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"They had their general assemblies, too; and on these occasions they commonly selected for their rendezvous the rocky recesses of some remote torrent, whence their loud voices, mingling with the water's roar, carried to the ears of wondering superstition detached parts of their unearthly colloquies."

SPITTING!

Spitting, according to Pliny, was superstitiously observed in averting witchcraft, and in giving a shrewder blow to an enemy. Hence seems to be derived the custom our bruisers have of spitting in their hands, before they begin their fight. Several other vestiges of the superstition relative to fasting spittle (Fascinationes saliva jejuna repelle veteri superstitione creditum est. Alex. at Alex.), mentioned also in Pliny, may yet be traced among our vulgar. Boys have a custom (inter se) of spitting their faith when required to make asseverations in a matter of consequence. In combinations of the colliers, &c., in the north, for the purpose of raising their wages, they are said to spit upon a stone together, by way of cementing their confederacy. We have, too, a kind of popular saying, when persons are of the same party, or agree in sentiments, "They spit on the same stone."

THE HOUSE LEEK

Was also common in witchcraft, and it is usual even now, in the north of England, to plant it upon the top of cottage houses. The learned author of Vulgar Errors informs us, that it was an ancient superstition, and this herb was planted on the tops of houses as a defensative against lightning and thunder.-Quinсипх, 126.

CITRON.

"Nor be the citron, Media's boast, unsung,

Though harsh its juice, and lingering on the tongue,
When the drug'd bowl, 'mid witching curses brew'd,
Wastes the pale youth by stepdame hate pursued,
Its powerful aid unbinds the mutter'd spell,
And frees the victim from the draught of Hell."
Sotheby's Virgil's Georgics.

The juice of the citron was used by the ancients as an antidote to and against poison: hence it became esteemed as a preventive to the effects of witchcraft; at least when the bewitched party were supposed to have imbibed poison, or any deleterious drug, through the agency of witches. In our day the juice of the citron is used in chemistry, and is called Citric Acid.

WATER ORDEAL.

It was formerly a custom in several countries to weigh those that were suspected of magic, it being generally imagined that

sorcerers were specifically lighter than other men. This was the origin of the practice of throwing the accused person into water; when, if his body floated upon the surface, he was convicted of witchcraft and burnt, but if it sunk to the bottom he was acquitted.* M. Ameilhon has published a curious paper in the 37th vol. of the Memoirs of the Royal Academy on this particular subject, in which he endeavours to show the probability, that some of these miserable persons did actually float on the water. He states, that among the multitude of persons subject to hysteria, and other similar complaints, there are several who cannot sink in the water; and hence he concludes that the pretended magicians and sorcerers who floated when tried by the water ordeal, were persons deeply affected with nervous disorders. Pomme, the celebrated French physician, in his Traité des Affections Vapoureuses, supports the same opinion.

DISSECTION.

The first Author who is said to have written on anatomy is Hippocrates, and the first recorded dissection was probably made by his contemporary Democritus, a philosopher of Abdera, who, while dissecting a brute, was surprised by Hippocrates, who expressed himself greatly astonished that his friend could be guilty of so base an action, as it was considered nothing less than a contempt of the works of the Deity. Hippocrates added, that it was fortunate no other person witnessed his impiety. This is said to have taken place about the year 400 B.C.

CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD.

The celebrated Harvey, in the year 1628, published his discovery of the circulation of the blood, which was of the most importance to physic of any that was ever made, and acquired him an immortal name. Nevertheless there are others who contend for the glory of this important discovery. Leonicenus says, that Fran. Paoli Sarpi, a Venetian, discovered the circulation, but durst not publish his discovery for fear of the Inquisition; that he therefore only communicated the secret to Fab. ab Aquapendente, who, after his death, deposited the book he had composed on it in the library of St. Mark, where it lay a long time, till Aquapendente discovered the secret to Harvey, who then studied under him at Padua, and who, upon his return to England, a land of liberty, published it as his own. But Sir George Ent has shewn, that Father Paul received the first notion of the circulation of the blood from Harvey's book on that subject, which was carried to Venice by the ambassador of the republic at the * See Dead Sea.

court of England. As a benefactor of mankind, he is, as Hume proceeds," entitled to the glory of having made, by reasoning alone, without any mixture of accident, a capital discovery in one of the most important branches of science. He had also the happiness of establishing at once this theory on the most solid and convincing proofs; and posterity has added little to the arguments suggested by his industry and ingenuity. His treatise of the circulation of the blood is farther embellished by that warmth and spirit which so naturally accompany the genius of invention. This great man was much favoured by Charles I., who gave him the liberty of using all the deer in the royal forests for perfecting his discoveries on the generation of animals. It was remarked that no physician in Europe, who had reached forty years of age, ever, to the end of his life, adopted Harvey's doctrine of the circulation of the blood, and that his practice in London diminished extremely, from the reproach drawn upon him by that great and signal discovery. So slow is the progress of truth in every science, even when not opposed by factious or superstitious prejudices. He died in 1657, aged 79. As to the velocity of the circulating blood, and the time wherein the circulation is completed, several computations have been made. By Dr. Keil's account, the blood is driven out of the heart into the aorta with a velocity which would carry it twenty-five feet in a minute; but this velocity is continually abated in the progress of the blood, in the numerous sections or branches of the arteries, so that, before it arrive at the extremities of the body, its motion is infinitely diminished. The space of time wherein the whole mass of blood ordinarily circulates, is variously determined; some state it thus, Supposing the heart to make two thousand pulses in an hour, and that at every pulse there is expelled an ounce of blood, as the whole mass of blood is not ordinarily computed to exceed 24 pounds, it must be circulated seven or eight times over in the space of an hour. The quantity of blood taken in the heart, and expelled therefrom into arteries, by successive pulsations, in the course of 24 hours, has been lately estimated by Dr. Kidd at 243 hogsheads in an ordinary man, and 8000 hogsheads in a large whale. So that the whole mass of blood in such a man, reckoning at 55 pints, passes 288 times through his heart daily, or once in five minutes, by 375 pulsations, each expelling about 11⁄2 oz. of blood, or about three table-spoonsful in a minute.

CRANIOLOGY, &c.

The origin of this art is attributed by an author who has lately published a dissertation upon the subject, to one John Rohan de Retham, who published a tract thereon in the year 1500. That the modern discovery is about 300 years too late, is, he tells us, evident from this tract. The terms in both are the same,

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generally ending in iva. The local seats of the mind are as determinately indicated in each. The ancient German speaks of the cellula imaginativa, cellula communis sensus, cellula estimativa, seu cogitativa, et rationalis, cellula memorativa, &c. The fable is, therefore, as obsolete as it is absurd; and presents but the organic remains" of a craniology exploded more than 300 years ago. Donna Olivia Sabuco de Nantes, a native of Alcarez, possessed an enlightened mind. She had a knowledge of physical science, medicine, morals, and politics, as her writings abundantly testify. But what contributed the most to render her illustrious, was her new physiological system, which was contrary to the notions of the ancients. She established the opinion, that it is not the blood which nourishes the human body. This system, which Spain did not at first appreciate, was warmly embraced in England, and we now receive, says the Spanish writer, from the hands of strangers as their invention, what was, strictly speaking, our own. Fatal genius of Spain! before any thing to which thou givest birth can be deemed valuable, it must be transferred to strangers. It appears that this great woman assigned the brain as the only dwelling for a human soul; in this opinion Descartes afterwards coincided, with this difference only, that she conceived the whole substance of the brain to be the abode of the soul, and he confined it to the pineal gland. The confidence of Donna Olivia in her own opinions was so great, and her determination in vindicating them so powerful, that in her dedicatory letter to the Count de Barajas, President of Castile, she entreated him to exercise all his authority among the learned naturalists and medical men in Spain, to convince them that their heresies were inaccurate, and she could prove it. She flourished in the reign of Philip II.

ST. VITUS'S DANCE.

It is related, that after St. Vitus and his companions were martyred, their heads were enclosed in a church wall, and forgotten; so that no one knew where they were until the church was repaired, when the heads were found and the church bells began to sound of themselves, and those who were there to dance, and their bodies to undergo strange contortions, and which circumstance has since supplied a name to a disorder peculiar to the human frame, known by "St. Vitus's Dance."

SMALLPOX.

The first who introduced inoculation into Europe was Immanuel Timonis, a Greek physician at Constantinople, who voluntarily communicated the art to the universities of Oxford and Padua, of which he was a member.

VACCINATION.

For the discovery of this great blessing we are indebted to the late Dr. Francis Jenner, of the city of Gloucester, to whom a monument is erected in St. Paul's Cathedral.

GREY HAIR.

The Medical Adviser states-"Some hypotheticals, among whom is a modern periodical, confidently assert, that the cause of Grey Hair is a contraction of the skin about the roots of it, and from this cause suppose that polar animals become white; the cold operating as a contracting power. If this argument were true, we should be all grey if we happened to be exposed to a hard frost! There are fewer grey people in Russia than in Italy or Arabia; for the Russians, having more generally lightcoloured hair, do not so often or so soon feel the effects of the grizzly fiend as those whose hair is black or dark. Cold, therefore, is nonsense; it assuredly cannot be contraction at the roots of the hairs. Has not the hair of individuals labouring under certain passions become grey in one night? Were these suffering from cold? rather, were they not burning with internal feeling? Sudden fright has caused the hair to turn grey; but this, as well as any other remote cause, can be freed from the idea of operating by cold or contraction.

"Our opinion is, that the vis vitæ is lessened in the extreme ramifications of those almost imperceptible vessels destined to supply the hair with colouring fluid. The vessels which secrete this fluid cease to act, or else the absorbent vessels take it away faster than it is furnished. This reason will bear argument; for grief, debility, fright, fever, and age, all have the effect of lessening the power of the extreme vessels. It may be said in argument against this opinion, that if the body be again invigorated, the vessels ought, according to our reasoning, to secrete again the colouring fluid; but to this we say, that the vessels which secrete this fluid are so very minute, that upon their ceasing their functions they become obliterated, and nothing can ever restore them."

LIVER COMPLAINTS IN INDIA.

Most people, says the Medical Adviser, suppose that it is the heat of the climate in the East Indies that produce so many liver complaints: this is not alone the cause; the Brazils are much hotter, yet these diseases are not by any means so frequent. It is also supposed that free living is the cause, but is refuted by the fact, that mere water-drinkers will be affected in common with wine bibbers, and dogs that go from Europe to India will, in the same profusion of numbers as men, contract a disease of

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