Curiosities of Medical ExperienceMillingen, J. G. (John Gideon)
Philosophy
Curiosities of Medical Experience
Millingen, J. G. (John Gideon)
Medicine
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 haec 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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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