A case occurred in the household of that Dr. Mark Duncan whom our
James I. would have engaged as his Physician in ordinary, but Duncan
having married at Saumur and settled in that city declined the
invitation, because his wife was unwilling to leave her friends and
relations and her native place. Yielding therefore as became him to
her natural and reasonable reluctance he passed the remainder of his
useful and honourable life at Saumur. It is noticed as a remarkable
circumstance that the five persons of whom his family consisted died
and were interred in as many different kingdoms, one in France,
another at Naples, a third at Stockholm, a fourth in London, and the
fifth in Ireland. A son of Duncan's valet, in his thirteenth year lost
his tongue by the effects of the small-pox, the root being so consumed
by this dreadful disease, that in a fit of coughing it came away. The
boy's speech was no otherwise affected by the loss than that he found
it difficult to pronounce the letter r. He was exhibited throughout
Europe, and lived long afterwards. A surgeon at Saumur composed a
treatise upon the case, and Duncan who was then Principal of the
College in that city supplied him with this title for it
Aglossostomographie. A rival physician published a dissertation to
prove that it ought to be Aglossostomatographie, and he placed these
verses at the conclusion of this odd treatise.
_Lecteur, tu t'esmerveilleras
Qu'un garçon qui n'a point de langue,
Prononce bien une harangue;
Mais bien plus tu t'estonneras
Qu'un barbier que ne sçait pas lire
Le grec, se mesle d'en escrire.
Que si ce plaisant épigramme,
Doux fruit d'un penser de mon âme
Te semble n'aller pas tant mal,
C'est que je l'ai fait à cheval._
_Quelques gens malins changerent le dernier vers dans les exemplaires
qu'ils purent trouver, et y mirent—C'est que je l'ai fait en cheval._
* * * * *
The reader who thinks upon what he reads, will find some materials for
thinking on, in what has here been collected for him. First as to the
physical facts:—they show that the power of reproduction exists in the
human body, in a greater degree than has been commonly supposed. But
it is probable that this power would be found only in young subjects,
or in adults whose constitutions were unusually healthful and
vigorous. A very small proportion of the snails which have been
decapitated by experimental physiologists, have reproduced their
heads; though the fact of such reproduction is certainly established.
Rhazes records two cases which had fallen under his own observation;
in one of which the tibia, in the other the underjaw had been
reproduced; neither acquired the consistency of the other bones. The
Doctor used to adduce these cases in support of a favourite theory of
his own, with which the reader will in due time be made acquainted.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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