Part 71 (1/2)

We close this chapter with an account of CENTAURS AND LAPITHae.--Under the reign of Ixion, king of Thessaly, a company of bulls which fed upon Pelion ran mad, by which means the mountain was inaccessible. They also descended into the inhabited parts, ruining the trees and fruits, and killing the larger cattle. Upon which Ixion declared that he would give a great reward to any person that would destroy these bulls. Riding on horseback was never practised before that time. But some young men that lived in a village at the foot of Pelion, had attempted successfully to train horses fit to back, and had accustomed themselves to that exercise. These youths undertook to clear the mountain of the bulls, which they effected by pursuing them on horseback, and piercing them with their arrows as they fled; but when the bulls stopped or followed them, they retired without receiving any hurt. And from hence they were called Centaurs, viz. Pierce bulls. Having received of Ixion the recompense he promised them, they became so fierce and proud, that they committed a thousand insolences in Thessaly, not sparing even Ixion himself, who dwelt in the town of Larissa. The inhabitants of the country were at that time called Lapithae, who one day invited the Centaurs to a feast which they celebrated: but the Centaurs abused their civility; for, having drunk too much, they took the Lapithites' women from them, set them on their horses, and carried them away. This violence kindled a long war between the Centaurs and the Lapithae: the Centaurs in the night came down into the plain, and laid ambushes for their enemies, and, as soon as day appeared, retired again into the mountain, with whatever they had taken. Thus, as they retired, the Lapithae saw only the hinder parts of their horses, and the men's heads; so that they seemed but as one animal, whence they believed the Centaurs had become half men and half horses, and that they were clouds, because the village where they dwelt was called Nophelus, which signified a cloud.

CHAP. Lx.x.xIV.

MISCELLANEOUS CURIOSITIES.--(_Continued._)

_Spontaneous Inflammation--Diseases peculiar to Particular Countries--Injuries from Swallowing the Stones of Fruits--Extraordinary Surgical Operation--Extraordinary Cures by Burning--Illumination by Electricity--Divisibility of Matter._

SPONTANEOUS INFLAMMATION.--A paper on this subject, which appeared in the Repertory of Arts, vol. ii. p. 425, induced the Rev. W. Tooke to publish some remarks in vol. iii. p. 95, of that work, from which the following is an extract, respecting the spontaneous inflammation of animal and vegetable substances. ”One Rude, (says he,) an apothecary at Bautzen, had prepared a pyrophorus from rye-bran and alum. Not long after he had made the discovery, there broke out, in the next village of Nauslitz, a great fire, which did much mischief, and was said to have been occasioned by the treating of a sick cow in the cow-house. Mr. Rude knew that the countrymen were accustomed to lay an application of parched rye-bran to their cattle, for curing the thick neck; he knew also that alum and rye-bran, by a proper process, yielded a _pyrophorus_; and now, to try whether parched rye-bran alone would have the same effect, he roasted a quant.i.ty of it by the fire, till it had acquired the colour of roasted coffee. This roasted bran he wrapped up in a linen cloth; in a few minutes there arose a strong smoke, with a smell of burning. Soon after, the rag grew as black as tinder, and the bran, now become hot, fell through it on the ground in little b.a.l.l.s. Mr. Rude repeated the experiment, and always with the same result. Who now will doubt, that the frequency of fires in cow-houses, which in those parts are mostly wooden buildings, is occasioned by this practice, of binding roasted bran about the necks of the cattle?”

Montet relates, in the _Memoires de l'Academie de Paris_, 1748, that animal substances kindle into flame; and that he himself has been witness to the spontaneous accension of dunghills. The woollen stuff prepared at Sevennes, named Emperor's stuff, has kindled of itself, and burnt to a coal. It is usual for this to happen to woollen stuffs, when in hot summers they are laid in a heap, in a room but little aired. In June, 1781, this happened at a woolcomber's in Germany, where a heap of wool-combings, piled up in a close warehouse seldom aired, took fire of itself. This wool burnt from within outwards, and became quite a coal; though neither fire nor light had been used at the packing. In like manner cloth-workers have certified, that after they have bought wool that was become wet, and packed it close in their warehouse, this wool has burnt of itself. The spontaneous accension of various matters from the vegetable kingdom, as wet hay, corn, and madder, and at times wet meal and malt, is well known. Hemp, flax, and hemp-oil, have also often given rise to dreadful conflagrations.

In the spring of 1780, a fire was discovered on board a frigate lying in the roads off Cronstadt, which endangered the whole fleet. After the severest scrutiny, no cause of the fire was to be found; and the matter remained without explanation, but with strong surmises of some wicked incendiary.--In August, 1780, a fire broke out at the hemp magazine at St.

Petersburg, by which several hundred thousand poods (about 36lb. English) of hemp and flax were consumed. The walls of the magazine are of brick, the floors of stone, and the rafters and covering of iron; it stands alone on an island in the Neva, on which, as well as on board the s.h.i.+ps lying in the Neva, no fire is permitted.--In St. Petersburg, in the same year, a fire was discovered in the vaulted shop of a furrier. In these shops, which are all vaults, neither fire nor candle is allowed, and the doors of them are all of iron. At length the probable cause was found to be, that the furrier, the evening before the fire, had got a roll of new cerecloth, and had left it in his vault, where it was found almost consumed.--In the night between the 20th and 21st of April, 1781, a fire was seen on board the frigate Maria, at anchor, with several other s.h.i.+ps, in the roads off the island of Cronstadt; the fire was, however, soon extinguished, but, by the severest examination, nothing could be extorted concerning the manner in which it had arisen. The garrison was threatened with a scrutiny that should cost them dear; and while they were in this cruel suspense, the wisdom of the sovereign gave a turn to the affair, which quieted the minds of all, by pointing out the proper method to be pursued by the commissioners of inquiry, in the following order to Czernichef: ”When we perceived, by the report you have delivered in of the examination into the accident that happened on board the frigate Maria, that, in the cabin where the fire broke out, there were found parcels of matting, tied together with packthread, in which the soot of burnt fir-wood had been mixed with oil, for the purpose of painting the s.h.i.+p's bottom, it came into our mind, that, for the fire which happened last year at the hemp-warehouses, the following cause was a.s.signed; that the fire might have proceeded from the hemp being bound up in greasy mats, or even from such mats having lain near the hemp: therefore, neglect not to guide your farther inquiries by this remark.”

As, upon juridical examination as well as private inquiry, it was found that, in the s.h.i.+p's cabin, where the smoke appeared, there lay a bundle of matting, containing Russian lamp-black, prepared from fir-soot moistened with hemp-oil varnish, which was perceived to have sparks of fire in it at the time of the extinction, the Russian admiralty gave orders to make various experiments, to see whether a mixture of hemp-oil varnish and the forementioned Russian black, folded up in a mat and bound together, would kindle of itself. They shook 40lb. of fir-wood soot into a tub, and poured about 35lb. of hemp-oil varnish upon it; this they let stand for an hour, after which they poured off the oil. The remaining mixture they now wrapped up in a mat, and the bundle was laid close to the cabin where the mids.h.i.+pmen had their birth. Two officers sealed both the mat and door with their own seals, and stationed a watch of four officers, to take notice of all that pa.s.sed during the whole night; and as soon as any smoke should appear, immediately to give information to the commandant of the port. The experiment was made on the 26th of April, about eleven o'clock A. M. in presence of all the officers. Early on the 27th, about six o'clock A. M. a smoke appeared, of which the chief commandant was immediately informed: he came with speed, and, through a small hole in the door, saw the mat smoking. He dispatched a messenger to the members of the commission; but as the smoke became stronger, and fire began to appear, he found it necessary to break the seals and open the door. No sooner was the air thus admitted, than the mat began to burn with greater force, and presently it burst into a flame.

The Russian admiralty, being now fully convinced of the self-enkindling property of this composition, transmitted their experiment to the Imperial Academy of Sciences; who appointed Mr. Georgi, a very learned adjunct of the academy, to make farther experiments on the subject. Three pounds of Russian fir-black were slowly impregnated with 5lb. of hemp-oil varnish; and when the mixture had stood open five hours, it was bound up in linen.

By this process it became clotted; but some of the black remained dry.

When the bundle had lain sixteen hours in a chest, it was observed to emit a very nauseous, and rather putrid smell, not unlike that of boiling oil.

Some parts of it became warm, and steamed much; eighteen hours after the mixture was wrapt up, one place became brown, emitted smoke, and directly afterwards glowing fire appeared. The same thing happened in a second or third place; though other places were scarcely warm. The fire crept slowly around, and gave a thick, grey, stinking smoke. Mr. Georgi took the bundle out of the chest, and laid it on a stone pavement; when, on being exposed to the free air, there arose a slow burning flame, a span high, with a strong body of smoke. Not long afterwards, there appeared, here and there, several chaps, or clefts, as from a little volcano, the vapour issuing from which burst into flames. On his breaking the lump, it burst into a very violent flame, full three feet high, which soon grew less, and then went out. The smoking and glowing fire lasted six hours; and the remainder continued to glow without for two hours longer. The grey earthy ashes, when cold, weighed five and a half ounces. Mr. Tooke concludes with a case of self-accension, noticed by Mr. Hagemann, an apothecary, at Bremen. He prepared a boiled oil of _hyoscyamus_, or henbane, in the usual way, with common oil. The humidity of the herb was nearly evaporated, when he was called away by other affairs, and was obliged to leave the oil on the fire. The evaporation of the humidity was hereby carried so far, that the herb could easily be rubbed to powder. The oil had lost its green colour, and had become brownish. In this state it was laid on the straining cloth, and placed in the garden, behind the house, in the open air. In half an hour, on coming again to this place, he perceived a strong smoke there, though he thought the oil must have long been cooled: on closer inspection, he found that the smoke did not proceed from the oil, but from the herb on the straining cloth; at the same time the smell betrayed a concealed fire. He stirred the herb about, and blew into it with a bellows, whereupon it broke out into a bright flame.

DISEASES PECULIAR TO PARTICULAR COUNTRIES.--The inhabitants of particular places are peculiarly subject to particular diseases, owing to their manner of living, or to the air and effluvia of the earth and waters.

Hoffman has made some curious observations on diseases of this kind. He remarks, that swellings of the throat have always been common to the inhabitants of mountainous countries: and the old Roman authors say, 'Who wonders at a swelled throat in the Alps?' The people of Switzerland, Carinthia, Stiria, the Hartz forest, Transylvania, and the inhabitants of Cronstadt, he observes, are all subject to this disease. The French are peculiarly troubled with fevers, worms, hydroceles, and sarcoceles; and all these disorders seem to be owing originally to their eating very large quant.i.ties of chestnuts. The people of Britain are affected with hoa.r.s.enesses, catarrhs, coughs, dysenteries, consumptions, and the scurvy; the women with the _fluor albus_; and children with a disease scarcely known elsewhere, which we call the rickets.

In different parts of Italy, different diseases reign. At Naples, the venereal disease is more common than in any other part of the world. At Venice, people are peculiarly subject to the bleeding piles. At Rome, tertian agues and lethargic distempers are most common; in Tuscany, the epilepsy; and in Apulia, burning fevers, pleurisies, and that sort of madness which is attributed to the bite of the tarantula, and fancied to be cured by music. In Spain, apoplexies are common, as also melancholy, hypochondriacal complaints, and bleeding piles. The Dutch are peculiarly subject to the scurvy, and to the stone in the kidneys. The people of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Pomerania, and Livonia, are all terribly afflicted with the scurvy: and it is remarkable, that in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, fevers are very common; but in Iceland, Lapland, and Finland, there is scarcely ever such a disease met with. The Russians and Tartars are afflicted with ulcers, made by the cold, of the nature of what we call chilblains, but greatly worse; and in Poland and Lithuania, there reigns a peculiar disease, called the _Plica Polonica_, so terribly painful and offensive, that scarcely any thing can be thought worse. The people of Hungary are very subject to the gout and rheumatism: they are also more infested with lice and fleas than any other people in the world; and they have a peculiar disease which they call _cremor_. The Germans, in different parts of the empire, are subject to different reigning diseases.

In Westphalia, they are peculiarly troubled with peripneumonies and the itch. In Silesia, Franconia, Austria, and other places thereabout, they are very liable to fevers of the burning kind, to bleedings at the nose, and other haemorrhages; and to the gout, inflammations, and consumptions.

In Misnia they have purple fevers; and the children are peculiarly infested with worms. In Greece, Macedonia, and Thrace, there are very few diseases; but what they have are princ.i.p.ally burning fevers and phrenzies.

Anciently, the most common diseases in Egypt were blindness, ulcers in the legs, consumptions, and the leprosy, called _elephantiasis_, which was peculiar to that country; as Pliny observes, _Egypti peculiare hoc malum elephantiasis_. At Constantinople the plague always rages; and in the West Indian islands, malignant fevers, and the most terrible colics. These diseases are called _endemic_. In general, it is observed, that the colder the country is, the fewer and the less violent are the diseases.

Schoeffer tells us, that the Laplanders know no such thing as the plague, or fevers of the burning kind; nor are they subject to half the distempers we are. They are robust and strong, and live to eighty, ninety, and many of them to more than one hundred years; and at this great age they are not feeble and decrepit, but a man of ninety is able to work or travel as well as a man of sixty with us. They are subject, however, to some diseases, more than other nations. They have often distempers of the eyes, owing to their living in smoke, or being blinded by snow. Pleurisies, inflammations of the lungs, and violent pains of the head, are also very frequently found among these hardy inhabitants of the north; and the small-pox rages with great violence. They have one general remedy against these and all other internal diseases; this is, the root of that sort of moss which they call _jerth_. They make a decoction of this root in the whey of rein-deer's milk, and drink very large doses of it warm, to keep up a breathing sweat; if they cannot get this, they use the stalks of angelica boiled in the same manner: but the keeping in a sweat, and drinking plentifully of diluting liquors, may go a great way in the cure. They cure pleurisies by this method in a very few days, and get so well through the small-pox with it, that very few die of the disease.

INJURIES FROM SWALLOWING THE STONES OF FRUITS.--The dangers arising from swallowing the stones of plums and other fruits are very great. The Philosophical Transactions give an account of a woman who suffered violent pains in her bowels for thirty years, the malady returning once in a month or less. At length, a strong purge being given her, the occasion of all these complaints was discovered to be a stone of an oval figure, of about ten drams in weight, and measuring five inches in circ.u.mference. This had caused all the violent fits of pain, which she had suffered for so many years; after this, she became perfectly well. The ball extracted looked like a stone, and felt very hard, but swam in water. On cutting it through with a knife, there was found in the centre, a plum-stone, round which several coats of this hard and tough matter had gathered.

Another instance is given in the same papers, of a man, who, dying of an incurable colic, which had tormented him many years, and baffled the effects of medicines, was opened after death; and in his bowels was found a ball similar to that above-mentioned, but somewhat larger, being six inches in circ.u.mference, and weighing an ounce and a half. In the centre of this, as of the other, there was found the stone of a common plum, and the coats were of the same nature with those of the former. These and similar instances mentioned in the same work, sufficiently shew the folly of that common opinion, that the stones of fruits are wholesome. Even cherry stones, swallowed in great quant.i.ties, have occasioned death.

EXTRAORDINARY SURGICAL OPERATION.--”The most surprising and honourable operation of surgery ever performed, was, without any contradiction, that executed by M. Richerand, by taking away a part of the ribs and of the pleura. The patient was himself a medical man, and not ignorant of the danger he ran in this operation being had recourse to; but he also knew that his disorder was otherwise incurable. He was attacked with a cancer on the internal surface of the ribs and of the pleura, which continually produced enormous fungosities, that had been in vain attempted to be repressed by the actual cautery. M. Richerand was obliged to lay the ribs bare, to saw away two, to detach them from the pleura, and to cut away all the cancerous part of that membrane.

”As soon as he had made the opening, the air rus.h.i.+ng into the chest, occasioned the first day great suffering, and distressing shortness of breath; the surgeon could touch and see the heart through the pericardium, which was as transparent as gla.s.s, and could a.s.sure himself of the total insensibility of both. Much serous fluid flowed from the wound, as long as it remained open; but it filled up slowly by means of the adhesion of the lung with the pericardium, and the fleshy granulations that were formed in it. At length the patient got so well, that on the twenty-seventh day after the operation, he could not resist the desire of going to the Medicinal School, to see the fragments of the ribs that had been taken from him; and in three or four days afterwards he returned home, and went about his ordinary business. The success of M. Richerand is the more important, because it will authorize, in other cases, enterprises, which, according to received opinions, would appear impossible; and we shall be less afraid of penetrating into the interior of the chest. M. Richerand even hopes, that by opening the pericardium itself, and using proper injections, we may cure a disease that has. .h.i.therto always been fatal, the dropsy of that cavity.”--_Thomson's Annals._