and branches of pine-tree, of laurel, and of myrtle were sometimes thus denominated. Virgil says in his Eclogues,
Verbenasque adole pingues, et mascula thura.
Now the epithets of pingues and thura cannot apply to our vervain, but to some resinous production.
Medicine at that period might have been called an astronomic science; every medicinal substance was under a specific influence, and to this day the R which precedes prescriptions, and is admitted to represent the first letter of recipe, was in fact the symbol of Jupiter, under whose special protection medicines were exhibited.Every part of the body was then considered under the influence of the zodiacal constellations, and Manilius gives us the following description of their powers:
Namque Aries capiti, Taurus cervicibus hæret;
Brachia sub Geminis censentur, pectora Cancro;
Te, scapulæ, Nemæe, vocant, teque ilia, Virgo;
Libra colit clunes, et Scorpius inguine regnat;
Et femur Arcitenens, genua et Capricornus amavit;
Cruraque defendit Juvenis, vestigia, Pisces.
Astronomicon, lib.1.
SPECTACLES.
The origin of these valuable instruments is uncertain: that the ancients were acquainted with the laws of refraction is beyond all doubt, since they made use of glass globes filled with water to produce combustion; and in Seneca we find the following very curious passage—“Litteræ, quamvis minutiæ et obscuræ, per vitream pilam aquâ plenam majores clarioresque cernuntur;” yet thirteen centuries elapsed ere spectacles were known. It is supposed that they were first invented by Salvino or Salvinio Armati; but he kept his discovery secret, until Alessandro de Spina, a monk in Pisa, brought them into use in 1313. Salvino was considered their inventor, from the epitaph on his tomb in the cathedral church in Florence: “Qui giace Salvino d’Armato, degl’ Armati di Firenze, inventor delli occhiali, &c. , 1317.” Another circumstance seems to add weight to this presumption: Luigi Sigoli, a contemporary artist, in a painting of the Circumcision, represents the high-priest Simeon with a pair of spectacles, which, from his advanced age, it was supposed he might have needed on the occasion.
LEECHES.
The origin of their introduction in the practice of medicine is uncertain. They were well known to the ancients under the name of hirudoThus Horace:
Non missura cutem nisi plena cruoris hirudo.
The Greeks called them Βôελλα, and Pliny states that elephants were often cruelly tormented by them when they swallowed any of these worms in their water: “Cruciatum in potu maximum sentiunt haustâ hirudine, quam sanguisugam vulgo cœpisse appellari adverto.”
Leeches are oviparous, and their ova are discharged in one involucre near the surface and margin of pools, and are hatched by the heat of the sun.They do not cast their skin, as is generally supposed, but merely throw off a tough slimy membrane, which appears to be produced by disease, and from which they get disencumbered by straining themselves through grass and rushes.During winter they remain in a torpid state.They are most tenacious of life; some say they can live for several days in the exhausted receiver of the air-pump, and in other media destructive of other animals.This phenomenon is attributed to the slow oxygenation of the blood in the respiratory vesicles.
In regard to their food we are ignorant, although Dr. Johnson says that they live by sucking the blood of fish and reptiles.
The collection of leeches constitutes a lucrative trade on the Continent, but more particularly in France, where it is called a leech-fishery, and where, in Paris alone, three millions are annually consumed. The following is an interesting description of the miserable people engaged in this occupation from the Gazette des Hôpitaux
“If ever you pass through La Brenne, you will see a man, pale and straight-haired, with a woollen cap on his head, and his legs and arms naked; he walks along the borders of a marsh, among the spots left dry by the surrounding waters.This man is a leech-fisher.To see him from a distance,—his wobegone aspect, his hollow eyes, his livid lips, his singular gestures, you would take him for a maniac.If you observe him every now and then raising his legs and examining them one after another, you might suppose him a fool; but he is an intelligent leech-fisher. The leeches attach themselves to his legs and feet as he moves among their haunts; he feels their bite, and gathers them as they cluster about the roots of the bulrushes and aquatic weeds, or beneath the stones covered with a green and slimy moss. He may thus collect ten or twelve dozen in three or four hours. In summer, when the leeches retire into deep water, the fishers move about upon rafts made of twigs and rushes. One of these traders was known to collect, with the aid of his children, seventeen thousand five hundred leeches in the course of a few months; these he had deposited in a reservoir, where, in night, they were all frozen en masse.”But congelation does not kill them, and they can easily be thawed into life, by melting the ice that surrounds them.Leeches, it appears, can bear much rougher usage than one might imagine: they are packed up closely in wet bags, carried on pack-saddles, and it is well known that they will attach themselves with more avidity when rubbed in a dry napkin previous to their application.Leech-gatherers are in general short-lived, and become early victims to agues, and other diseases brought on by the damp and noxious air that constantly surrounds them; the effects of which they seek to counteract by the use of strong liquors.
Leeches kept in a glass bottle may serve as a barometer, as they invariably ascend or descend in the water as the weather changes from dry to wet, and they generally rise to the surface prior to a thunder-storm.They are most voracious, and are frequently observed to destroy one another by suction; the strong ones attaching themselves to the weaker.
The quantity of blood drawn by leeches has been a subject of much controversy; but it is pretty nearly ascertained that a healthy leech, when fully gorged, has extracted about half an ounce.When they will not readily fix, Dr. Johnson recommends that they be put into a cup of porter.The cause of a leech falling off when full is not clearly ascertained, but it is supposed to arise from a state of asphyxia brought on by the compression of the breathing vesicles, and the distension of the alimentary tube.
Many serious accidents have arisen from leeches being swallowed in the water of swamps and marshes, too frequently drunk with avidity by the thirsty and exhausted soldier.Larrey mentions several cases of the kind during the French campaign in Egypt, and two fatal instances fell under my observation during the Peninsular war; draughts of salt water, vinegar, and various stimulating injections could not loosen their hold, and they were too deeply attached in the throat to be seized with a forceps. Zacutus Lusitanus had witnessed the same unfortunate results. The leech thus swallowed is generally the hirudo Alpina
Norfolk supplies the greater part of the leeches brought to London, but they are also found in Kent, Suffolk, Essex, and Wales.The leeches imported from France differ from ours, in having the belly of one uniform colour.The best are the green, with yellow stripes along the body.The horse-leech, which is used in the north of Europe, but also common in England, is entirely brown, or only marked with a marginal yellow line.A popular belief prevails, that the application of this variety is most dangerous, as they are said to suck out all the blood in the body.
SOMNAMBULISM.
This singular aberration from our natural habits may be considered an intermediate state between sleeping and being awake. This infraction of physiologic laws may therefore be looked upon as a morbid condition. Physicians have given it various denominations, founded on its phenomena, nocti-vagatio, nocti-surgium, noct-ambulatio, somnus vigilans, vigilia somnansSomnambulism was well known by the ancients; and Aristotle tells us, “there are individuals who rise in their sleep, and walk about seeing as clearly as those that are awake.”
Diogenes Laertius states that Theon the philosopher, was a sleep-walker.Galen slept whilst on a road, and pursued his journey until he was awakened by tripping on a stone.Felix Plater fell asleep while playing on the lute, and was only startled from his slumbers by the fall of the instrument.There is no doubt but that in somnambulists the intellectual functions are not only active, but frequently more developed than when the individual is awake.Persons in this state have been known to write and correct verses, and solve difficult problems, which they could not have done at other times.In their actions and locomotion they are more cautious, and frequently more dexterous, than when awake.They have been known to saddle and bridle horses, after having dressed themselves; put on boots and spurs, and afterwards ride considerable distances from home and back again. A sleep-walker wandering abroad in winter complained of being frozen, and asked for a glass of brandy, but expressed violent anger on being offered a glass of water. The celebrated sect of Tremblers, in the Cevennes mountains, used to rove about in their sleep, and, although badly acquainted with the French language, expressed themselves clearly and put up prayers in that tongue, instead of the Latin Pater and Credo which they had been taught. A singular phenomenon in some cases of this affection is that of walking about without groping, whether the eyelids are closed or open. Somnambulism has been known to be hereditary: Horstius mentions three brothers who were affected with it at the same period; Willis knew a whole family subject to it. It is not generally known that the subject of the French dramatic piece called “La Somnambule” was founded on fact.
Singular faculties have been developed in the mental condition.Thus a case is related of a woman in the Edinburgh infirmary, who during her paroxysm not only mimicked the manner of the attendant physicians, but repeated correctly some of their prescriptions in Latin.
Dr. Dyce, of Aberdeen, describes the case of a girl, in which this affection began with fits of somnolency, which came upon her suddenly during the day, and from which she could at first be roused by shaking or by being taken into the open air.During these attacks she was in the habit of talking of things that seemed to pass before her like a dream, and was not at the time sensible of any thing that was said to her.On one occasion she repeated the entire of the baptismal service of the Church of England, and concluded with an extemporary prayer.In her subsequent paroxysms she began to understand what was said to her, and to answer with a considerable degree of consistency, though these replies were in a certain measure influenced by her hallucination.She also became capable of following her usual employment during the paroxysm.At one time she would lay out the table for breakfast, and repeatedly dress herself and the children, her eyes remaining shut the whole time.The remarkable circumstance was now discovered, that, during the paroxysm, she had a distinct recollection of what had taken place in former attacks, though she had not the slightest recollection of it during the intervals.She was taken to church during the paroxysm, and attended the service with apparent devotion, and at one time was so affected by the sermon that she actually shed tears; yet in the interval she had no recollection whatever of the circumstance, but in the following paroxysm she gave a most distinct account of it, and actually repeated the passage of the sermon that had so much affected her. This sort of somnambulism, relating distinctly to two periods, has been called, perhaps erroneously, a state of double consciousness
This girl described the paroxysm as coming on with a dimness of sight and a noise in the head.During the attack, her eyelids were generally half shut, and frequently resembled those of a person labouring under amaurosis, the pupil dilated and insensible.Her looks were dull and vacant, and she often mistook the person who was speaking to her.The paroxysms usually lasted an hour, but she often could be roused from them.She then yawned and stretched herself like a person awakening from sleep, and instantly recognised those about her.At one time Dr. Dyce affirms, she read distinctly a portion of a book presented to her, and she would frequently sing pieces of music more correctly and with better taste than when awake.
In illustration of the phenomena of the preceding case, Dr. Abercrombie gives the following very curious history: “A girl, aged seven years, an orphan of the lowest rank, residing in the house of a farmer, by whom she was employed in tending cattle, was accustomed to sleep in an apartment separated by a very thin partition from one which was frequently occupied by an itinerant fiddler.This person was a musician of very considerable skill, and often spent a part of the night in performing pieces of a refined description; but his performance was not taken notice of by the child, except as a disagreeable noise.After a residence of six months in this family she fell into bad health, and was removed to the house of a benevolent lady, where, on her recovery after a protracted illness, she was employed as a servant.Some years after she came to reside with this lady, the most beautiful music was often heard in the house during the night, which excited no small interest and wonder in the family; and many a waking hour was spent in endeavours to discover the invisible minstrel.At length the sound was traced to the sleeping-room of the girl, who was found fast asleep, but uttering from her lips a sound exactly resembling the sweetest tones of a small violin.On further observation it was found, that after being about two hours in bed, she became restless and began to mutter to herself; she then uttered sounds precisely resembling the tuning of a violin, and at length, after some prelude, dashed off into an elaborate piece of music, which she performed in a clear and accurate manner, and with a sound exactly resembling the most delicate modulation of the instrument, and then began exactly where she had stopped in the most correct manner. These paroxysms occurred at irregular intervals, varying from one to fourteen and even twenty nights; and they were generally followed by a degree of fever and pain over various parts of the body.
“After a year or two, her music was not confined to the imitation of the violin, but was often exchanged for that of a piano, of a very old description, which she was accustomed to hear in the house in which she now lived, and then she would begin to sing, imitating exactly the voices of several ladies of the family.
“In another year from this time she began to talk a great deal in her sleep, in which she fancied herself instructing a young companion. She often descanted with the utmost fluency and correctness on a variety of subjects, both political and religious, the men of the day, the historical parts of Scripture, public characters, and particularly the character of the members of the family and their visiters. In these discussions she showed the most wonderful discrimination, often combined with sarcasm, and astonishing powers of mimickry. Her language through the whole was fluent and correct, and her illustrations often forcible and even eloquent. She was fond of illustrating her subjects by what she called a fable, and in these, her imagery was both appropriate and correct.The justice and truth of her remarks on all subjects, excited the utmost astonishment in those who were acquainted with her limited means of acquiring information.
“She had been known to conjugate correctly Latin verbs, which she had probably heard in the school room of the family, and she was once heard to speak several sentences very correctly in French, at the same time stating that she had heard them from a foreign gentleman whom she had met accidentally in a shop.Being questioned on this subject when awake, she remembered having seen the gentleman, but could not repeat a word of what he had said.
“During her paroxysms it was almost impossible to awake her, and when her eyelids were raised and a candle brought near the eye, the pupil seemed insensible to the light.For several years she was, during the paroxysm, entirely unconscious of the presence of other persons, but about the age of sixteen, she began to observe those who were in the apartment, and she could tell correctly their number though the utmost care was taken to have the room darkened. She now also became capable of answering questions that were put to her, and of noticing remarks made in her presence, and, with regard to both, she showed astonishing acuteness. Her observations indeed were often of such a nature, and corresponded so accurately with character and events, that, by the country people, she was believed to be endowed with supernatural power.
“During the whole period of this remarkable affection, which seems to have gone on for at least ten or eleven years, she was, when awake, a dull awkward girl, very slow in receiving any kind of instruction, though much care was bestowed upon her; and in point of intellect, she was much inferior to the other servants of the family.In particular, she showed no kind of turn for music.She did not appear to have any recollection of what passed in her sleep; but during her nocturnal ramblings, she was more than once heard to lament her infirmity of speaking in her sleep, adding how fortunate it was she did not sleep among the other servants, as they teased her enough about it as it was.
“About the age of twenty-one she became immoral in her conduct, and was dismissed the family.Her propensity to talk in her sleep continued to the time of her dismissal, but a great change had taken place in her nocturnal conversation.It had gradually lost its acuteness and brilliancy, and latterly became the mere babbling of a vulgar mind, often mingled with insolent remarks against her superiors, and the most profane scoffing at morality and religion.It is believed that she afterwards became insane.”
To what serious reflections does not this curious history give rise.Here there did unquestionably exist a double existence.The one a relative being surrounded with the realities of life; the other a natural condition, unshackled by constraint, and left entirely to the wild enjoyment of a luxuriant fancy and an apprehension quick and brilliant.In the former, the young creature found herself derided and degraded by her vulgar companions; her generous infirmities, if such they may be called, made the subject of low ribaldy.In her second existence, she became the free child of nature.
Might not proper care have saved this interesting creature from misery! It is admitted that “much care had been bestowed upon her instruction,” but was she withdrawn from the low circle that surrounded her and placed in a society where, in her waking hours, she could have derived those advantages of a superior intercourse, which might have worked upon her vivid imagination as powerfully as the melodious sounds she had heard at other times? “She became immoral—scoffed at religion”—in her sleep. She was then in a state of nature; unconscious, to a certain extent, of immorality and religion, although conscious, no doubt, of relative good and evil. Is it not more than probable that when awake, not only were her ears assailed by profane and improper language, but is it not most likely that her ruin was perpetrated during her visionary slumbers, and ever after visited her mind during her paroxysms? Nor is it improbable that her affections had been bestowed upon her despoiler. Instead of being dismissed and cast upon the wide world, helpless, stigmatized, perhaps, with the odious epithet of witch—for we have seen that the lower order considered her such—might not a friendly hand have secured her in an abode where she might have been invited to COME and sin no more! Alas! no wonder that the poor creature should have become insane! It is said that she was obtuse in intellect when awake. May not this be accounted for in some measure, by the exhaustion of her mental faculties during her paroxysms? It is to be lamented that the learned and philosophic Dr. Abercrombie, who has given this history, did not comment upon it. True Christianity and its benevolence breath in every line of the eloquent writer, and the poor Scotch lassie might have afforded him a valuable theme. How proud would any humane person have felt in making this interesting object of pity what she might have been!
Dr. Dewar also relates the case of an ignorant servant-girl, who, during the paroxysm of somnambulism, showed an astonishing knowledge of geography and astronomy, and expressed herself, in her own language, in a manner which, though often ludicrous, showed an understanding of the subject. The alteration of the seasons, for example, she explained by saying the world was set a gee
In many cases of somnambulism the sleeper is able to continue the occupation that he had previously carried on.Martinet mentions a watchmaker’s apprentice, whose paroxysm came on once in the fortnight, and commenced in a sensation of heat ascending to the heart.This was followed by a confusion of thought and insensibility. His eyes were open, but fixed and vacant, and he was totally insensible to every thing around him. Yet he continued his usual employment, and was always much surprised when he awoke to find the progress that had taken place in his work. This case ended in epilepsy.
Horstius, whom we have already quoted, tells us of a noble youth of Breslau, living in the citadel, who used to steal out of a window during his sleep, muffled up in his cloak, and ascend the roof of the building, where one night he tore in pieces a magpie’s nest, wrapped up the little ones in his cloak, and returned to bed.The following morning he mentioned the circumstance as having occurred in a dream, but could not be persuaded of the reality of the circumstance till the magpies in the cloak were shown to him.
Dr. Abercrombie has given a very remarkable case of a young woman of low rank, who, at the age of 19, became insane, but was gentle, and applied herself eagerly to various occupations.Before her insanity she had been only learning to read and to form a few letters; but during her lunacy she taught herself to write perfectly, though all attempts of others had failed; she had intervals of reason, which frequently continued three weeks and sometimes longer.During these she could neither read nor write, but immediately on the return of her insanity, she recovered the power of writing and reading.
The faculty of conversing in a state of somnambulism is too well authenticated to be doubted, although in many instances it may have been a fraudulent trick of animal magnetism. This singular power has been recorded by several of the ancient writers, many of whom pretended that divine inspiration illumined the sleepers. Cicero tells us that when the Lacedæmonian magistrates were embarrassed in their administration, they went to sleep in the temple of Pasiphae, thus named from Pasi phainein, or “communicative to all.”Strabo mentions a cavern, sacred to Pluto and Juno, where the sick came to consult sleeping priests.Aristides is said to have delivered his opinion while fast asleep in the temple of Æsculapius.It would be endless to quote all the authorities on this subject.Modern magnetisers, however, outstrip the ancients in the wonders they relate in regard to somnambulent faculties developed by magnetism.In 1829, Cloquet, a very distinguished Parisian surgeon, assisted by Dr. Chapelain, removed the cancerous breast of a lady in her magnetic sleep, during which she continued her conversation, unconscious of the operation, which lasted twelve minutes.
The faculty of seeing through the closed eyelids was fully substantiated in the presence of a commission of investigation appointed by the Academy of Medicine of Paris, and in the presence of fifteen persons. They found a somnambulist, of the name of Paul, to all appearance fast asleep. On being requested to rise and approach the window, he complied immediately. His eyes were then covered in such a manner as not to awaken him, and a pack of cards having been shuffled by several persons, he recognised them without the slightest hesitation. Watches were then shown him, and he named the hour and minute, though the hands were repeatedly altered. A book was then presented to him,—it happened to be a collection of operas,—and he read Cantor et Pollux instead of Castor et Pollux, Tragédie Lyrique: a volume of Horace was then submitted to him, but not knowing Latin, he returned it, saying, “This is some church-book.”The celebrated Dr. Broussais laid before the same somnambulist a letter he had drawn from his pocket; to his utter surprise he read the first lines: the doctor then wrote a few words on a piece of paper in very small characters, which the somnambulist also read with the utmost facility; but, what was still more singular, when letters or books were applied to his breast, or between the shoulders, he also perused them with equal accuracy and ease.In one instance the queen of clubs was presented to his back; after a moment’s hesitation he said, “This a club—the nine;” he was informed that he was in error, when he recovered himself and said, “No, ’tis the queen:” a ten of spades was then applied, when he hastily exclaimed, “At any rate this is not a court-card; it is—the ten of spades.”
The many astute tricks played by animal magnetisers, and frequently detected, naturally induced most persons to doubt the veracity of these experiments; but when we find that they were witnessed by seventy-eight medical men, most of them decidedly hostile to magnetism, and sixty-three intelligent individuals not belonging to the profession, and in every respect disinterested, what are we to say?—perhaps, exclaim with Hamlet,
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy!
I cannot better conclude this article than by the following quotation from Dr. Pritchard’s valuable work:[8] “There is an obvious relation between the state of the faculties in somnambulism and that which exists during dreams. It is indeed probable that somnambulism is dreaming in a manner so modified, that the will recovers its usual power over muscular motion, and likewise becomes endued with a peculiar control over the organs of sense and perception.This power, which gives rise to the most curious phenomena of somnambulism, is of such a kind, that, while the senses are in general obscured, as in sleep, and all other objects are unperceived, the somnambulator manifests a faculty of seeing, feeling, or otherwise discovering those particular objects of which he is in pursuit, towards which his attention is by inward movement directed, or with which the internal operations of his mind bring him into relation.As in dreams, so likewise in somnambulism the individual is intent on the pursuit of objects towards which his mind had been previously directed in a powerful manner, and his attention strongly roused; he is in both states impelled by habit, under the influence of which he repeats the routine of his daily observances.A somnambulator is a dreamer who is able to act his dreams.”
MEDICAL POWERS OF MUSIC.
The powerful influence of music on our intellectual faculties, and consequently on our health, has long been ascertained, either in raising the energies of the mind, or producing despondency and melancholy associations of ideas.Impressed with its sublime nature, the ancients gave it a divine origin.Diodorus tells us that it was a boon bestowed on mankind after the deluge, and owed its discovery to the sound produced by the wind when whistling through the reeds that grew on the banks of the Nile.This science became the early study of philosophers and physicians.Herophilus explained the alterations of the pulse by the various modes and rhythms of music.In the sacred writings we have many instances of its influence in producing an aptitude for divine consolation.The derangement of Saul yielded to the harp of David, and the hand of the Lord came upon Elisha as the minstrel played.In Egypt certain songs were legally ordained in the education of youth, to promote virtue and morality.Polybius assures us that music was required to soften the manners of the Arcadians, whose climate was heavy and impure; while the inhabitants of Cynæthe, who neglected this science, were the most barbarous in Greece. The medical power of harmonious sounds was also fully admitted. We find Pythagoras directing certain mental disorders to be treated by music. Thales, called from Crete to Sparta, cured a disastrous pestilence by its means. Martinus Capella affirms that fevers were thus removed. Xenocrates cured maniacs by melodious sounds, and Asclepiades conquered deafness with a trumpet. In modern times it has been related of a deaf lady that she could only hear while a drum was beating, and a drummer was kept in the house for the purpose of enabling her to converse. Aulus Gellius tells us that a case of sciatica was cured by gentle modulations, and Theophrastus maintains that the bites of serpents and other venomous reptiles can be relieved by similar means. Ancient physicians, who attributed many diseases to the influence of evil spirits, fancied that harmonious sounds drove them away, more especially when accompanied by incantations; and we find in Luther, “that music is one of the most beautiful and glorious gifts of God, to which Satan is a bitter enemy.”
In more modern times we have several instances of the medical powers of music, and the effect produced by Farinelli on Philip of Spain is well known.This monarch was in such a deplorable state of despondency from ill health, that he refused to be shaved or to appear in public.On the arrival of Farinelli, the Queen was resolved to try the power of music, and a concert was ordered in a room adjoining the King’s chamber: Farinelli sang two of his best airs,[9] which so overcame Philip that he desired he might be brought into his presence, when he promised to grant him any reasonable request he might make. The performer, in the most respectful manner, then begged of the King to allow himself to be shaved and attended by his domestics, to which Philip consented. Farinelli continued to sing to him daily until a perfect cure was effected. —The story of Tartini is rather curious: in a moment of musical enthusiasm he fell asleep, when the devil appeared to him playing on the violin, bidding him with a horrible grin to play as well as he did; struck with the vision, the musician awoke, ran to his harpsichord, and produced the splendid sonata which he entitled “the Devil’s.”Brückmann, and Hufeland relate cases of St.Vitus’s dance, cured by music, which, according to Desessarts, also relieved Catalepsy.Schneider and Becker have ascertained its influence in hysteric and hypochondriac affections.
The following curious case is recorded by Paret:—“Une jeune fille d’environ 11 ans, fort prématurée relativement aux facultés, ayant le genre nerveux très sensible et très irritable, fut attaquée, il y a environ deux ans, de douleurs violentes dans tout le corps, avec insomnie, tension excessive et fort douleureuse des muscles de l’abdomen, accompagnée de fièvre.Deux ans après, des convulsions se déclarèrent, avec une violence qui surpassa tout ce que je craignais; les bonds, les élans, furent, pendant quatre or cinq jours et autant de nuits, si forts, qu’il fallait deux hommes pour retenir dans le lit la jeune personne, d’ailleurs faible et délicate.Enfin, je proposai d’employer la musique.On fit, en conséquence, entrer deux ménestriers, disposés à donner leur premier coup d’archet; à l’instant de leur apparition les convulsions cessèrent d’abord et-reparurent peu de tems après: on changea d’air, et les convulsions cessèrent encore pour reparaître, aussi au troisième air, qui sans doute se trouva plus au goût de la malade, elle demanda un violon, qu’on lui donna, et quoiqu’elle n’eût jamais fait d’autre essai, son œil fixé sur les joueurs, son attention fut si grande, et ses mouvemens si rapides, qu’elle suivait ceux des ménétriers sans causer aucune discordance.Des connaisseurs ne pouvaient s’empêcher de convenir de la justesse et de la précision qu’elle observait.Son oreille était même si délicate, qu’elle faisait des reproches aux ménétriers, qui, obligés de jouer une grande partie de la nuit, se trouvaient eux-mêmes dans le cas de manquer de mésure.
La petite malade continua de jouer pendant plus de 30 heures de suite, sans autre interruption que celle qu’il fallait pour prendre ses bouillons, et dans ce court intervalle on voyait les contractions des tendons se renouveller, quoique moins fortes.Les musiciens fatigués, elle se contenta de la voix, qu’elle accompagna de son instrument.Au bout de ce terme, un sommeil de six ou sept heures, qui vint très naturellement, produisit une augmentation de calme.Au réveil, on varia les exercices, et ainsi se termina la scène qui avait duré 48 heures, après laquelle les convulsions cessèrent totalement.Trois jours après, la malade se trouva parfaitement bien; et ne restait que des convulsions très faibles, et la maladie se termina après trois mois de durée.”
A still more singular effect of music is related by Roger in the case of a poor wretch broken upon the wheel.In his agonies he blasphemed in the most fearful manner, and cordially damned the spiritual comforter who sought to reconcile him to his sufferings. Some itinerant musicians chanced to pass by, they were stopped by the priest and requested to play to the patient, when to the surprise of all around, he seemed relieved, and became so tranquil, that he attended with calm resignation to their exhortations, confessed his manifold offences, and died like a good Christian.
Rousseau, who entertained a sovereign contempt for French music, observes, that the Cantates of Bernier cured the fever of a French musician, while they most probably would have given a fever to a musician of any other country.
This remark of Rousseau reminds me of the French philosophical traveller (I believe it was Diderot), who on his journey to London from Dover, while horses were changing, had the curiosity to see a sick ostler with a raging fever attended by a country practitioner, who, despairing most probably of his patient, said, that he might be allowed to eat any thing he wished for.The man asked for a red-herring, which was forthwith given to him.Our tourist, generalizing like most of his brethren, immediately noted in his diary—English Physicians allow red-herrings to fever patients
Some months after he changed horses at the same inn, and asked how long the unfortunate creature had survived his herring, when, to his utter surprise, he was informed that the hale, hearty fellow who was bringing out the relays, was the very man.He of course pulled out his journal and entered—red-herrings cure the fever of Englishmen
Our traveller crossed over, and having accidentally seen in a French inn a poor devil whose case appeared to him similar to the sturdy ostler, he ventured to prescribe a similar remedy, which the patient only survived an hour or two; when his death was announced, he philosophically shrugged up his shoulders, and wrote in his book—Though red-herrings cure fevers in England, they most decidedly kill in France
Mad musicians seem to be more mad than others; for Fodéré gives us the following strange account of some of them.“Les plus grands musiciens ne reconnaissent souvent plus leurs instruments: l’un prenant son violon, que je lui avais mis dans les mains, pour un vase de nuit, et un autre prenant sa flûte pour un sabre, et voulait m’en frapper.”
We, however, frequently meet with lunatics who, although they have no remembrance of the past circumstances of their life, recollect and perform airs which they had formerly played.
Various well-authenticated cases lead us to suppose, that a sensibility to music long latent may be called into action by accidental circumstances. A case is on record of a countrywoman, twenty-eight years of age, who had never left her village, but was, by mere chance, present at a fête where a concert was performed, and dancing to a full band afterwards followed. She was delighted with the novelty of the scene; but, the fête concluded, she could not dismiss from her mind the impression the music had produced. Whether she was at her meals, her devotions, her daily occupation, or in her bed,—still, or moving about,—the airs she had heard, and in the succession in which they had been performed, were ever present to her recollection. To sleep she became a stranger,—every function became gradually deranged, and six short months terminated her existence, not having for one moment lost this strange sensation; and during this sad period, when any false note on the violin was purposely drawn, she would hold her head with both hands, and exclaim, “Oh! what a horrible note! it tears my brain!”
Sir Henry Halford relates the case of a man in Yorkshire, who after severe misfortunes lost his senses, and was placed in a lunatic asylum.There, in a short time, the use of the violin gradually restored him to his intellects; so promptly, indeed, that six weeks after the experiment, on hearing the inmates of the establishment passing by, he said, “Good morning, gentlemen; I am quite well, and shall be most happy to accompany you.”
Curious anecdotes are related of the effect of music upon animals.Marville has given the following amusing account of his experiments.“While a man was playing on a trump-marine, I made my observations on a cat, a dog, a horse, an ass, a hind, some cows, small birds, and a cock and hens, who were in a yard under the window: the cat was not the least affected; the horse stopped short from time to time, raising his head up now and then as he was feeding on the grass; the dog continued for above an hour seated on his hind-legs, looking steadfastly at the player; the ass did not discover the least indication of his being touched, eating his thistles peaceably; the hind lifted up her large wide ears, and seemed very attentive; the cows slept a little, and, after gazing at us, went forward; some little birds that were in an aviary, and others on trees and bushes, almost tore their little throats with singing; but the cock, who minded only his hens, and the hens, who were solely employed in scraping a neighbouring dunghill, did not show in any manner that the trump-marine afforded them pleasure.” That dogs have an ear for music cannot be doubted: Steibelt had one which evidently knew one piece of music from the other: and a modern composer, my friend, Mr. Nathan, had a pug-dog that frisked merrily about the room when a lively piece was played, but when a slow melody was performed, particularly Dussek’s Opera 15, he would seat himself down by the piano, and prick up his ears with intense attention until the player came to the forty-eighth bar; as the discord was struck, he would yell most piteously, and with drooping tail seek refuge from the unpleasant sound under the chairs or tables.[10]
Eastcot relates that a hare left her retreat to listen to some choristers who were singing on the banks of the Mersey, retiring whenever they ceased singing, and reappearing as they recommenced their strains.Bossuet asserts, that an officer confined in the Bastille drew forth mice and spiders to beguile his solitude with his flute; and a mountebank in Paris had taught rats to dance on the rope in perfect time.Chateaubriand states as a positive fact, that he has seen the rattlesnakes in Upper Canada appeased by a musician; and the concert given in Paris to two elephants in the Jardin des Plantes leaves no doubt in regard to the effect of harmony on the brute creation.Every instrument seemed to operate distinctly as the several modes of pieces were slow or lively, until the excitement of these intelligent creatures had been carried to such an extent that further experiments were deemed dangerous.
The associations produced by national airs, and illustrated by the effect of the Rans des Vaches upon the Swiss, are too well known to be related; and the mal de pays, or nostalgia, is an affection aggravated by the fond airs of infancy and youth during the sad hours of emigration, when the aching heart lingers after home and early ties of friendship and of love.It is somewhat singular, but this disease is frequent among soldiers in countries where they are forcibly made to march: but is seldom, if ever, observed in the fair sex, who most probably seek for admiration in every clime, and are reconciled by flattery to any region.
The whims of musical composers have often been most singular; Gluck composed in a garden, quaffing champaign; Sarti, in a dark room; Paesiello, in his bed; Sacchini, with a favourite cat perched upon each shoulder. The extraordinary fancies of Kutswara, composer of the “Battle of Prague,” are too well known, and led to his melancholy, but unpitied end.
Great as the repute of the most popular musical performers, whether vocal or instrumental, in the present day may be, and enormous as their remuneration may seem, the ancients were more profuse in their generosity to musicians and the factors of musical instruments.Plutarch, in his life of Isocrates, tells us that he was the son of Theodorus, a flute-maker, who had realized so large a fortune by his business, that he was able to vie with the richest Athenian citizens in keeping up the chorus for his tribe at festivals and religious ceremonies.Ismenias, the celebrated musician of Thebes, gave three talents, or 581l. 5s. for a flute. The extravagance of this performer was so great, that Pliny informs us he was indignant at one of his agents for having purchased a valuable emerald for him at Cyprus at too low a price, adding, that by his penurious conduct he had disgraced the gem. The vanity of artists in those days appears to have been similar to the present impudent pretensions of many public favourites. Plutarch relates of this same Ismenias, that being sent for to play at a sacrifice, and having performed for some time without the appearance of any favourable omen in the victim, his employer snatched the instrument out of his hand, and began to play himself most execrably. However, the happy omen appeared, when the delighted bungler exclaimed that the gods preferred his execution and taste. Ismenias cast upon him a smile of contempt, and replied, “While I played, the gods were so enchanted that they deferred the omen to hear me the longer; but they were glad to get rid of you upon any terms.” This was nearly as absurd as the boast of Vestris, the Parisian dancer, who, on being complimented on his powers of remaining long in the air, replied, “that he could figure in the air for half an hour, did he not fear to create jealousy among his comrades.”
Amœbæus the harper, according to Athenæus, used to receive an Attic talent of 193l. 15s. for each performance. The beautiful Lamia, the most celebrated female flute-player, had a temple dedicated to her under the name of Venus Lamia. The Tibicinæ, or female flute-players, who formed collegiate bodies, were as celebrated for their talent and their charms, as for their licentiousness and extravagance. Their performances were forbidden by the Theodosian code, but with little success; since Procopius informs us that, in the time of Justinian the sister of the Empress Theodora, who was a renowned amateur tibicina, appeared on the stage without any other dress than a slight and transparent scarf.
In the early ages of Christianity, the power of music in adding to religious solemnity was fully appreciated, and many of the fathers and most distinguished prelates cultivated the auxiliary science.St.Gregory expressly sent over Augustine the monk, with some singers, who entered the city of Canterbury singing a litany in the Gregorian chant, which extended the number of the four tones of St.Ambrose to eight.A school for church music was established at Canterbury; and it was also taught in the diocese of Durham and Weremouth.St.Dunstan was a celebrated musician, and was accused of having invented a most wonderful magic harp; it was, perhaps, to prove that the accusation was false, that he took the devil by the nose with a pair of tongs.This ingenious saint is said to be the inventor of organs, one of which he bestowed on the abbey of Malmesbury.It appears, however, that instruments resembling the organ were known as early as 364, and were described in a Greek epigram attributed to Julian the Apostate, in which he says, “I beheld reeds of a new species, the growth of each other, and a brazen soil; such as are not agitated by winds, but by a blast that rushes from a leathern cavern beneath their roots; while a robust mortal, running with swift fingers over the concordant keys, makes them, as they smoothly dance, emit melodious sounds.”
The influence of music on the fair sex has long been acknowledged, and this advantage has proved fatal to some artists who had recourse to its fascinating powers; Mark Smeaton was involved in the misfortunes of Anne Boleyn; Thomas Abel, who taught harmony to Catherine, met with a similar fate, and David Rizzio was not more fortunate.They were, perhaps, too much impressed with the ideas of Cloten: “I am advis’d to give her music o’ mornings; they say it will penetrate.”
It is worthy of remark, that no woman was ever known to excel in musical composition, however brilliant her instrumental execution might have been.The same observation has been made in regard to logical disquisitions.To what are we to attribute this exception?—are we to consider these delightful tormentors as essentially unharmonious and illogical?We leave this important question to phrenologists.
THE FOOD OF MANKIND.ITS USE AND ABUSE.
Destined by Providence to wander over the globe, and to live in various climes, man is essentially an omnivorous animal.According to the country he inhabits, its productions and the nature of his pursuits, his mode of living differs.The inhabitant of cold and sterile regions on the borders of the ocean becomes ichthyophagous; and fish, fresh, dried, smoked, or salted, is his principal nourishment.The bold huntsman lives upon the game he pursues; while the nomadian shepherd, who tends his herd over boundless steeps, supports himself on the milk of his flock.In warm countries fruits and vegetables constitute the chief support of life; and there the disciples of Pythagoras can luxuriate on the rich produce of a bountiful soil, solely debarring themselves from beans, which, like all flesh, they consider to have been created by putrefaction.What would these good people have done among the Scythians and the Getæ, who, according to Sidonius Apollinaris, mingled blood and milk for food—
————————Solitosque cruentum
Lac potare Getas, ac pocula tingere venis;
or the stunted natives of the arctic regions, who feed upon whales and seals, drink deep potations of train-oil, and consider the warm blood of the seal an exquisite beverage, dried herrings moistened with blubber a dainty, and the flesh of the seal half frozen in snow during winter, or half corrupted in the earth in summer, the most delicious morsel.The semi-barbarous Russians, who during the late wars enjoyed the abundant bills of fare of France and Italy, accustom themselves easily to this disgusting diet on their return; and their troops, who live amongst the Samoiedes, thrive uncommonly well on raw flesh and rein-deer blood.It is in temperate regions that man displays his omnivorous propensities: there, animal food can be abundantly procured; and every description of grain, roots, and fruit, is easily cultivated.It is as we pass from these middle climes towards the poles, that animal substances are more exclusively consumed; and towards the equator that we enjoy refreshing fruits, and nourishing roots and vegetables. So scarce is food in some desolate tracts of the globe, that we find the wandering Indian satisfying his cravings with earth and clay: and Humboldt informs us that the Ottomaques, on the banks of the Mata and Oronoco, feed on a fat unctuous earth, in the choice of which they display great epicurean skill, and which they knead into balls of four or six inches in diameter, and bake slowly over the fire. When about to be used, these clods are soaked in water, and each individual consumes about a pound of them in the day; the only addition which they occasionally make to this strange fare consists in small fish, lizards, and fern-roots.
The art of cookery has improved, no doubt, with the progressive advance and development of our other institutions; and it seems to prove that the employment of all kinds of food is as natural to man, as a stationary uniformity and restriction of one species of aliment is to animals.A most erroneous idea has prevailed regarding the use of animal food, which has been considered as the best calculated to render mankind robust and courageous.This is disproved by observation.The miserable and timid inhabitants of Northern Europe and Asia are remarkable for their moral and physical debility, although they chiefly live on fish or raw flesh; whereas the athletic Scotch and Irish are certainly not weaker than their English neighbours, though consuming but little meat.The strength and agility of the negroes is well known, and the South Sea islanders can vie in bodily exercises with our stoutest seamen.We have reason to believe, that, at the most glorious periods of Grecian and Roman power, their armies were principally subsisted upon bread, vegetables, and fruits.
Man by his natural structure was created omnivorous, and there is no doubt but that a judicious mixed alimentation is the best calculated to ensure health and vigour, and enable the ambitious or the industrious wanderer to spend his winters near the poles, colonize beneath the equator, or inhabit regions where the hardiest of animals must starve and die.The teeth, the jaws, all the digestive organs fit him for this mode of existence.There is a curious passage in one of Dr. Franklin’s letters in regard to wine: he pleasantly observes, that the only animals created to drink water are those who from their conformation are able to lap it on the surface of the earth, whereas all those who can carry their hands to their mouth were destined to enjoy the juice of the grape.
The diversity of substances which we find in the catalogue of articles of food is as great as the variety with which the art or the science of cookery prepares them: the notions of the ancients on this most important subject are worthy of remark. Their taste regarding meat was various. Beef they considered the most substantial food; hence it constituted the chief nourishment of their athletæ. Camels’ and dromedaries’ flesh was much esteemed, their heels most especially. Donkey-flesh was in high repute; Mæcenas, according to Pliny, delighted in it; and the wild ass, brought from Africa, was compared to venison. In more modern times we find Chancellor Dupret having asses fattened for his table. The hog and the wild boar appear to have been held in great estimation; and a hog was called “animal propter convivia natum;” but the classical portion of the sow was somewhat singular—“vulvâ nil dulcius amplâ.” Their mode of killing swine was as refined in barbarity as in epicurism. Plutarch tells us that the gravid sow was actually trampled to death, to form a delicious mass fit for the gods. At other times, pigs were slaughtered with red-hot spits, that the blood might not be lost; stuffing a pig with asafœtida and various small animals, was a luxury called “porcus Trojanus;” alluding, no doubt, to the warriors who were concealed in the Trojan horse. Young bears, dogs, and foxes, (the latter more esteemed when fed upon grapes,) were also much admired by the Romans; who were also so fond of various birds, that some consular families assumed the names of those they most esteemed. Catius tells us how to drown fowls in Falernian wine, to render them more luscious and tender. Pheasants were brought over from Colchis, and deemed at one time such a rarity, that one of the Ptolemies bitterly lamented his having never tasted any. Peacocks were carefully reared in the island of Samos, and sold at such a high price, that Varro informs us they fetched yearly upwards of 2000l. of our money. The guinea-fowl was considered delicious; but, wretched people! the Romans knew not the turkey, a gift which we moderns owe to the Jesuits. Who could vilify the disciples of Loyola after this information! The ostrich was much relished; Heliogabalus delighted in their brains, and Apicius especially commends them. But, of all birds, the flamingo was not only esteemed as a bonne-bouche, but was most valuable after dinner; for, when the gluttonous sensualists had eaten too much, they introduced one of its long scarlet feathers down their throats, to disgorge their dinner. The modern gastronome is perhaps not aware that it is to the ancients he owes his delicious fattened duck and goose livers,—the inestimable foies gras of France. Thus Horace:
Pinguibus et ficis pastum jecur anseris albi.
The swan was also fattened by the Romans, who first deprived it of sight; and cranes were by no means despised by people of taste.In later days the swan seems to have been in great estimation in our own country.We find in the Northumberland household book that in one year twenty of these birds were consumed at the earl’s table.
While the feathered creation was doomed to form part of ancient delights, the waters yielded their share of enjoyments, and several fishes were immortalized. The muræna Helena was educated in their ponds, and rendered so tame that he came to be killed at the tinkling of his master’s bell or the sound of his voice.
Natat ad magistrum delicta muræna,
says Martial. Hirtius ceded six thousand of these fish to Cæsar as a great favour, and Vitellius delighted in their roe. The fame of the lamprey, mustela of Ausonius and Pliny, is generally known; and the sturgeon, the acipenser sturio, was brought to table with triumphant pomp: but the turbot, one of which was brought to Domitian from Ancona, was considered such a present from the gods, that this emperor assembled the senate to admire it. Soles were also so delectable that punning on the word solea, they were called the soles of the gods: the dorad, sparus auratus, was consecrated to Venus; the labrus scarus was called the brain of Jupiter, and Apuleius and Epicharmus maintain that its very entrails would be relished in Olympus.
To these dainties may be added the Alphestæ, a fish always caught in pairs from their eagerness to be eaten. The Amia so very delicious that the Athenians defied the worst cook to spoil them. The Gnaphius that imparted to the water that had had the honour to boil them, the facility of taking out all stains. The Pompilus which sprang with Venus from the blood of the sky. The fish called fox by the Rhodians, and dog by the Bœotians, was considered such a dainty that Archestratus recommended epicures to steal them if they could not procure them by honest means; adding, that all calamities should be considered immaterial after a man had once feasted on such a luscious morsel, too divine to be gazed upon by vulgar eyes, and which ought to be procured by the wealthy, if they did not wish to incur the wrath of the gods, for not appreciating at its true value the flower of their nectar. Eels were also highly esteemed by the ancients. The preference being given to the Copaic, which the Bœotians offered to the gods crowned with flowers, giving them the same rank among fish that Helen held amongst women.
The garum, or celebrated fish-sauce of the Romans, was principally made out of the sciæna umbra, and the mackerel; the entrails and blood being macerated in brine until they became putrid.
Expirantis adhuc scombri, de sanguine primo
Accipe fastosum munera cara garum:—
thus says Martial: and Galen affirms that this disgusting preparation was so precious, that a measure of about three or four pints fetched two thousand silver pieces. So delightful was the effluvium of the garum considered, that Martial informs us it was carried about in onyx smelling-bottles. But our luxurious civic chiefs are not aware that the red mullet—for such I believe was the mullus—was held in such a distinguished category among genteel fishes, that three of them, although of small size, were known to fetch upwards of 200l. They were more appreciated when brought alive, and gradually allowed to die, immersed in the delicious garum; when the Romans feasted their eyes in the anticipated delight of eating them, by gazing on the dying creature as he changed colour like an expiring dolphin. Seneca reproaches them with this refinement of cruelty—“Oculis quoque gulosi sunt;” and the most renowned of Apicius’s culinary discoveries was the alec, a compound of their livers.
Snails were also a great dainty.Fulvius Herpinus was immortalized for the discovery of the art of fattening them on bran and other articles; and Horace informs us they were served up, broiled upon silver gridirons, to give a relish to wine.Oysters were brought from our coasts to Rome, and frozen oysters were much extolled.Grasshoppers, locusts, and various insects, were equally acceptable to our first gastronomic legislators.Acorns, similar to those now eaten in Spain, formed part of a Roman dessert; the best were brought from Naples and Tarentum.It does not appear that the ancients had a great variety in their vegetable diet; condiments to stimulate the sluggish appetite seemed to be their principal research: amongst these the asafœtida, which is to this day highly relished in the East, was an indispensable ingredient; this has been doubted by various naturalists, but it appears certain, since Pliny informs us that it was frequently adulterated by sagapenum, which bears the strongest resemblance to it. This substance was called laser, and by many tasteless persons, such as Aristophanes and Apuleius, considered offensive and disgusting; hence the latter, “lasere infectas carnes,” and “laseratum porcellum.” According to Theophrastus, asafœtida was collected and preserved, as it is at present, in skins; and, despite its estimation as a culinary ingredient, it was not unfrequently named stercus diaboliIn addition to this gum, they seasoned their food with various other strong articles, such as coriander and cummin seeds, sumac, saffron, cinnamon, thyme; with divers peppers, salt, and sal-ammoniac.
Instead of bread, which was only introduced in Rome 580, A.D. they used a heavy kind of unleavened paste, similar to the present polentaThis nourishment occasioned frequent indigestion, hence the use of warm water after meals, and the necessity of emetics.Warm water was sold about the streets in their thermopolia, and Seneca observed the paleness and debility that arose from its use and abuse; a practice recorded by Martial:
Et potet calidam, qui mihi livet, aquam.
While water was thus freely drunk, wine was not disregarded; but the various articles with which it was adulterated, must have rendered it any thing but a delectable potation according to our received ideas. Thus we see the Greeks putting salt and sea-water in theirs; at other times dissolving mastic and myrrha, or infusing wormwood, in their choicest Falernian. Like modern tasters, however, they knew the method of developing the bouquet by warmth; and, to appreciate the flavour, they frequently added hot water. That wines of a resinous taste were esteemed, appears from Martial:
Resinata bibis vina, Falerna fugis.
But we may conclude that, according to our modern taste, their boasted wines did not equal ours either in flavour or in delicacy.
The ancients however were very careful in the preparation of their bread, justly called the “staff of life,” as constituting one of the most wholesome and nutritious parts of our food.The Athenian bakers bore the palm in the confection of this article. Archestratus recommended the wheaten bread of Athens and the barley meal of Lesbos, which their poets asserted was supplied to the gods. The Grecian millet bread was also in great repute, while delicious bread was also made with the Zea, the Triticum Spella of Linnæus and the Far of the Romans. A species of wheat called Tiphe was also much esteemed. Brown bread was made of a grain called Olyra, and it was with loaves of this description that Homer’s heroes fed their horses.
It appears that great attention was paid to the kneeding and the boulting: unboulted meal was called Syncomista, and when finely boulted in a woollen cloth, Semidalis. The most approved method of baking was in the Cribanus or Clibanus, an earthen or iron vessel, which they surrounded with charcoal. Bread according to its superior or inferior quality was consecrated to various divinities. Thus the goddesses used the Homoros, and Hecate was served with the Hemiantium, but we are unacquainted with the preparation of these varieties. The flour of barley was used by the Canephoræ, or virgins that bore the sacred baskets in the festivals of Ceres, to sprinkle themselves. Bread according to its particular kind was served up in various ways; wheaten bread was brought to table upon fresh leaves; barley bread upon a layer of reeds. At the feasts of Ceres and Proserpine, a large loaf was kneeded and baked by the ladies of Delos, called Achaïnas which gave the name to the festival, instituted most probably in Achaia, to commemorate the invention of bread, which Ceres taught to Eumelus, a citizen of Patræ.
Barley for the preparation of bread was used long before wheat or any other sort of corn, and hence Artemidorus calls it Antiquissimum in cibis. It was also given to the athletæ who were thence called HordeariiIn latter times it was chiefly given to cattle, although used by the poorer classes.Barley bread was also issued to soldiers as a punishment, the loss of wheaten bread being considered a great privation.Vegetius tells us that soldiers who had been guilty of any offence were thus punished—“hordeum pro frumentuo cogebantur accipere.” In the second Punic war we find Marcellus sentencing the cohorts that had lost their standards to this infliction. Suetonius also informs us that Augustus only allowed barley to the troops that had misbehaved in action. Cohortes, si quæ cepissent, loco, decimatas hordeo pavit. But there is reason to believe that under the head of bread were included various kinds of cakes, many of which were prepared with honey, some of them were called Placentæ omnigenæ, and were prepared by bakers who bore the name of pistores dulciariiThis honied bread or cake it appears, was frequently resorted to, as in the present day, to quiet troublesome children as well as to please the taste of fastidious patients.Thus Martial:
Leniat ut fauces medicus, quas aspera vexat
Assiduè tussis, Parthenopæ tibi
Mella dari, nucleosque jubet dulcesque placentas.
Est quidquid pueros non sinit esse truces,
At tu non cessas totis tussire diebus
Non est hæc tussis, Parthenopæ gula est.
The bread made of spring wheat was called Collabus, and the Athenians considered a toasted Collabus eaten with a slice of a pig’s belly, the very best cure for a surfeit occasioned by an excess in anchovies, especially the Phalerian ones, which were deemed fit for the gods.
Fragments of bread it appears were used instead of napkins to wipe the fingers on. These were called Apomygdaliæ, with which Aristophanes fed his sausage-makers.These dainty bits were usually thrown to dogs.
The cooks of the ancients appear to have been much more consummate in their art than our modern practitioners.Athenæus records various descriptions of their incomparable science.A new dish immortalized its inventor, and transmitted his name to posterity.Apicius’s cakes were called Apicians; and Aristoxenes had attained such perfection in curing hams, that the glorious appellation of Aristoxenians was bestowed upon them.Philosophers and poets gloried in their culinary science; the pleasures of the table were the subject of their writings and their conversation.Archestratus tells us with delight, that, although various delicacies can only be enjoyed in their proper season, yet we can talk about them with watering mouths all the year round.
One of these illustrious ministers of luxury attained such a degree of enviable perfection, that he could serve up a pig boiled on one side and roasted on the other, and moreover stuffed with all possible delicacies, without the incision through which these dainties were introduced being perceived.Supplicated to explain this wonderful secret, he swore solemnly by the manes of all the heroes who fell at Marathon, or conquered at Salamis, that he would not reveal this sacred mystery for one year.When the happy day arrived and he was no longer bound by his vows, he condescended to inform his anxious hearers, that the animal had been bled to death by a wound under the shoulder, through which the entrails were extracted; and afterwards hanging up the victim by the legs, the stuffing was crammed down his throat. One half of the pig was then covered with a thick paste, seasoned with wine and oil, put into a brass oven, and gently and tenderly roasted: when the skin was brown and crisp, our hero proceeded to boil the other moiety; the paste was then removed, and the boiled and roasted grunter triumphantly served up.
So refined was the taste of the ancient bons vivans, that Montanus, according to Juvenal, would proclaim, at the first bite, whether an oyster was of English produce or not.Sandwich is believed to have been the favoured spot whence Rome imported her oysters and other shell-fish.Shrimps and prawns must have been in great estimation, since we find Apicius quitting his residence at Minturnæ, upon hearing that the shrimps of Africa were finer than those he could procure in Campania.He instantly set sail for the happy coast, despite a gale of wind: after encountering a desperate storm, he reached the wished-for land of promise; but alas!—the fishermen displayed the largest prawns they could collect, and to his cruel disappointment, they could not vie, either in delicacy or beauty, with those of Minturnæ.He immediately ordered his pilot to steer a homeward course, and left Africa’s shore with ineffable contempt.
These ingenious gluttons had recourse to every experiment that could add to their enjoyment.Philoxenus, and many others, used to accustom themselves to swallow hot water, that they might be able to attack scalding dishes before less fireproof guests would dare to taste them.
Sinon maintained that cookery was the basis of all arts and sciences: natural philosophy taught us the seasoning of dishes; architecture directed the construction of stoves and chimneys; the fine arts, the beautiful symmetry of each dish; and the principles of war were applied to the drilling and marshalling of cooks, confectioners, and scullions, posting proper sentries to watch the fires, and videttes to keep off idle intruders. That man is a “cooking animal” is considered one of his proudest attributes, and a proper bill of fare may be considered as the ne plus ultra of human genius!
It may be easily imagined that when good living became a science, sponging upon the wealthy Amphitryons became an art amongst the needy bons vivants, and parasites, as in the present day, were ever seen fawning and cringing for their dinner. These sycophants stuck so close to their patrons, that they were called shadows. Thus Horace:
——Quos Mœcenas adduxerat umbras.
They were also called flies, γυῖας, by the Greeks, and Muscæ by the Romans; no doubt from their constant buzzing about the object of their devotion. Plautus calls an entertainment free from these despicable guests, Hospitium sine muscis. Horus Apollo tells us that in Egypt a fly was the symbol of an impudent fellow; because, although driven away, it will constantly return. We have, however, reason to believe that the term parasite was originally applied to the followers of princes, Patroclus was the parasite of Achilles, and Memnon of Idomeneus; it was only in later times that the appellation was given to despicable characters and “trencher friends.”
Our Shakspeare had adopted the term of the ancients, as appears in the following passages:
In such as you,
That creep like shadows by him, and do sigh
At each his needless heavings.
And again—
Feast-won, fast-lost, one cloud of winter showers.
These flies are couched.
While climate points out the most suitable articles of food, it exercises a singular influence over their qualities and properties, more especially in vegetable substances.We find plants which are poisonous in some countries, edible and wholesome in others.Next to climate, culture and soil modify plants to a singular degree: flowers which yield a powerful perfume in some latitudes, are inodorous in others; and, according to climate, their aroma is pleasant or distressing.A striking proof of this fact can be adduced from the well-known effects of perfumes in Rome; where the inhabitants, especially females, cannot support the scent even of the rose, which has been known to produce syncope, illustrating the poet’s line to
Die of a rose in aromatic pain.
This variety in the action of vegetable substances is more particularly observable in such as are considered medicinal.Opium, narcotics, and various drugs, are more powerful in warm climates than in northern regions.The Italian physicians express astonishment at the comparatively large doses prescribed by our practitioners.
Cultivation brings forth singular intermediate productions; and by its magic power we have seen the coriaceous and bitter almond transformed into the luscious peach, the sloe converted into the delicious plum, and the common crab transformed into the golden pippin. The same facts are observed in vegetables; the celery sprung from the nauseous and bitter apium graveolens, and the colewort, is metamorphosed into the cabbage and the cauliflower.All cruciform plants degenerate within the tropics, but acquire increased energies in cold countries.
Recent experiments in Germany have demonstrated that in times of scarcity, the wood of several trees may be converted into a nutritious substance. The fibres of the beech, birch, lime, poplar, fir, and various other trees, when dried, ground, and sifted into an impalpable powder, constitute a very palatable article of food. If cold water be poured on this ligneous flour, enclosed in a linen bag, it becomes milky, and considerable pressure and kneading is required to express the amylaceous or starchy part of it. Professor Von Buch, in his travels through Norway and Lapland, has fully described the Norwegian barke brödWe find the savages scattered along the coast of the great austral continent mixing up a paste of the bark of the gum-tree with the ants and the other insects, with their larvæ, which they find in it.Ground dried fish and fish-bones have from time immemorial been converted into bread; Arrianus tells us that Nearchus found several nations on the shores of the Red Sea living upon a bread of this description.
It is thus evident that all substances from the animal and vegetable kingdom appear to afford more or less nutriment, provided that they contain no elements unlike the animal matter of the being they are intended to nourish.All others are either medicinal or poisonous.Food may be considered nourishing in the ratio of its easy digestion or solution.Magendie attributes the nutritious principle to the greater or lesser proportion of nitrogen or azote.According to his view of the subject, the substances that contain little or no nitrogen are the saccharine and acid fruits, oils, fats, butter, mucilaginous vegetables, refined sugar, starch, gum, vegetable mucus, and vegetable gelatin.The different kinds of corn, rice and potatoes, are elements of the same kind.The azotical aliments, on the contrary, are vegetable albumen, gluten, and those principles which are met with in the seeds, stems and leaves of grasses and herbs, the seeds of leguminous plants, such as peas and beans, and most animal substances, with the exception of fat.
To this doctrine, it was objected, that animals who feed upon substances containing little nitrogen, and the field negroes, who consume large quantities of sugar, might be adduced as an exception.Magendie replies, that almost all the vegetables consumed by man and animals contain more or less nitrogen—that this element enters in large quantity in the composition of impure sugar—and lastly, that the nations whose principal food consists in rice, maize, or potatoes, consume at the same time milk and cheese.
To support his theory, this physiologist had recourse to various curious experiments on dogs, whom he fed with substances which contained no nitrogen.During the first seven or eight days, the animals were brisk and active, and took their food and drink as usual.In the course of the second week they began to get thin, although their appetite continued good, and they took daily between six and eight ounces of sugar.The emaciation increased during the third week; they became feeble, lost their appetite and activity, and at the same time ulcers appeared in the cornea of their eyes.The animals still continued to eat three or four ounces of sugar daily, but, nevertheless, became at length so feeble as to be incapable of motion, and died on a day varying from the 31st to the 34th: and it must be recollected that dogs will live the same length of time without any food.
The same were the results where dogs were fed upon gum, and butter; when they were fed with olive oil and water the phenomena were the same, with the exception of ulceration of the cornea.
In Denmark, a diet of bread and water for a month is considered equivalent to the punishment of death.Dr. Stark died in consequence of experiments which he instituted on himself to ascertain the effects of a sugar diet.
Muller has justly observed that these experiments of Magendie have thrown considerable light on the causes and the mode of treatment of the gout and calculous disorders.The subjects of these diseases are generally persons who live well and eat largely of animal food; most urinary calculi, gravelly deposits, the gouty concretions, and the perspiration of gouty persons, contain an abundance of uric acid, a substance in which nitrogen is contained in a large proportion.Thus, by diminishing the proportion of azotical substance in the food, the gout and gravelly deposits may be prevented.
The experiments of Tiedemann and Gmelin have confirmed those of Magendie, whose curious observations on the necessity of varying diet I shall transcribe.
1.A dog fed on white bread, wheat, and water, did not live more than fifty days.
2.Another dog, who was kept on brown soldiers’ bread did not suffer.
3.Rabbits and guineapigs who were fed solely on any one of the following substances—oats, barley, cabbage, and carrots,—died of inanition in fifteen days; but they did not suffer when these substances were given simultaneously or in succession.
4.An ass fed on dry rice, and afterwards on boiled rice, lived only fifteen days; a cock, on the contrary, was fed with boiled rice for several months with no ill consequence.
5.Dogs fed with cheese alone, or hard eggs, lived for a long time; but they became feeble and lost their hair.
6.Rodent animals will live a very long time on muscular substances.
7.After an animal has been fed for a long period on one kind of aliment, which, if continued, will not support life, allowing it the former customary food will not save it: he will eat eagerly, but will die as soon as if he had continued to be restricted to the article of food which was first given him.
Dr. Paris is of opinion that all that these experiments tend to prove is, that animals cannot exist upon highly-concentrated aliment.Horses fed on concentrated aliment are liable to various disorders, originating from diseased action of the stomach and liver, broken wind, staggers, blindness, &c.
Professor Muller has given an excellent definition of indigestion.“It is a state of the digestive organs in which either they do not secrete the fluid destined for the solution of the aliment, or they are in such a condition of irritability or atony, that by the mechanical irritation of the food, painful sensations and irregular motions are exerted.”
But the most curious experiments made on the changes which the food undergoes in the stomach, according to the greater or lesser facility with which it is digested, were those of Dr. Beaumont.This physiologist had the rare opportunity of investigating this subject in a patient of the name of St.Martin, who came under his care in consequence of a gun-shot wound, which left a considerable opening in the stomach, which, when empty, could be explored to the depth of five or six inches by artificial distention. The food and the drink could in this manner be seen to enter it. This enabled him to keep an interesting journal and table, showing the time required for the digestion of different kinds of food, which were taken with bread or vegetables, or both. The following are some of his interesting observations:
Experiment 33. At 1 o’clock St. Martin dined on roast beef, bread, and potatoes—in half an hour examined the contents of the stomach, found what he had eaten reduced to a mass resembling thick porridge. At 2 o’clock, nearly all chymified—a few distinct particles of food still to be seen. At half-past four, chymification complete. At 6 o’clock nothing in the stomach but a little gastric juice tinged with bile.
Ex.42. At 8 a. m. , breakfast of three hard-boiled eggs, pancakes, and coffee. At half-past eight, found a heterogenous mixture of the articles slightly digested. At a quarter-past ten, no part of breakfast could be seen.
Ex.43. At 2 o’clock same day, dined on roast pig and vegetables. At 3 they were chymified; and at half-past four nothing remained but a little gastric juice.
Ex.18, in a third series.At half-past eight a.m., two drams of fresh fried sausage, in a fine muslin bag, were suspended in the stomach of St.Martin, who immediately afterwards breakfasted on the same kind of sausage, and a piece of broiled mutton, wheaten bread, and a pint of coffee.At half-past eleven, stomach half empty, contents of bag about half diminished.At 2 o’clock p.m., stomach empty and clean, contents of bag all gone with the exception of fifteen grains, consisting of small pieces of cartilaginous and membranous fibres, and the spices of the sausage, which last weighed six grains.
As I have elsewhere observed, various are the theories that have been entertained in regard to digestion, but the experiments of Dr. Beaumont seem to have proved beyond a doubt, that this operation is due to the action of the gastric juice, with which he was enabled to produce artificial digestion.Having obtained one ounce of this solvent from the stomach of his patient, he put into it a solid piece of recently-boiled beef, weighing three drams, and placed the vessel that contained it in a water bath heated to 100°.In forty minutes digestion had commenced on the surface of the meat; in fifty minutes, the fluid was quite opake and cloudy, the external texture began to separate and become loose; in sixty minutes, chyme began to form. At 1 p. m. (two hours after the commencement of the experiment), the cellular substance was destroyed, the muscular fibres loose and floating about in fine small threads very tender and soft. In six hours they were nearly all digested—a few fibres only remaining. After the lapse of ten hours, every part of the meat was completely digested. The artificial digestion by these experiments appears to be but little slower than the natural process—they also demonstrate the influence of the temperature, and the quantity of the solvent secretion. Having obtained from St. Martin two ounces of gastric juice, he divided this quantity into two equal portions, and laid in each an equal quantity of masticated roast beef. One he placed in a water bath at the temperature of 99° Farh. —and left the other exposed to the open air at the temperature of 34°; a third similar portion of meat he kept in a phial, with an ounce of cold water. An hour after the commencement of the experiment, St. Martin had finished his breakfast, which consisted of the same meat with biscuit, butter, and coffee. Two hours after the meat had been put into the phial, the portion in the warm gastric juice was as far advanced in chymification as the food in the stomach; the meat in the cold gastric juice was less acted on, and that in the cold water only slightly macerated. In two hours and forty-five minutes from the time that the experiment was begun, the food in the stomach was completely digested, the stomach empty, while even at the end of six hours the meat in the gastric juice was only half digested. Dr. Beaumont, therefore, having procured 12 drams of fresh gastric juice, added now a portion to each of the phials containing meat and gastric juice, and to a portion of the half-digested food which he had withdrawn from the stomach two hours after the commencement of the experiment, and which had not advanced towards solution. After eight hours’ maceration, the portions of meat in the cold gastric juice, and in the cold water, were little changed, but, from the time of the addition of the fresh gastric juice, digestion went on rapidly in the other phials, which were kept at the proper heat, and at the end of 24 hours, the meat which had been withdrawn from the stomach after digestion had commenced, were, with the exception of a piece of meat that had not been masticated, converted into a thickish pulpy mass of a reddish-brown colour: the meat in the warm gastric juice was also digested, though less perfectly, while that in the cold gastric juice was scarcely more acted on than the meat in the water, which was merely macerated. Dr. Beaumont now exposed these two phials containing the meat in cold gastric juice, and meat in water, to the heat of the water bath for 24 hours, and the gastric juice, which when cold had no power on the meat, now digested it; while the meat in the water underwent no change, except that towards the end of the experiment, putrefaction had commenced. The antiseptic properties of the gastric juice were fully demonstrated in several other experiments.
Various philosophers, in idle disquisitions, have endeavoured by the most absurd hypotheses to determine what is the natural food of man, and to show that he is not created omnivorous.The comparison between our species and animals confutes these vain theories.The masticatory and digestive organization of man assigns to him an intermediate rank between carnivorous and herbivorous creatures.The teeth may be said by their figure and construction to bear a relation with our natural food.The teeth of flesh-eating animals rise in sharp prominences to seize and lacerate their prey, and those of the lower jaw shut within those of the superior one.The herbivorous animals are not armed with these formidable weapons, but have broad flat surfaces with intermixed plates of enamel, that they should wear less rapidly in the constant labour of grinding and triturating.In the carnivorous, the jaws can only move backward and forward; in the herbivorous their motion is lateral, as observed in the cow when chewing her cud.Beasts of prey tear and swallow their food in masses, while in others it undergoes a careful communition before it is transmitted to the stomach.The teeth of man only resemble those of carnivorous animals by their enamel being confined to their external surface, while in the freedom of the motion of the jaws from side to side they partake of the conformation of the herbivorous.The teeth and jaws of man are in all respects more similar to those of monkeys than any other animals; only in some of the simiæ the canine teeth are much longer and stronger, and denote a carnivorous propensity.
It is to the abuse of this omnivorous faculty that Providence has bestowed upon mankind, that we owe many of the diseases under which our species labours.“Multos morbos, multa fercula fecerunt,” sayeth Seneca; yet we are far more temperate in the present age than the ancients during the period of their boasted high civilization and prosperity.Their excesses must have been of the most disgusting nature, since, to indulge more easily in their gluttonous propensities, they had recourse to emetics both before and after their meals. “Vomunt ut edant, edunt ut vomunt, et epulas quas toto orbe conquirunt nec concoquere dignantur,” was the reproach of the above-quoted philosopher. Suetonius and Dion Cassius give Vitellius the credit of having introduced this revolting custom into fashion; and splendid vessels for the purpose were introduced in their feasts. Martial alludes to it in the following lines:
Nec cœnat priùs, aut recumbit, antè
Quam septem vomuit meri deunces.
And Juvenal tells us that the bath was polluted by this incredible act of bestiality,—
Et crudum pavonem in balneâ portas.
The sums expended by the ancients on their table exceed all belief.Vitellius expended for that purpose upwards of 3200l. daily, and some of his repasts cost 40,000l. At one of them, according to Suetonius, 7000 birds and 2000 fishes were served up. Ælius Verus laid out 600,000 sestertii on one meal; and some of the dishes of Heliogabalus cost about 4000l. of our money. The excesses of this monster were such, that Herodianus affirms that he wanted to ascertain, not only the flavour of human flesh, but of the most disgusting and nameless substances. The freaks related of this emperor are scarcely credible; but his gastronomic profusion may be easily conceived when we find that his very mats were made with the down of hares or soft feathers found under the wings of partridges! When such ideas of enjoyment prevailed, can we wonder that Philoxenus should have wished that he had the throat of a crane, that he might prolong the delights of eating!
Our early ancestors were remarkable for their frugality, and it is supposed that luxurious, or, at least, full living was introduced by the Danes: it has been even asserted that the verb gormandize was derived from Gormond, a Danish king, who was persuaded by Alfred to be baptized. Erasmus observed that the English were particularly fond of good fare. William the Conqueror, and Rufus, were in the habit of giving most splendid entertainments; and the former monarch was such an irascible epicure, that, upon one occasion, an underdone crane having been served up by the master of the cury, he would have knocked him down but for the timely interference of his dapifer, or purveyor of the mouth. This office of dapifer, with that of lardrenius, magnus coquus, coquorum prepositus, and coquus regius, were high dignitaries in those days. Cardinal Otto, the pope’s legate, being at Oxford in 1238, his brother was his magister coquorum; and the reasons assigned for his holding that office were his brother’s suspicious fears “ne procuraretur aliquid venenosum, quod valdè timebat legatus.”These officers were not unfrequently clergymen, who were elevated to the bench for their valuable services.
Whatever barbarity the ancients may have shown in preparing their dainty dishes, none could have surpassed in refinement of cruelty. Their method of roasting and eating a goose alive, is thus directed: “Take a goose or a duck, or some such lively creature, (but the goose is best of all for the purpose,) pull off all her feathers, only the head and neck must be spared; then make a fire round about her, not too close to her, that the smoke do not choke her, and that the fire may not burn her too soon, nor too far off, that she may not escape the fire; within the circle of the fire, let there be small cups and pots full of water, wherein salt and honey are mingled, and let there be set also chargers full of sodden apples, cut into small pieces in the dish. The goose must be all larded and basted over with butter, to make her the more fit to be eaten, and may roast the better. Put the fire about her but do not make too much haste, when as you see her begin to roast; for by walking about, and flying here and there, being cooped in by the fire that stops her way out, the unscared goose is kept in; she will fall to drink the water to quench her thirst and cool her heart, and all her body, and the apple sauce will cleanse and empty her, and when she wasteth, and consumes inwardly, always wet her head and heart with a wet sponge, and when you see her giddy with running and begin to stumble, her heart wants moisture, and she is roasted enough. Take her up and set her before your guest, and she will cry as you cut off any part from her, and will be almost eaten up before she is dead. It is mighty pleasant to behold.”
Our forefathers were most ingenious in these diabolical fancies, we find in Portar’s Magick the way how to persuade a goose to roast herself if you have a lack of cooks.
The heroic conduct of French cooks has been recorded in history, and compared with the noble devotion of the ancients.Vatel, maître d’hôtel of Louis XIV., put an end to his wretched existence in consequence of fish not having arrived in time for dinner. On this sad event being reported to his sovereign, he both praised and blamed his courage; and, to use the words of Madame de Sevigné, he perished “à force d’avoir de l’honneur à sa manière; on loua fort et l’on blama son courage.” It is strange that Napoleon should have used the very same expressions when speaking of one of his most distinguished generals. In more modern times we have heard of persons who expected that clerical functions should be combined with various lay duties, as appears by the following curious advertisement in a late paper:
“Wanted, for a family who have bad health, a sober, steady person, in the capacity of doctor, surgeon, apothecary, and man-midwife.He must occasionally act as butler, and dress hair and wigs.He will be required sometimes to read prayers, and to preach a sermon every Sunday.A good salary will be given.”This was certainly an economical speculation for the use of soul and body.
Cooks have sometimes been obliged to resort to pious frauds; and it is related of our Richard Cœur de Lion, that, being very ill during the holy wars, he took a strange fancy for a bit of pork, but, as no pig could be procured, a plump Saracen child was roasted as a substitute; and it was remarked that Richard was ever after partial to pork.
There is little doubt but that our forefathers were harder livers than the present generation: even within the memory of man, drinking to excess is a vice seldom observed, excepting in some individuals belonging to the old school.The hours of refection have been singularly altered; and while our fashionable circles seldom sit down to table before eight o’clock in the evening, we find in olden chronicles that even royalty was used to dine at nine in the morning, more especially upon the Continent.In the Heptæmeron of the Queen of Navarre we find an account of the manner of spending the day:
“As soon as the morning rose, they went to the chamber of Madame Oysille, whom they found already at her prayers; and when they had heard during a good hour her lecture, and then the mass, they went to dine at ten o’clock, and afterwards each privately retired to his room, but did not fail at noon to meet in the meadow.Vespers heard, they went to supper; and after having played a thousand sports in the meadow they retired to bed.”
During the reign of Charles V.of France, the court dined at ten, supped at seven, and retired to rest at nine. Holinshed gives the following curious description of our early diet: “Our tables are oftentimes more plentifully garnished than those of other nations, and this trade has continued with us since the very beginning; for, before the Romans found out and knew the way into our country, our predecessors fed largely upon flesh and milk, whereof there was great abundance in this isle, because they applied their chief studies unto pasturage and feeding.
“In Scotland, likewise, they have given themselves unto very ample and large diet, wherein as for some respect nature doth make them equal with us, so otherwise they far exceed us in over much and distemperate gormandize, and so engross their bodies, that divers of them do oft become unapt to any other purpose than to spend their time in large tabling and belly cheer. In old times these North Britons did give themselves universally to great abstinence; and in time of war their soldiers would often feed but once, or twice at the most, in two or three days, especially if they held themselves in secret, or could have no issue out of their bogs and morasses, through the presence of an enemy; and in this distress they used to eat a certain kind of confection, whereof so much as a bean would qualify their hunger above common expectation. In those days, also, it was taken for a great offence over all to eat either goose, hare, or hen, because of a certain superstitious opinion which they had conceived of these three creatures. Amongst other things, baked meats, dishes never before this man’s (James I.) days seen in Scotland, were generally so provided for by virtue of this act, that it was not lawful for any to eat of the same under the degree of a gentleman, and those only but on high and festival days. In number of dishes and changes of meat, the nobility of England (whose cooks are for the most part musical-headed Frenchmen and strangers) do most exceed; sith there is no day in manner that passeth over their heads, wherein they have not only beef, mutton, veal, lamb, kid, pork, cony, capon, pig, or so many of these as the season yieldeth, but also some portion of the red and fallow deer, beside great variety of fish and wild fowl, and thereto sundry other delicates, wherein the sweet hand of the seafaring Portingale is not wanting; so that for a man to dine with one of them, and to taste of every dish that standeth before him, is rather to yield unto a conspiracy, with a great deal of meat for the speedy suppression of natural health, than the use of a necessary mean to satisfy himself with a competent repast, to sustain his body withal.The chief part, likewise, of their daily provision is brought in before them commonly in silver vessels, if they be of the degree of barons, bishops, and upwards, and placed upon their tables; whereof when they have taken what it pleaseth them, the rest is reserved, and afterwards sent down to their serving-men and waiters.
“The gentlemen and merchants keep much about one rate, and each of them contenteth himself with four, five, or six dishes, when they have but small resort; or, peradventure, with one or two, or three at the most, when they have no strangers.And yet their servants have their ordinary diet assigned, besides such as is left at their masters’ boards, and not appointed to be brought thither the second time, which, nevertheless, is often seen, generally in venison, lamb, or some especial dish whereon the merchantman himself liketh to feed when it is cold.
“At such times as the merchants do make their ordinary or voluntary feasts, it is a world to see what great provision is made of all manner of delicate meats from every quarter of the country, wherein, beside that they are often comparable herein to the nobility of the land, they will seldom regard any thing that the butcher usually killeth, but reject the same as not worthy to come in place. In such cases, also, geliffes of all colours, mixed with a variety in the representation of sundry flowers, herbs, trees, forms of beasts, fish, fowls, and fruits; and thereunto marchpane wrought with no small curiosity, tarts of divers hues and sundry denominations; conserves of old fruits, foreign and home-bred; suckets, codiniacs, marmalades, sugar-bread, ginger-bread, florentines, wild-fowl, venison of all sorts, and sundry outlandish confections, altogether seasoned with sugar, (which Pliny calls mel ex arundinibus, a device not common nor greatly used in old times at the table, but only in medicine, although it grew in Arabia, India, and Sicilia,) do generally bear the sway, besides infinite devices of our own not possible for me to remember. Of the potato, and such venerous roots as are brought out of Spain, Portingale, and the Indies, to furnish our banquets, I speak not, wherein our Mures, of no less force, and to be had about Crosby Ravenswath, do now begin to have place.
“And as all estates do exceed in strangeness and number of costly dishes, so these forget not to use the like excess in wine, insomuch as there is no kind to be had (neither any where more store of all sorts than in England, although we have none growing with us; but yearly the proportion of twenty or thirty thousand tun and upwards, notwithstanding the daily restraints on the same brought over to us) whereof at great meetings there is not some store to be had. Neither do I mean this of small wines only, such as claret, white, red, French, &c. which amount to about fifty-six sorts, according to the number of regions from whence they come; but also of the thirty kinds of Italian, Grecian, Spanish, Canarian, &c. , whereof Vernage, Cate-pument, Raspis, Muscadell, Romnie, Bastard Fire, Osey, Caprike, claret, and malmsey, are not least of all accounted of, because of their strength and value. For as I have said of meat, so, the stronger the wine is, the more it is desired, by means thereof in old times, the best was called Theologicum because it was had from the clergy and religious men, unto whose houses many of the laity would often send for bottles filled with the same, being sure that they would neither drink nor be served of the worst, or such as was any ways mingled or brewed by the vintner; nay, the merchant would have thought that his soul should have gone straightways to the devil, if he should have served him with any other than the best. Furthermore, when they have had their course which nature yieldeth, sundry sorts of artificial stuff, as ypocras and wormwood wine, must in like manner succeed in turns, besides stale ale and strong beer, which nevertheless bears the greatest brunt in drinking, and are of so many sorts and ages as it pleaseth the brewer to make.
“In feasting, the artisans do exceed after their manner, especially at bridals, purifications of women, and such like odd meetings, where it is incredible to tell what meat is consumed and spent; each one bringing such a dish, or so many as his wife and he do consult upon, but always with this consideration, that the leefer (the more liberal) friend shall have the best entertainment. This is also commonly seen at these banquets, that the good man of the house is not charged with any thing, saving bread, drink, house-room, and fire.
“Heretofore there hath been much more time spent in eating and drinking than commonly is in these days; for whereas of old we had breakfasts in the forenoon, beverages or nuntions after dinner, and thereto rere suppers, generally when it was time to go to rest (a toy brought in by Hard Canutus), now these odd repasts, thanked be God! are very well left, and each one in manner (except here and there some young hungry stomach that cannot fast till dinner-time contenteth himself with dinner and supper only).The Normans, disliking the gormandize of Canutus, ordained, after their arrival, that no table should be covered above once in the day; which Huntingdon imputeth to their avarice: but, in the end, either waxing weary of their own frugality, or suffering the cockle of old custom to overgrow the good corn of their new constitution, they fell to such liberty, that in often feeding they surmounted Canutus surnamed the Hardy; for whereas he covered his table but three or four times in the day, they spread their cloths five or six times, and in such wise as I before rehearsed.They brought in also the custom of long and stately sitting at meat, which is not yet left, although it be a great expense of time, and worthy reprehension; for the nobility and gentlemen, and merchantmen, especially at great meetings, do sit commonly till two or three of the clock at afternoon, so that with many it is an hard matter to rise from the table to go to evening prayer, and return from thence to come time enough to supper.”
The early prevalence of drinking in England seems to have been derived from our foreign intercourse.In the reign of Elizabeth and James I.we find various statutes against ebriety.
Tom Nash, in his “Pierce Pennilesse” says, “Superfluity in drink is a sin that ever since we have mixed ourselves with the Low Countries is counted honourable; but, before we knew their lingering wars, was held in that highest degree of hatred that might be.Then, if we had seen a man go wallowing in the streets, or lain sleeping under the board, we should have spit at him, and warned all our friends out of his company.”
According to our laws intoxication is looked upon as an aggravation of any offence. Sir Edward Coke calls a drunkard voluntarius dæmonThe Romans thought differently: with them intoxication was often deemed an extenuation of guilt, “Per vinum delapsis capitalis pœna remittitur.”The Greeks, more severe, had a law of Pittacus that enacted the infliction of a double punishment on those who committed a crime when drunk.
That hard drinking was introduced from Flanders and Holland, and other northern countries, seems probable from the derivation of many of the expressions used in carousing. The phrase of being “half-seas over,” as applied to a state of drunkenness, originated from op zee, which in Dutch meant over sea; and Gifford informs us that it was a name given to a stupifying beer introduced in England from the Low Countries, and called op zea; thus Jonson in the Alchemist:
I do not like the dulness of your eye;
It hath a heavy cast, ’tis up see Dutch
An inebriating draught was also called an up see freeze, from the strong Friesland beer. The word “carouse,” according to Gifford and Blount, is derived from the name of a large glass, called by the Danes ruuse, or from the German words gar, all, and ausz out: hence drink all out
Nash, in the work above quoted, says, “Now he is nobody that cannot drink super nagulum, carouse the hunters’ hoope, quaff upsee freze crosse, with healths, gloves, mumpes, frolickes, and a thousand such domineering inventions.” The origin of these slang terms is not quite evident. Drinking super nagulum, or on the nail, was a northern custom which consisted in only leaving one drop in the cup, which was poured upon the thumb-nail, to prove that justice had been done to the potation or toast; and that, to use the language of modern drinkers, the glass was clearedThis custom is alluded to by Bishop Hall in his “Mundus alter et idem,” in which the Duke of Tenderbelly exclaims, “‘Let never this goodly-formed goblet of wine go jovially through me:’ and then he set it to his mouth, stole it off every drop, save a little remainder, which he was by custom to set upon his thumb’s nail and lick it off.”In Fletcher we find the phrase
I am thine ad unguem;
which meant he was ready to drink with him to this extent. The term hoop alludes to the marks of hoops being traced upon drinking-pots to point out certain measures. Jack Cade says, “The three-hooped pot shall have ten hoops, and I will make it felony to drink small beer!” Hence probably the common saying of “drinking deep,” or to the last hoop. The peg tankard was another measured vessel used in the jollifications of our forefathers, and is still to be found in some parts of England, more especially in Derbyshire. Pegge in his “Anonymiana,” thus describes them: “They have in the inside a row of eight pins, one above the other, from top to bottom; the tankard holds two quarts, so that there is a gill of ale between each peg or pin. The first person who drank was to empty to the first peg, the second was to drink to the next, and so on; by which means the pegs were so many measures to the compotators, making them all drink alike or the same quantity.” In Archbishop Anselm’s Canons made in the council at London in 1102, priests are enjoined not to go to drinking-bouts, nor to drink pegs: “Ut presbyteri non eant ad potationes, nec ad pinnas bibant.”
Gloves, also called shoeing-horns, were relishes to encourage drinking, like our modern devils, introduced for a similar purpose. Bishop Hall says in his description of a carousal, “Then comes me up a service of shoeing-horns of all sorts,—salt cakes, red-herrings, anchovies, and gammon of bacon, and abundance of such pullers on.”Massinger thus describes these incentives:
I usher
Such an unexpected dainty bit for breakfast
As never yet I cooked; ’tis not botargo,
Fried frogs, potatoes marrow’d, cavear,
Carps’ tongues, the pith of an English chine of beef,
Nor our Italian delicate oil’d mushrooms,
And yet a drawer on too; and if you show not
An appetite, and a strong one, I’ll not say
To eat it, but devour it, without grace too,
(For it will not stay a preface,) I am shamed,
And all my past provocatives will be jeer’d at.
The botargo was a relish made of mullet’s roes, and highly seasoned, much in use among the Italians.
Amongst many other curious frolics of hard drinkers, we find the use of what they called flap-dragons, or snap-dragon, which consisted in igniting combustible substances, which were swallowed while floating on the glass of liquor. Johnson describes them “a play in which they catch raisins out of burning brandy, and, extinguishing them by closing the mouth, eat them.” This prank is not uncommon to the present day in boarding-schools in certain festive entertainments of the young ladies
Drunkenness being considered a beastly propensity, its gradations were fixed by animal comparisons. In a curious treatise on drunkards by George Gascoigne, we find the following illustration of these degrees: “The first is ape-drunk, and he leaps and sings and hallos and danceth for the hearers; the second is lion-drunk, and he flings the pots about the house, calls the hostess w——, breaks the glass windows with his dagger, and is apt to quarrel with any man that speaks to him; the third is swine-drunk, heavy, lumpish, and sleepy, and cries for a little more drink and a few more clothes; the fourth is sheep-drunk, wise in his own conceit, when he cannot bring forth a right word; the fifth is maudlin-drunk, when a fellow will weep for kindness in the midst of his drink, and kiss you, saying, ‘By G—! Captain, I love thee! Go thy ways; thou dost not think so often of me as I do of you; I would I could not love thee so well as I do!’ and then he puts his finger in his eye and cries; the sixth is martin-drunk, when a man is drunk, and drinks himself sober ere he stir; the seventh is goat-drunk, when in drunkenness he hath no mind but in lechery; the eighth is fox-drunk, when he is crafty drunk, as many of the Dutchmen be, which will never bargain but when they are drunk. All these species, and more, I have seen practised in one company at one sitting.”
Drunkenness has at various periods been resorted to in religious and political fervour. Daring the usurpation of Cromwell, the Cavaliers were wont to drink their king’s health in bumpers of wine in which some crumbs of bread had been thrown, exclaiming, “God send this crum-well down!” and Whitelocke, in his Memorials, records the following barbarous Catilinian orgies: “Five drunkards agree to drink the king’s health in their blood, and that each of them should cut out a piece of his buttock, and fry it upon the gridiron, which was done by four of them, of whom one did bleed so exceedingly that they were fain to send for a chirurgeon, and so were discovered. The wife of one of them, hearing that her husband was amongst them, came to the room, and, taking up a pair of tongs, laid about her, and so saved the cutting of her husband’s flesh.”
The laws enacted to prevent drunkenness at various periods and by different governments, are curious. Domitian ordered all the vine-plants in the Roman territory to be rooted out. Charles IX. of France issued a similar edict. In 1536, under Francis I, a law was passed sentencing drunkards to imprisonment on bread and water for the first offence; a public whipping punished a second infringement; and, on reiteration, banishment and the loss of ears. The ancients, equally aware of the danger that arose from intoxication, were also anxious to prevent it. Draco inflicted capital punishments. Lycurgus destroyed the vineyards. The Athenians had officers, named ophthalmos, to prevent excesses in liquor drinking. In Rome, patricians were not allowed the use of wine until they had attained their thirty-fifth year. Wine was only drunk pure in the beginning of sober repasts in honour of Deus Sospes, and afterwards mixed with water in honour of Jupiter ServatorNotwithstanding these wise examples in support of prudent precepts, it appears that drunkenness was a common vice amongst the Romans. Tiberius was surnamed Biberius; and it was said of the parasite Bibulus, “dum vixit, aut bibit aut minxit.”Aurelianus had officers of his household whose duty was to intoxicate foreign ambassadors; and Cato’s partiality for the juice of the grape has been recorded by Horace,
Narratur et prisci Catonis
Sæpe mero caluisse virtus.
In the middle ages, drinking was resorted to by the monks as a religious libation; and they also drank to the dead, a custom which was condemned as idolatrous.These excesses were restrained by various regulations, and in 817 the quantity of wine allowed each monk was fixed at five pints.Charlemagne, in his Capitularies, forbids the provocation of drinking healths and hob-nobbing (pléger et trinquer). Temperance societies are not modern institutions. In 1517, Sigismund de Dietrichstein established one under the auspices of St. Christopher; a similar association was formed in 1600 by Maurice Duke of Hesse, which, however, allowed a knight to drink seven bocaux, or glasses, at each meal, but only twice in the day. The size of these bocaux is not recorded, but no doubt it was an endeavour to obtain a comparative condition of sobriety. Another temperate society, under the name of the Golden Ring, was instituted by Frederic V. Count Palatine.
Whether the influence of temperate societies or their advocates will tend to diminish the consumption of wine and spirituous liquors in the British empire, it is difficult to say.Hitherto every act of interference, either from individuals or on the part of the legislature, has proved not only abortive, but has increased the evil it was intended to remedy.The imposition of heavy duties only threw the distillation of spirits into the hands of illicit speculators instead of respectable capitalists; and, as M’Culloch justly remarks, “superadded the atrocities of the smuggler to the idleness and dissipation of the drunkard.”During the latter part of the reign of George I.and the earlier period of George II.gin-drinking was so prevalent, that it was denounced from the pulpit and the press.At length ministers determined to make a vigorous effort to put a stop to the further use of spirituous liquors except as a cordial or medicine.To accomplish this end, a duty of twenty shillings was laid on spirits, exclusive of a heavy licence duty to retailers, while a fine of 100l. was levied on all defaulters. But instead of the anticipated effects, this act produced results directly opposite: the respectable dealers withdrew from a trade proscribed by the legislature; and the sale of spirits fell into the hands of the lowest and most profligate characters. The officers of the revenue were hunted down by the populace, and did not dare to enforce the law; and Tindal, in his Continuation of Rapin, says, “within two years of the passing of this act, it had become so odious and contemptible, that policy as well as humanity forced the commissioners of excise to mitigate its penalties.” During these two years twelve thousand persons were convicted of offences connected with the sale of spirits, while no exertion could check the torrent of smuggling, and seven millions of gallons illicitly distilled were annually consumed in London and its environs. Our present consumption of British, Colonial and Foreign spirits is immense, but not equal to what it was at the period alluded to. The following is the account of this consumption in 1832:
| In England, | 1,530,988 | imperial gallons, | Foreign. |
| 3,377,507 | " | Colonial. | |
| 7,259,287 | " | British. | |
| In Scotland, | 69,236 | gallons, | Foreign. |
| 112,026 | " | Colonial. | |
| 5,407,097 | " | British. | |
| In Ireland, | 33,413 | " | Foreign. |
| 24,432 | " | Colonial. | |
| 8,657,756 | " | British. |
In that year, 1832, the total amount of spirits that paid duty in the United Kingdom was 2,646,258 gallons, yielding a revenue of 8,483,247l. In the same year the appearance and dread of the cholera produced a singular increase in the consumption of brandy. In the preceding year, 1831, the entries for home use in England had amounted to 1,194,717 gallons; but during this state of alarm, it increased to 1,508,924; in 1833, the danger having subsided, the consumption declined to its former level, and did not exceed 1,356,620 gallons.
From the above observations it may be inferred, that no penal enactments, no denunciations of canting senators or fanatic preachers, will ever succeed in checking the evils which must arise from excesses in the use of spirituous liquors.Gluttony and drunkenness can only be combated by the salutary effects of good example held out by the superior classes of society; by a gradual improvement in the moral education of the lower grades, for whom salutary amusements should be procured when a cheerful repose from their weekly labour will no longer be considered a breach of the sabbath. Diffusion of knowledge and habits of industry will do more than sanctimonious admonitions, and the Penny Magazines may be considered more hostile to gin-drinking than the ranting of pseudo-saints.
In regard to the quantity that we should eat, no rules can be established, as individuals differ widely from each other, both as to their capacity and their inclination.Mr. Abernethy maintained, that it would be well if the public would follow the advice of Mr. Addison, given in the Spectator, of reading the writings of L.Cornaro, who, having a weak constitution, which he seemed to have ruined by intemperance, so that he was expected to die at the age of 32, did at that period adopt a strict regimen, allowing himself only 12 ounces daily.To this remark Dr. Paris very properly observes, “When I see the habits of Cornaro so incessantly introduced as an example for imitation, and as the standard of dietetic perfection, I am really inclined to ask with Feggio, ‘Did God create Lewis Cornaro to be a rule for all mankind in what they were to eat and drink?’”
In regard to the dyspeptic, Dr. Philips has given the very best advice in the following paragraph:
“The dyspeptic should carefully attend to the first feeling of satiety. There is a moment when the relish given by the appetite ceases; a single mouthful taken after this oppresses a weak stomach. If he eats slowly and carefully attends to this feeling, he will never overload the stomach.” To this Dr. Paris adds, “Let him remember to eat slowly.”“This is an important condition—for when we eat too fast we introduce a greater quantity of food into the stomach than the gastric juice can at once combat with; the consequence of which is, that hunger may continue for some time after the stomach has received more than would be sufficient, under the circumstances, to induce satiety.”
The introduction of French cookery in every part of England amongst the wealthy will render attention to dietetic rules still more important than in former days; although Dean Swift, in his time, observed, “That modern epicurism had become so prevalent, that the world must be encompassed, before a washerwoman can sit down to breakfast.”
INFLUENCE OF IMAGINATION.
Innumerable are the diseases that arise from our busy fancy.We are all subject to the tyrannic sway of imagination’s empire.Under this mighty influence man displays energies which lead him boldly to dare danger and complicated sufferings, or he is reduced to the most degraded state of miserable despondency.These diseases are the more fearful, since they rarely yield to physical aid, and it is seldom that moral influence is sufficiently persuasive to combat their inveteracy.It is idle to tell the timid hypochondriac that he is not ill; the mere circumstance of his believing himself sick, constitutes a serious disorder.His constant apprehensions derange his functions until an organic affection arises.The patient who fancies that he labours under an affection of the heart disturbs the circulation, which is ever influenced by our moral emotions, till at last this disturbance occasions the very malady which he dreaded.These aberrations of the mind arise from various causes,—mental emotions, constitution, climate, diet, hereditary disposition, education.Tertullian called philosophy and medicine twin sisters; both may become powerful agents in controlling our imagination.
The ancients have variously endeavoured to determine the seat of this faculty. Aristotle placed it in the heart, which, from the sense of its oppression observed in acute moral sufferings he considered the origin of our nerves, or sensorium. Avicenus and other philosophers located imagination in the anterior portion of the brain, which he called the prow; memory in the posterior part, which he denominated the poop, and judgment in the centre of the organ, or what mariners would term mid-ship. The notions of Gall and Spurzheim had long since been anticipated by philosophers and physicians, both in regard to the division of the cerebral organ, and the external appearance of the cranium, which denoted their preponderancy. That temperature exercises a powerful influence over our mental faculties is evident. In warm climates we find a greater exaltation of the mind, more enthusiasm and vivid emotion, than in northern latitudes. The East is the land of fancy, illustrated by their wondrous tales of fiction, and their vivid and fantastic imagery, displayed in the chimeras and the arabesques of their palaces and temples. In these regions all the passions are uncontrollable and wild. Love is characterized by furious or dark jealousy, according to the rank and power of the lover; and ambition is signalized by bloodthirsty and promiscuous barbarity. No opposition can be brooked: man is either a ferocious tyrant, or an abject slave; subjection alone preventing the oppressed from being as sanguinary as the oppressor. Government is despotism, and religion fatality and fanaticism. In northern climes, on the contrary, every thing is cold and calculating. The almighty passion of love may prevail; but its demonstrations are morose, concentrated, although not less ferocious than under a southern sky. In the one country, man seeks the dark shelter of the forest, and the solitude of the mountain, to ponder over his grievances, or soliloquise on his sufferings; in the other he courts the roseate bower and the orange grove, to lull him into a soft repose which may calm his feelings by temporary oblivion, to be roused again to action by the stimulus of opium, tobacco, and a burning sun. The ancients were so fully convinced of this influence of the amorphous constitution, that Lucianus tells us that the Abderites (a people so remarkable for their stupidity and sluggishness that Abderitica mens was proverbial), having witnessed the performance of one of Euripides’s plays under the fierce solar rays, became fired with such enthusiasm, that they ran about the streets in a wild phrensy, repeating aloud his sublime verses, until the coolness of the evening restored them to reason and to their native torpor. So predominant are these feelings, which owe their character to climate, that they regulate our ideas of a future state, as well as our conduct on earth. The paradise of the Mohammedan is a blessed region of everlasting pleasure and sensual enjoyments; beauteous houris await the soul, which is to luxuriate in corporeal voluptuousness; and the purple wine, forbidden to the living, is to flow in delectable streams, to delight the dead, who may, in the seventh paradise inhabit a land where rivers of wine, and milk, and honey, are ever flowing; where evergreen trees bend under luxurious fruits, whose very pips are transformed into lovely maidens, so sweet—to use their own metaphorical language—that the ocean would lose its bitterness if they did but condescend to spit in its briny waters; and all these enjoyments are secured to the true believer by hosts of guardian angels, who have seventy thousand mouths, and seventy thousand tongues, to praise God seventy thousand times each day in seventy thousand languages: and such is their horror of earthly heat, that in the other world one of the greatest rewards is the delight of being able to sleep under the cool shade of a tree each leaf of which is of such an expanse that a man might travel fifty thousand years under its benign protection. How different is the paradise of Odin! There, it is true, the soul of the departed dwells in magnificent palaces; but what are his enjoyments compared to those of the sensual Asiatic! Instead of soft music, the din of war is constantly to resound in his ear, while he luxuriates in drinking strong beer and hydromel, poured by the fair Valknas, the houris of the Vahalla paradise, into the skulls of his enemies. Their God is called the god of crows; and two of these sable familiars, Hugin, who represents the mind, and Nunnin, or memory, are constantly perched upon his shoulders, until they take flight to seek information for their master.
To this day it is said that the Tartars fancy, that, in their future abode of bliss, their reward will be a sort of Platonic affection, and a perpetual and undisturbed state of meditation; in short, a celestial far niente. So convinced were the ancients of this effect of peculiar temperature, that the morose Heraclitus maintained that the power of the mind arose from a dry splendour; that all things were created by solar heat; and when ill himself, he sought health by endeavouring to dispel watery accumulations by the heat of a dunghill.Ptolemy and Posidonius assert, that southern climes engender genius and wit, and are better calculated for the study of things divine; and Plato, Hippocrates, and Galen, on the same principle, affirm that stupidity and forgetfulness are produced by cold and humidity.The celebrated Descartes, in his younger days, states that he felt his enthusiasm moderated by the damps and cold of Holland; and that he ever experienced more facility in pursuing his philosophic studies in winter than in summer.Poets, on the contrary, court the glowing rays of an inspiring sun, and their Phœbus and their Apollo is the conductor and the inspirer of the Muses:
Cynthius aurem vellit et admonuit.
That the energies of our intellectual faculties are under the influence of our food, is a fact long since observed. The stupidity of the athletæ, who lived upon coarse bread (coliphium) and underdone meat, was proverbial; even Hercules laboured under the imputation of a mind somewhat obtuse. Our genius, our energies are all affected by our mode of living. The rule of Sanis omnia sana, of Celsus, is applicable to very few individuals; and all our faculties may be rendered more keen or less vivid by temperance or excesses. As the nature of our ingesta influences the functions of our digestive organs, so do these organs in their turn influence our moral powers when our physical energies are elevated or depressed. Our courage, our strength of mind, our religious and our moral train of thinking, are under the control of diet. Fasting has ever been considered as predisposing to meditation and ascetic contemplation. Tertullian tells us, that we should approach the altars fasting, or having eaten nothing but dry substances. All the religious ceremonies of the Egyptians were preceded by abstinence, and their sacrificators were allowed neither animal food nor wine. Indeed, the Egyptian priesthood were remarkable for their abstinence and self-denial, fearful, according to Plutarch, that “the body should not sit light upon the soul.” Similar precautions were observed with animals, and the ox apis was not allowed to drink the waters of the Nile, as they were considered of a gross and fattening nature; even upon festive days they observed a similar moderation. It was customary, on the 9th day of the month Thoth, for every one to eat fried fish at their doors—the priests only conformed to the custom by burning theirs at the appointed time. In general they abstained from most sorts of pulse, especially beans and lentils, onions, garlic, leeks, mutton, pork; and on certain days of purification, even salt was forbidden. Many of their fasts lasted from seven to forty-two days, during which time they abstained entirely from animal food, from herbs and vegetables, and the indulgence of any passion. Similar privations were observed by all those who attended the mysteries of Juno and Ceres. In Holy Writ we find that it was after abstinence that Divine inspiration illumined the elect. The angel appeared unto Daniel after he had been three weeks without tasting flesh, or wine, or “pleasant bread.” In the Acts, x. , we find that the vision appeared to Peter, “when he had become hungry and would have eaten.” Moses fasted forty days on Mount Sinai. We find in Jonah, that even cattle were frequently subject to this mortification, when he proclaimed in Nineveh that neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, should taste any thing; “let them not feed nor drink water.” Congius Ripensis tells us, that the same restriction was imposed by the Lacedæmonians on their Helots and all domestic animals. Fasting was considered by the early Christians as an essential rite. St. Anthony prescribed to his disciples one meal of dry bread, salt and water, in the day without any food on Wednesdays and Fridays. In the monastery of Mocham, in Egypt, a monk of the name of Jonas was beatified for having lived until the age of eighty-five, working hard in the garden, and without any other food than raw herbs and grass steeped in vinegar; this abstemious cenobite added to his claims to canonization by always sleeping in his chair. St. Hilarius only ate fifteen figs and six ounces of barley bread per diemSt.Julian Sabus retired to a cavern, where he only luxuriated once in the week on millet-bread, with salt and water; and St.Macarius resolved to outdo him by restraining his sustenance to a few cabbage-leaves every Sunday.Not only did these gastric martyrs attribute their holy visions to abstinence, but they considered it as the source of their longevity.Thus, St.Anthony lived to the age of one hundred and five; St.Paphinus to ninety on dry bread; and St.Paul the Hermit thrived for one hundred and fifty-nine years upon dates.It is not derogatory to their supposed divine mission to say that all these men were as enthusiastic as the fakirs of the east.
So acceptable to the Deity was starvation considered, that at various periods it was enforced by penal laws.Charlemagne denounces the punishment of death on all those who transgressed in this respect; and, by an old Polish edict, any sinner who ate on a fast-day was sentenced to have all his teeth drawn.However, monkish ingenuity endeavoured to elude these severe enactments, by interpreting the letter instead of the spirit; and we find, in the regulations of a German monastery, the following accommodation, “Liquidum non frangit jejunium,” by which, on days of penance, the monks only took rich soups and succulent broth.In latter days, being permitted to eat fish in Lent, they saw no reason why fowl should not be included, on the authority of Genesis, that the waters brought forth every winged fowl after his kind.This relaxation in culinary discipline called forth loud indignation from many prelates.St.Ambrosius attributes the profligacy of the monks to these excesses; and Tertullian considers the fall of the Israelites as the punishment of their neglect in this respect.Our Shakspeare illustrates this belief in the influence of fasting as preparatory to inspiration.
Last night the very gods shew’d me a vision—
I fast and pray’d for their intelligence.
Not satisfied with this mystification in food, we find some austere monks endeavouring to reduce carnal appetites by other means, such as by blood-letting, monialem minuere; and claustral flesh was brought down by phlebotomy and purging at regular periods.To this day we find that well-behaved Turks, during the Ramasan, make it a godly point never to swallow their saliva.
This digression on fasting was somewhat necessary, to show how much our diet tends to modify our being.It is well known that troops will display more activity and courage when fasting than after a meal; and an ingenious physician of our day is perfectly correct when he attributes a daring spirit or a pusillanimous feeling to the influence of our stomach.
Intellectual weakness, frequently brought on by excesses, has proved a rich source to empiricism; hence the belief in mystic and supernatural agencies, and the power of certain nostrums. Coloured fountain water and bread pills have made the fortune of various quacks, when imaginary cures have relieved imaginary diseases. In our days, numerous have been the recoveries attributed to Hohenloe’s prayers. Trusting to mystic numbers, three, five, seven, or nine pills have produced effects, when other numbers less fortunate would have failed. To this hour mankind, even in enlightened nations, are fettered by these absurd trammels. Credulity, and superstition her twin sister, have in all ages been the source whence priestcraft, and quackery have derived their wealth. Next to these rich mines we may rank fashion. The adoption of any particular medicine by princes and nobles will endow it with as great a power as that which was supposed to be vested in regal hands in the cure of scrofula, hence called king’s evil; and we have too many instances of such cures having been effected by a monarch’s touch to doubt the fact.The history of the potato is a strong illustration of the influence of authority: for more than two centuries the use of this invaluable plant was vehemently opposed; at last, Louis XV.wore a bunch of its flowers in the midst of his courtiers, and the consumption of the root became universal in France.The warm bath, so highly valued by the Romans, once fell into disrepute, because the Emperor Augustus had been cured by a cold one, which for a time was invariably resorted to.Thus Horace exclaims,
——Caput ac stomachum supponere fontibus audent
Clusinis, Gabiosque petunt et frigida rura.
Unfortunately, the means which had relieved Augustus killed his nephew Marcellus; and the Laconicum and the Tepidarium were again crowded with the “fashion.”
Persecution and its prohibitions have also been most powerful in working upon our imagination.Rare and forbidden fruits will always be considered more desirable than those we can easily obtain. The history of tobacco is a striking instance of this influence of difficulty upon the mind of man. Pope Urban VIII. prohibited its use in any shape, under the penalty of excommunication. It was afterwards forbidden in Russia, under the pain of having the offender’s nose cut off. In some cantons of Switzerland the prohibition was introduced in the decalogue, next to the commandment against adultery. Amurath IV. ordered all persons taken in flagranti delicto smoking tobacco, to be impaled, on the principle that its use checked the progress of population. The denunciation of our James I. may be considered as a masterpiece of the imaginary horrors attributed to this obnoxious weed. “It is,” he says, “a custome loathsome to the eye, hatefull to the nose, harmefull to the braine, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black stinking fume thereof neerest resembling the horrible Stygian smoake of the pit that is bottomlesse.” During the reign of this monarch such a restriction might have been necessary, unless the consumption of tobacco enriched the exchequer: for it appears that some amateurs consumed no less than £500 per annum in smoke. Surely we should reap some flourishing revenue from fashion and credulity, when we find our government awarding £5000 to a certain Johanna Stephens for her discovery of certain medicines for the cure of calculi! The same imaginary hope induced many a credulous creature to minister to the necessities of another Johanna, for certain expectations. Alas! how this indefinite sense exhibits the infinite folly of poor humanity!
A morbid imagination, although frequently the source of much misery, will prove in many cases the fountain-head of many noble qualities; its exaltation constitutes genius, which is, in fact, a natural disposition of individual organization sometimes bordering upon insanity.“Non est magnum ingenium sine mixturâ dementiæ,” says Seneca; and Montaigne observes, “De quoi se fait la plus subtile folie que de la plus subtile sagesse?il n’y a qu’un demi-tour à passer de l’une à l’autre.”Aristotle asserts that all the great men of his time were melancholy and hypochondriac.The ancient and eastern nations entertained a singular idea regarding men of innate genius, and possessed of more than common attributes; they fancied that they were the first-born, and the offsprings of illicit love: Zoroaster, Confucius, Mahomet, Vishnou, were born of virgins; and Theseus, Hercules, Castor and Pollux, and Romulus, were all illegitimate.
So prone is a lively imagination to a derangement of the intellectual harmony, that the greatest care should be taken during the youthful development to resort to a sound and proper exercise.The constant tendency to wild and supernatural visions, the disregard of every daily and vulgar matter of fact consideration, soaring in regions of fiction, should engage our incessant vigilance, such a state of mind, as Abercrombie justly observes, “tends in a most material manner to prevent the due exercise of those nobler powers which are directed towards the cultivation both of science and of virtue,” and Foster has thus beautifully illustrated this subject in his essays.
“The influence of this habit of dwelling on the beautiful fallacious forms of imagination, will accompany the mind into the most serious speculations or rather musings, on the real world, and what is to be done in it and expected; as the image which the eye acquires from looking at any dazzling object, still appears before it wherever it turns.The vulgar materials, that constitute the actual economy of the world, will rise up to its sight in fictitious forms, which it cannot disenchant into plain reality, nor will ever suspect to be deceptive.It cannot go about with sober, rational inspection and ascertain the nature and value of all things around it—in that paradise it walks delighted, till some imperious circumstance of real life call it thence, and gladly escapes thither again when the avocation is past.If a tenth part of the felicities that have been enjoyed, the great actions that have been performed, the beneficial institutions that have been established, and the beautiful objects that have been seen in that happy region, could have been imported into this terrestial place!—what a delightful thing the world would have been to awake each morning to see such a world once more!”
Of the miseries the hypochondriacs experience the following extract of a letter to a physician will afford a specimen: “My poor body is a burning furnace, my nerves red-hot coals, my blood is boiling oil; all sleep has fled, and I am suffering martyrdom.I am in agony when I lie on my back; I cannot lie on either side; and I endure excruciating torture when I seek relief by lying on my stomach; and, to add to my misery, I can neither sit, stand, nor walk.”The fancies of hypochondriacs are frequently of the most extraordinary nature: one patient imagines that he is in such a state of obesity as to prevent his passing through the door of his chamber or his house; another impressed with the idea that he is made of glass, will not sit down for fear of cracking; a third seems convinced that his head is empty; and an intelligent American, holding a high judicial seat in our West Indian colonies, could not divest himself of the occasional conviction of his being transformed into a turtle.
The most melancholy record of the miseries of hypochondriacism is to be found in the diary of Dr. Walderstein of Gottingen. He was a man much deformed in person, and his mind seemed as distorted as his body. Although of deep learning and research, and convinced of the absurdity of his impressions, yet he was unable to resist their baneful influence. “My misfortune,” says the doctor, “is, that I never exist in this world, but rather in possible combinations created by my imagination to my conscience. They occupy a large portion of my time, and my reason has not the power to banish them. My malady, in fact, is the faculty of extracting poison from every circumstance in life; so much so that I often felt the most wretched being because I had not been able to sneeze three times together. One night when I was in bed I felt a sudden fear of fire, and gradually became as much oppressed by imaginary heat as though my room were in flames. While in this situation, a fire-bell in the neighbourhood sounded, and added to my intense sufferings. I do not blush at what might be called my superstition any more than I should blush in acknowledging that my senses inform me that the earth does not move. My error forms the body of my judgment, and I thank God that he has given it a soul capable of correcting it. When I have been perfectly free from pain, as is not unfrequently the case when I am in bed, my sense of this happiness has brought tears of gratitude in my eyes. I once dreamt,” adds Walderstein, “that I was condemned to be burnt alive. I was very calm, and reasoned coolly during the execution of my sentence. ‘Now,’ I said to myself, ‘I am burning, but not yet burnt; and by-and-by I shall be reduced to a cinder.’ This was all I thought, and I did nothing but think. When, upon awaking, I reflected upon my dream, I was by no means pleased with it, for I was afraid I should become all thought and no feeling.”It is strange that this fear of thought, assuming a corporeal form in deep affliction, had occurred to our poet Rowe, when he exclaims in the Fair Penitent, “Turn not to thought my brain.”“What is very distressing,” continues the unfortunate narrator, “is, that when I am ill I can think nothing, feel nothing, without bringing it home to myself.It seems to me that the whole world is a mere machine, expressly formed to make me feel my sufferings in every possible manner.” What a fearful avowal from a reflecting and intelligent man! Does it not illustrate Rousseau’s definition of reason—the knowledge of our folly
Dr. Rush mentions a man who imagined that he had a Caffre in his stomach who had got into it at the Cape of Good Hope, and tormented him ever since.Pinel relates the case of an unfortunate man who believed that he had been guillotined, but his innocence having been made complete after his execution, his judges decided that his head should be restored to him, but the person intrusted with this operation had made a mistake, and put on a wrong head.Dr. Conolly knew a man who really believed that he had been hanged, but had been brought to life by galvanism, but he maintained that this operation had not restored the whole of his vitality.
Jacobi relates the case of a man confined in the lunatic asylum at Wurtzburg, in other respects rational, of quiet, discreet habits, so that he was employed in the domestic business of the house, but who laboured under the impression that there was a person concealed in his stomach, with whom he held frequent conversations.He often perceived the absurdity of this idea, and grieved in acknowledging and reflecting that he was under the influence of so groundless a persuasion, but he never could get rid of it.“It was very curious to observe,” adds our intelligent author, “how, when he had but an instant before cried what nonsense!—is it not intolerable to be thus deluded?and while the tears which accompanied these exclamations were yet in his eyes, he again began to talk, apparently with entire conviction about the person in his belly who told him that he was to marry a great princess.An attempt was made to cure him, by putting a large blister on his abdomen, and the instant that it was dressed, moving from behind him a dressed-up figure, as if just extracted from his body.The experiment so far succeeded that the patient believed in the performance, and his joy was at first boundless in the full persuasion that he was cured; but some morbid feeling about the bowels, which he had associated with the insane impression, still continuing, or being again experienced, he took up the idea that another person similar to the first was still left within him, and under that persuasion he still continues to labour.”
A nobleman of the court of Louis XIV., fancied himself a dog, and would invariably put his head out of window to bark aloud.Don Calmet relates the case of some nuns in a convent in Germany, who imagined that they were transformed into cats, and wandered about the building loudly mewing and spitting at and scratching each other.
One of the strangest aberrations of a disordered state of mind was exhibited by some impudent fellows who fancied themselves virtuous and modest females.Esquirol relates the case of a young man of 26 years of age, handsome and of a good figure, who had been in the habit of occasionally putting on woman’s attire to perform female parts in private theatricals, and who had actually fancied himself a woman.In his paryoxysms he would put off his male clothes, and equip himself like a nymph,—the greater part of his day was spent before his looking-glass, decorating his person and dressing his hair—he was incurable!
ANCIENT IDEAS OF PHRENOLOGY.
Although Gall and Spurzheim may fairly claim the merit of having developed in this science the particular parts of the brain that are the seat of different faculties, yet we find in various ancient writers similar notions.Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy, thus expresses himself on this subject: “Inner senses are three in number, so called because they are in the brain-pan; as common sense, phantasie, memory. This common sense is the judge or moderator of the rest, by whom we discern all differences of objects; the fore part of the brain is his organ or seat. Phantasie, or imagination, which some call æstimative, or cogitative, (confirmed saith, Fernelius, by frequent meditation,) is an inner sense, which doth more fully examine the species perceived by common sense, of things present or absent, and keeps them longer, recalling them to mind again, or making new of his own: his organ is the middle cell of the brain. Memory layes up all the species which the senses have brought in, and records them as a good register, that they may be forthcoming when they are called for by phantasie and reason; his organ is the back part of the brain.”This corresponds with the account of the faculties given by Aristotle, and repeated by the writers of the middle ages.Albertus Magnus, Bishop of Ratisbon, designed a head divided into regions according to these opinions in the thirteenth century; and a similar plan was published by Petrus Montaguana in 1491.Ludovico Dolce published another engraving on the subject at Venice in 1562. In the British Museum is a chart of the universe and the elements of all sciences, and in which a large head of this description is delineated. It was published at Rome in 1632. In the Tesoretto of Brunetto Latini, the preceptor of Dante, we find this doctrine taught in the following lines:
Nel capo son tre celle,
Ed io dirò di quelle,
Davanti è lo intelletto
E la forza d’apprendere
Quello que puote intendere;
In mezzo è la ragione
E la discrezione,
Che scherne buono e male;
E lo terno e l’iguale
Dirietro sta con gloria
La valente memoria,
Che ricorda e retiene
Quello ch’in essa viene.
PERFUMES.
At all periods perfumes seem to have been more or less adopted as a luxury among the wealthy and fashionable. Tradition states that they were frequently rendered instrumental to sinister purposes, as the vehicle of poisonous substances. Historians relate that the Emperor Henri VI. and a prince of Savoy, were destroyed with perfumed gloves. Jeanne d’Albret, Queen of Navarre, and mother of Henri IV. , died from the poisonous effect of gloves purchased from the noted René, perfumer and confidential agent of Catherine de Medicis. Lancelot, King of Naples, was destroyed by a scented handkerchief prepared by a Florentine lady. Pope Clement VII. sunk under the baneful effluvia of a torch that was carried before him; and Mathioli relates, that nosegays thus impregnated have been frequently known to prove fatal. It is certain that, without the aid of venenous substances, various flowers have caused serious accidents. Barton tells us that the magnolia glauca occasioned a paroxysm of fever, and increased the severity of an attack of gout. Jacquin had seen the lobelia longiflora producing a sense of suffocation; and the nerium oleander in a close chamber, has caused death. The injurious effects of bulbous flowers in giving rise to violent headachs, giddiness, and even fainting, are generally known. The horror roses inspire to the Roman ladies is scarcely credible; and Cromer affirms that it was to the odour of that ornament of our gardens that the death of one of the daughters of Nicolas I. , Count of Salm, and of a Polish bishop, was attributed. The sympathetic effect that this flower can create is illustrated by Capellini, who saw a lady fall into a syncope on perceiving a rose in a girl’s bosom, although it turned out to be an artificial one. The partiality or antipathy to certain odours is equally unaccountable, for the Italian ladies, who dread the rose, delight in the disgusting aroma of rue, which they carry about as a salubrious plant, that, according to their notions, dispels the cattiva aria, although it is not impossible that they might fancy it possessed of those salutary qualities to which Ovid had alluded:
Utilius summas acuentes lumina rutas,
Et quidquid veneri corpora nostra negat.
Rue, according to Serenus Samonicus, was one of the ingredients of the fabled antidote of Mithridates, which he thus describes:
Antidotus verò multis Mithridatica fertur
Consociata modis, sed magnus Scrinia regis
Cùm raperit victor, vilem deprendit in illis
Synthesim, et vulgata satis medicamina risit.
Bis denum Rutæ folium, salis et breve granum,
Juglandesque duas, totidem cum corpore ficus;
Hæc oriente die, parco conspersa Lycæo,
Sumebat, metuens dederat quæ pocula mater.
The ancients were so fond of perfumes, that they scented their persons and garments, their vases, their domestic vessels, and their military insignia.They not only considered aromatic emanations as acceptable to the gods, and therefore used them in their temples, as they are at present by the Roman Catholics, but as announcing the presence of their divinities; and Virgil thus speaks of Venus:
————Avertens roseâ cervice refulsit,
Ambrosiæque comæ divinum vertice odorem
Spiravêre.
Chaplets of roses were invariably worn in festivals and ceremonies; and wines were also aromatised with various odoriferous substances. The Franks and the Gauls continued the same custom; and Gregory of Tours called these artificial-flavoured liquors, Vina odoramentis immixtaTo this day, the manipulation of French wines gives them a fictitious bouquet, with raspberries, orris-root, and divers drugs to suit the British market.
No external sense is so intimately connected with the internal senses as that of smell; none so powerful in exciting and removing syncope, or more capable of receiving delicate and delicious impressions: hence Rousseau has denominated this faculty “the sense of imagination.”No sensations can be remembered in so lively a manner as those which are recalled by peculiar odours, which are frequently known to act in a most energetic measure upon our physical and moral propensities.How many perfumes excite a lively feeling of fond regret when reminding us of the beloved one who was wont to select them, and whom we long to meet again!It is not improbable that our partiality to the hair of those who are dear to us, arises from this circumstance.Every individual emits a peculiar odour; and, according to Plutarch, Alexander was distinguished by the sweet aroma that he shed.Perhaps the expression, so frequently found in the lives of the saints, “who die in odour of sanctity,” may be referred to a belief that this peculiar gift was granted to beatitude.
It has been observed, that animals who possess the most acute smell, have the nasal organs the most extensively developed.The Ethiopians and the American Indians are remarkable for the acuteness of this sense, accounting for the wonderful power of tracking their enemies.But although we may take the peculiar organization of their olfactory organs as being partly the cause of this keen perceptibility, we must in a great measure attribute this perfection to their mode of living.Hunting and war are their chief pursuits, to which they are trained from their earliest infancy: therefore this perfection may, to a certain extent, be the result of habit; and the sight and hearing of these wanderers are as singularly perfect as their smelling.Mr. Savage relates, that a New Zealander heard the report of a distant gun at sea, or perceived a strange sail, when no other man on board could discern it.Pallas, in speaking of the Calmucks, says that many of them can distinguish by smelling at the hole of a fox whether the animal be there or not; and on their journeys and military expeditions they often smell out a fire or a camp, and thus seek quarters for the night or booty.Olaüs Borrich informs us, that the guides between Smyrna, Aleppo, and Babylon, when traversing the desert, ascertain distances by the smell of the sand.That odours float in the atmospheric air is obvious; the distance at which they are perceived is incredible. The spicy breezes of Ceylon are distinguished long before the island is seen; and it is a well-known fact that vessels have been saved by the olfactory acuteness of dogs, who, to use the common expression, were observed to “sniff” the land that had not been descried. As a proof of the intimate connexion between smell and respiration, when the breath is held odorous substances are not perceived, and it is only after expiration that they are again recognised. A proof of this may be easily obtained by placing the open neck of a small phial containing an essential oil in the mouth during the acts of inspiration and subsequent expiration. Willis was the first who observed that, on placing a sapid substance in the mouth, and at the same time closing the nostrils, the sensation of taste is suspended; and this observation has given rise to the prevailing opinion that smelling and tasting are intimately related. Odour which thus accompanies taste is termed flavour; and the ingenious Dr. Prout has admirably defined the distinction between taste and flavour, and he considers the latter an intermediate sensation between taste and smell.
The acuteness of the sensation of smelling in animals is such, that in many instances our observations have been deemed fabulous.The distance at which a dog tracks his master is scarcely credible; and it is strange that the ancients attributed a similar perfection to the goose.Ælian affirms that the philosopher Lycadeus had one of these birds that found him out like a dog:
Humanum longè præsentit odorem
Romulidarum acris servator, candidus anser.
Birds of prey will scent the battle-field at prodigious distances, and they are often seen hovering instinctively over the ground where the conflict is to supply their festival. Humboldt relates, that in Peru, at Quito, and in the province of Popayan, when sportsmen wish to obtain that species of vulture called vultur gryphus, they kill a cow or a horse, and in a short time these sagacious birds crowd to glut their ravenous appetites. Ancient historians assert that vultures have cleft the air one hundred and sixty-six leagues to arrive in time to feast upon a battle; and Pliny boldly affirms that even crows have so acute a sense of approaching corruption, that they can scent death three days before dissolution, and generally pay the moribond a visit a day before his time, not to be disappointed. This notion has become a vulgar prejudice, as much so, indeed, as the howling of a dog, which is considered in most countries as foreboding death. In various animals an offensive odour is a protective gift. The staphylinus olens, for instance, sheds an effluvium which effectually keeps away the birds who would otherwise pounce upon him.But of all singular perfections in the sense of smelling that were ever recorded, may be cited the monk of Prague and the blind man in the Quinze-vingt Hospital of Paris, who possessed the faculty of ascertaining the presence of virginity whenever a female had the luck of being introduced to them.
Many curious instances are recorded, where the loss of one sense has added to the acuteness of others.Dr. Moyse the well-known blind philosopher, could distinguish a black dress on his friends by the smell.Professor Upham of the United States, mentions a blind girl who could select her own articles out of a basket of linen brought in by the laundress.
These anomalous senses, for such they may be called, are as wonderful as they are inexplicable, and appear to arise from a peculiar sensibility of the organs of smell, which renders them capable of being stimulated in a peculiar manner, that no language can express or define.It is scent, no doubt, that gives the migratory power to various animals; “which enables them,” to use the words of Dr. Mason Good, “to steer from climate to climate, and from coast to coast; and which, if possessed by man, might perhaps render superfluous the use of the magnet, and considerably infringe upon the science of logarithms?Whence comes it that the fieldfare and red-wing, that pass the summer in Norway, or the wild-duck and merganser, that in like manner summer in the woods and lakes of Lapland, are able to track the pathless void of the atmosphere with the utmost nicety, and arrive on our own coasts uniformly in the beginning of October.”[11]
This sense is not limited to migratory animals, as instanced by carrier-pigeons, who have been known not only to carry bags in a straight line from city to city, but traverse the city with an undeviating flight. Surely this faculty must be attributed to the sense of smell; it can scarcely be referred to sight or hearing; although the wonders of the creation are such, that we can no more account for these peculiar attributes refused to the lords of the creation, than for the power of the lobster, who not only can reproduce his claws when deprived of them by accident, but cast them off to extricate himself, from the captor’s grasp. The Tipula pectiniformis, or the daddy long-legs of our infant amusement and amazement, possesses the same renovating faculties.The gluttonous gad-fly may be cut to pieces without any apparent interruption in his meal, when fastened to one’s hand: the polype does not seem to be at all discomposed when we turn him inside out; and, when divided into various sections, each portion is endowed with an instinctive and reformative power of multiplying his species in countless numbers!The diversity of our olfactory fancies is unaccountable and only illustrates the words of Petronius,
Non omnibus unum est quod placet; hic spinas, colligit ille rosas.
LOVE PHILTERS AND POTIONS.
It will scarcely be credited, but to this very day the superstitious belief in the power that certain medicinal substances possess of causing a sympathetic fondness, still obtains, even amongst classes of the community whose education one would imagine ought to have rendered such an absurdity revolting.In Italy, Spain, and Portugal, the influence of love powders and aphrodisiac drugs is universally confided in.
The ancients thought that there existed, not only various charms to kindle amorous feelings, but also to check all fond desires. The latter influence they considered as malefices, vulgarly called in more modern times, “point tying.”Plato, in his Republic, warns husbands to be on their guard lest their domestic peace might be disturbed by these diabolical practices.Lovers, separated from each other’s embrace by these nefarious enchantments, were said to be tied down. Thus Virgil,
Dic, Veneris vincula necto:
Terna tibi hæc primum triplici diversa colore
Licia circumdo.
No power could release one from these bonds:
Quis neget et magicas nervos torpere per artes?
By the laws of the twelve tables such enchantments were punished with death; and Numantina, wife of Plautius Sylvanus, was accused,
Injecisse carminibus et veneficiis vecordiam marito.
When Faustina, the gay bride of Marc Antonius was rapturously enamoured with an histrionic favourite, she was only cured of her folly by a potion in which some of the comedian’s blood had been introduced.Petrarch relates of Charlemagne, that this monarch was so fondly attached to a fair lady, that after her death he carried about her embalmed body in a superb coffin, until a venerable and learned bishop, who very wisely thought that a living beauty was preferable to the remains of a departed one, rebuked his sovereign for his irreligious and unnatural propensities, and revealed to him the important secret of his love arising from a charm that lay under the dead woman’s tongue.Whereupon the bishop went to the corpse, and drew from it a ring, which the emperor had scarcely looked upon when he abhorred the former object of his attachment, and felt such an extraordinary fancy for the bishop that he could not dispense with his presence for a single moment, until the good prelate was so obseded with royal favour that he cast the ring into a lake.From that moment Charlemagne (his historian continues) “neglected all public business, and went to live in the middle of a fen in the vicinity of Aix, where he built a temple, near which he was finally buried.”
St. Jerome, in the Life of Hilarius, mentions a young man who so bephiltered a maiden that she fell desperately in love with him; and Sigismundus Schereczius, in his chapter De Hirco Nocturno, affirms that “unchaste women, by the help of these witches, the devil’s kitchen-maids, have their lovers brought to them during the night, and carried back again, by a phantom flying in the air in the likeness of a goat.”“I have heard,” he adds, “divers confess that they have been so carried on a goat’s back to their sweethearts many miles in a night.”These wonderful potions were made of strange ingredients, for amongst them we find a man’s blood chemically prepared, mandrake roots, dead men’s clothes, candles, a certain hair in a wolf’s tail, a swallow’s heart, dust of a dove’s heart, tongues of vipers, brains of a jackass, pebbles found in an eagle’s nest, together with “palliola quibus infantes obvoluti nascuntur, funis strangulati hominis,” &c.&c.&c.Cleghorn, in his History of Minorca, tells us that water in which a hedgehog has been allowed to run into corruption, was supposed to be possessed of similar exciting powers; and a pulverized bit of a caul, scrapings of nails, and chopped hair, are to this hour deemed equally effectual to obtain these desirable ends.
Notwithstanding all these absurdities, it is undoubtedly true that certain articles of food have been considered as endowed with aphrodisiac properties; fish of various kinds, the mollusca and testaceous animals more especially.Juvenal attributes this quality to oysters, which, in this respect, with cockles and muscles have become vulgarly proverbial:
Grandia quæ mediis jam noctibus ostrea mordet.
Wallich informs us that the ladies of his time had recourse on such occasions to the brains of the mustela piscis. The sepia octopus was also in great repute; and Plautus, in his Casina, brings on an old man who had just been purchasing some in the market. There is reason to believe that these ideas were not altogether as absurd as they may appear. Fourcroy and Vauquelin have attributed this influence to the presence of phosphorus, which is well known to be highly exciting. In the East, various vegetable productions are considered in the same light. Their hakims have numerous receipts for the purpose; amongst which we find several electuaries,—such as the diacyminum, the diaxylaloes, the confections of Luffa Abunafa, and the chaschab abusidan of the Arabians, of which wonderful effects are related.
The laws of every country have provided against the offence of witchcraft, sorcery, conjuration, and enchantment. We find a statute of our first James, making it “felony, without benefit of the clergy, under the penalty of death, the act of all persons invoking any evil spirit, or consulting, covenanting with, entertaining, employing, feeding, or rewarding any evil spirits; or taking up dead bodies from their graves, to be used in any witchcraft, sorcery, charm, or enchantment; or killing or otherwise hurting, any person by such infernal arts. And if any person should attempt by sorcery to discover hidden treasures, or to restore stolen goods, or to provoke unlawful love, (lawful love did not come within these salutary provisions,) he or she should suffer imprisonment and pillory for the first offence, and death for the second.”Strange to say, that act continued in force till very lately; and Blackstone observes, “that many poor wretches were sacrificed thereby to the prejudice of their neighbours, and their own illusions; not a few having, by some means or other, confessed the fact at the gallows.”
Nothing could be more absurd, nay atrocious, than the means judicially resorted to at that period to detect witchcraft. Sir Robert Filmer mentions two tests by fire: the first by burning the house of the pretended witch: the other, by burning any animal supposed to have been bewitched by her. In both these cases the witch would confess her malefices!
Moreover, it was asserted that a witch, even while enduring the pangs of torture, could only shed three tears, and those from the left eye; this was considered a sufficient proof of guilt by the judges of the day! Swimming a witch was another expedient; in this ordeal the hag was stripped naked, and cross-bound, the right thumb to the left toe, and vice versâThus prepared, she was thrown into a pond or a river; in which, if guilty, she could not sink, for having by her compact with the Devil renounced the waters of baptism, the waters in return refused to receive her in their bosom.
Our wise legislators maintained that old women were generally selected by the evil ones for their malicious purposes, and they usually appeared to them in the form of a man wearing a black coat or gown; and sometimes, especially in the north, with a bluish band and turned-up linen cuffs: hard bargains were sometimes driven between the parties for the value of the harridan’s soul.This was also the case according to Echard, in the negotiation between Oliver Cromwell and the Devil before the battle of Worcester.There were black, white, and gray witches: some of them fond of junketing and merry-making, and often would Satan play on a pipe or a cittern to make them dance; and not unfrequently would he become enamoured with their withered charms, when toads and horrible serpents were the hated progeny of this unhallowed union.Sinclair tells us, in his “Invisible World,” of one Mr. Barton, who was burnt with his wife for witchcraft, and who confessed, before he was tied to the stake, that he had intrigued with the Devil in the shape of a comely lady, who had given him 15l. for his trouble. His wife confessed at the same time, that the Devil in the shape of a poodle dog used to dance before her, playing upon the pipes with a candle under his tail. The Devil, particularly in Scotland would ever and anon get up into a pulpit, and preach a sermon in a voice “hough and gustie.”
Burton gives us some curious traditions of these devilish amours, and quotes Philostratus’s account of one Menippus Lycius, a young man twenty-five years of age, who going between Cenchreas and Corinth, met a phantom in the shape of a fair gentlewoman, which, taking him by the hand, carried him to her house in the suburbs of Corinth; and told him she was a Phœnician by birth, and, if he would tarry with her he should hear her sing and play, and drink such wine as never was drunk, and no man should molest him, but she, being fair and lovely, would live and die with him.The young man tarried with her awhile to his great content, and at last married her; to whose wedding, amongst other guests, came Apollonius; who by some probable conjecture, found her out to be a serpent—a lamia.When she saw herself discovered, she wept, and desired Apollonius to be silent; but he would not be moved, and thereupon she, plate, house, and all that was in it vanished in an instant.
Florigerus also mentions the case of a young gentleman of Rome, “who on his wedding day went out walking with his bride and some friends after dinner; and towards the evening went to a tennis-court, and while he played he took off his ring, and placed it upon the finger of a brass Venus statuaThe game finished, he went to fetch his ring; but Venus had bent her finger upon it, and he could not get it off.Whereupon, loth to make his companions tarry, he there left it, intending to fetch it the next day, went thence to supper, and so to bed; but in the night Venus had slipped between him and his wife, and thus troubled him for several successive nights.Not knowing how to help himself, he made his moan to one Palumbus, a learned magician; who gave him a letter, and bade him at such a time of the night, in such a cross way, where old Saturn would pass by with his associates, to deliver to him the script: the young man, of a bold spirit, accordingly did it; and when the old fiend had read it, he called Venus to him, who was riding before him, and commanded her to deliver the ring, which forthwith she did.”
Burton further quotes St.Augustine, Bodin, Paracelsus, and various other learned men, who firmly maintain that the Devil is particularly fond of a little flirtation with the ladies; and a Bavarian widower, who was sadly grieving for his beloved wife, was visited by Old Nick, who had assumed the form of the departed lady, and promised to live with him and comfort him on the condition that he would leave off swearing and blaspheming; he vowed it, married her, and she brought him several children; till one day, in an uxorious quarrel, he began to swear like a Pandour, whereupon she vanished, and never more was seen.
The preservatives against witchcraft were as absurd as the fear it inspired: some hair, parings of nails, or any part of a person bewitched, were put into a stone bottle, with crooked nails, then corked close, and hung up the chimney; this expedient occasioned most horrible tortures to the witch, until the bottle was uncorked.Witches, moreover, cannot pursue their victims beyond the middle of a running stream, provided the fugitives had been baptized.I have now a patient under my care who fancies himself bewitched, and asserts that the only way to guard against the evil is by driving a nail in the impress left by a witch’s foot on the threshold, when she will discontinue her visits.
By an act of George II. these offences were considered as misdemeanors, and punished with a year’s imprisonment, and standing four times in the pillory. There is no doubt that, notwithstanding the absurdity of such delusions and impostures, legislators must endeavour to secure the ignorant against these impositions, which are frequently of a perilous nature, and have been often known to occasion serious accidents, and even death. Many of the substances thus administered are of a most dangerous description, and these enchantments are not unfrequently resorted to with sinister intentions. It is related of the Asiatic women, that, under the pretext of giving these philters, they sometimes times prepare a beverage from the seeds of the Datura Metel, which produces a lethargic stupefaction of a convenient nature. The mischief that has frequently arisen from the exhibition of the Lytta vesicatoria has been observed and recorded by every medical practitioner. The Diablotini, a kind of incentive sugar-plums of the Italians, have been known to occasion the most serious accidents; and the celebrated French actor Molé lost his life in one of these experiments.Yet penal enactments, in such cases, must be resorted to with much circumspection; for prohibition too frequently promotes the evils which it is designed to check.
Montesquieu observes, that the ridiculous stories that are generally told, and the many impositions that have been discovered in all ages, are enough to demolish all faith in such a dubious crime, if the contrary evidence were not also extremely strong. Unquestionably, we have too many instances of criminal acts of superstition in which supernatural agency is believed; but did this philosophic writer mean to say that we have evidence of actual witchcraft and sorcery? It is with some degree of regret that we find our learned Blackstone avow his belief in these matters, and we borrow his own words on the subject: “To deny the possibility, nay, the actual existence of witchcraft and sorcery, is at once flatly to contradict the revealed Word of God, in various passages both of the New and Old Testament; and the thing itself is a truth to which every nation in the world hath in its turn borne testimony, either by examples seemingly well attested, or by prohibitory laws which at least suppose the possibility of a commerce with evil spirits. The civil law punishes with death not only the sorcerers themselves, but also those who consult them; imitating in the former the express law of God, ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live!’ ” Without calling into doubt the records of supernatural agency in Holy Writ, evident manifestations of the power and the will of the Divinity at that period, it may fairly be asked—Can we promulgate such opinions in the present times, when miraculous events do not seem to be permitted by our Creator in His inscrutable wisdom, without incurring the risk of plunging the ignorant in all the dark horrors of the early ages? Montesquieu himself has justly remarked, “that the most unexceptionable conduct, the purest morals, and the constant practice of every duty in life, are not a sufficient security against the suspicion of crimes like these.” And yet, because, forsooth, there may be made to appear examples seemingly attested, and that on the faith of such an attestation the most absurd and cruel prohibitory laws have been enacted by every nation in the world, on the supposition of the possibility of such a crime, however ignorant and brutalized by superstition these nations are or may have been, man is not only authorized by the Scriptures to persecute some poor miserable fool or vagrant impostor unto death, but he is sanctioned in founding this barbarous persecution on the laws of God!The mind sickens at such doctrines.It is grievous to find a man like our Addison sharing in such preposterous notions; notions which would induce a doubtful by-stander not to interfere with a mob of miscreants who were drowning some unfortunate old woman “for a witch.”
“There are,” says Addison, “some opinions in which a man should stand neuter, without engaging his assent to one side or the other. It is with this temper of mind that I consider the subject of witchcraft. When I consider whether there are such persons in the world as those we call witches, my mind is divided between the two opposite opinions; or rather, to speak my thoughts freely, I believe in general that there is, and has been, such a thing as witchcraft, but, at the same time, can give no credit to any particular instance of it.”
Are we then still to believe that there may exist some supernatural hag, that can
————Untie the winds, and let them fight
Against the churches————
Control the moon, make ebbs and flows,
And deal in her command without her power?
or who, with the influence given to them by our poet Rowe,
By force of potent spells, of bloody characters,
And conjurations horrible to hear,
Call fiends and spectres from the yawning deep,
And set the ministers of hell to work,
with the liver of a blaspheming Jew, the nose of a Turk, the lips of a Tartar, the finger of a birth-strangled babe, and ditch-delivered by a drab, &c. &c.? If we are to believe in witches with Blackstone and Addison, we must give credence to all these mystic means by which they work their way. All these means have been seemingly attested, and led, from the just horror they inspired, to those prohibitory laws enacted by every nation; as if the laws of man could be of any avail in resisting the admitted supernatural powers with which these witches, sorcerers, magicians, &c. must have been invested by the Deity to perform their terrific operations! If we deny this authority we are Manicheans.