Part 14

----------Sic funere primo Attonitae tacuere domus, quam corpora nondum Conclamata jacent, noc mater crine soluto Exigit ad saevos famularum brachia planctus.

The ancients held hasty inhumation in great dread, and grounded their apprehension on various current traditions. Thus Plato remarks the case of a warrior who was left for ten days on the field of battle amongst the dead, and who came to life when he was being borne to the sepulchre. Asclepiades restored life to a man who was also consigned to the funeral pile, and Pliny relates the case of Lucius Aviola and Lucius Lamia, who showed signs of life upon the pile, but were too much injured to be saved.

Amongst the many absurd fancies regarding the dead, was the superstitious belief of their being able to masticate in their coffin any substance buried with them. Women more especially were believed to be gifted with this post mortem faculty of moving their jaw-bones very loudly. Claro sonitu, says the learned Michael Ranfft, in his curious and elaborate work, de masticatione mortuorum. In this apprehension, that the deceased in their hunger might devour their own limbs, articles of food were interred with them.

According to the law of the Jews, who appear to have been in constant dread of pestilential disease, the inhumation of the dead were most hasty. Yet in this instance many Rabbi maintain that the Talmud has been erroneously interpreted, for although it decreed that a night should not be allowed to pass before inhumation, it clearly meant that actual death must have been ascertained.

While such fears are entertained of suspended animation being taken for dissolution, it is strange that in some savage tribes the aged are allowed to perish without any care being taken to prolong their lives. Such is the custom of some of the Esquimaux, where old and decrepit creatures are abandoned in their huts and left to their fate. An ancient tradition stated that the inhabitants of the Isle of Syria never died of any distemper, but dropped into their graves at a certain old age.

It would be desirable that in cases where interment is speedily resorted to, a physician should attend, in order to ascertain that death had actually taken place. This is seldom practised, from the common saying "that it is uncivil on the part of a doctor to visit a dead patient." Various means are employed to ascertain death: the looking-glass applied to the mouth of the corpse, to find out whether breath had departed; the coldness of the extremities, the falling of the lower jaw, the rigidity of the limbs, and various other appearances, are universally known; but in the villages of Italy and Portugal, pins and needles are frequently driven under the nails, in what is vulgarly called the quick, to excite an excruciating pain if life should not have fled. The most certain evidence, when bodies are long kept, is most decidedly the commencement of decomposition; but, in other cases, the action of the voltaic pile on a bared muscle is an infallible test.

It is much to be feared that on the field of battle and naval actions many individuals apparently dead are buried or thrown overboard. The history of Francois de Civille, a French captain, who was missing at the siege of Rouen, is rather curious: at the storming of the town he was supposed to have been killed, and was thrown, with other bodies, in the ditch, where he remained from eleven in the morning to half-past six in the evening; when his servant, observing some latent heat, carried the body into the house. For five days and five nights his master did not exhibit the slightest sign of life, although the body gradually recovered its warmth. At the expiration of this time, the town was carried by assault, and the servants of an officer belonging to the besiegers, having found the supposed corpse of Civille, threw it out of window, with no other covering than his shirt. Fortunately for the captain, he had fallen upon a dunghill, where he remained senseless for three days longer, when his body was taken up by his relations for sepulture, and ultimately brought to life. What was still more strange, Civille, like Macduff, had been "from his mother's womb untimely ripp'd," having been brought into the world by a Caesarean operation, which his mother did not survive; and after his last wonderful escape he used to sign his name with the addition of "three times born, three times buried, and three times risen from the dead by the grace of God."

The fate of the unfortunate Abbe Prevost, author of "Manon Lescaut," and other esteemed novels, was lamentable beyond expression. In passing through the forest of Chantilly, he was seized with an apoplectic fit: the body, cold and motionless, was found the following morning, and carried by some woodcutters to the village surgeon, who proceeded to open it; it was during this terrific operation that the wretched man was roused to a sense of his miserable condition by the agonies he endured, to expire soon after in all the complicated horrors of his situation. Various cases are recorded where persons remained in a state of apparent death for a considerable time. Cullen mentions an hysterical woman who was deprived of movement and sensibility for six days. Licelus knew a nun of Bresia, who, after an hysteric attack, continued in an inanimate state for ten days and nights.

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 vertebrae. 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. Fodere 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.

"Haec eruca, major Hispanica, vel quia in condimentis lautior, vel ad venerem vegetior erat, gentilis vulgo vocata fuit; quo vocabulo Hispanica et Itala gens designat quamlibet rem aptam reddere hominem laetum et experrectum ad munia vulgo pausibilia, ut joca ludicra et venerem; quae commoda ut ex ea perciperet monachorum saginata caterva, in perquam amoena Magalonae, insula maris Narbonensis, hujus gentilis erucae semine a fratre quodam Hispano ambulone donato, quotannis hocce serebat, et in mensis cuilibet, vel maximo gulae irritamento, vel blandimento, praeferebat; nimirum usu gnara quantum frequens esus conferret ad calorem venereum in illis otio et frequenti crapula obrutum, ad vigorem animi excitandum, et praesertim corpus obesum extenuandum, somnumque excutiendum, quo illi veluti ursi gliresve tota hyeme saginati, ferme adipe suffocabantur. Verum isto Hispanico remedio adeo hilarescebant et gentiles fiebant, ut plerumque recinctis lumbis castitate, coacti essent vota et coenobii moenia transilire, et aliquid solatii venerei ab vicinis plebanis efflagitare. Nobis haec visa et risa. Eruca vero inibi superstes est copiosissima, monumentum futura monasticae 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 extractor. No 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 Graeculi,) 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 mendacia. It was on these adventurers that the following epigram was written: