Part 44

Footnote 27:

Amasis cum frui Amplexibus Ladices nequiret impotentem sese ab ea redditum contendebat pertinacissime. Vide Herodotum, lib. 2.

Footnote 28:

It is clearly shewn by the earliest records, that the ancients were in the possession of many powerful remedies; thus Melampus of Argos, the most ancient Greek physician with whom we are acquainted, is said to have cured one of the Argonauts of sterility, by administering the rust of iron in wine for ten days; and the same physician used Hellebore as a purge, on the daughters of King Prœtus, who were afflicted with melancholy. Venesection was also a remedy of very early origin, for Podalerius, on his return from the Trojan war, cured the daughter of Damethus, who had fallen from a height, by bleeding her in both arms. Opium, or a preparation of the poppy, was certainly known in the earliest ages; and it was probably opium that Helen mixed with wine, and gave to the guests of Menelaus, under the expressive name of nepenthe, (Odyss. Δ,) to drive away their cares, and increase their hilarity; and this conjecture receives much support from the fact, that the nepenthe of Homer was obtained from the Egyptian Thebes, (whence the Tincture of Opium has been called Thebaic Tincture;) and if the opinion of Dr. Darwin may be credited, the Cumæan Sibyll never sat on the portending tripod without first swallowing a few drops of the juice of the cherry-laurel.

“At Phœbi nondum Patiens, immanis in antro, Bacchatur vates, magnum si pectore possit Excussisse deum: tanto magis ille fategat Os rabidum, fera corda domans, fingitque premendo.” ÆNEID, l. vi. v. 78.

There is reason to believe that the Pagan priesthood were under the influence of some narcotic during the display of their oracular powers, but the effects produced would seem rather to resemble those of opium, or perhaps of stramonium, than of Prussic acid. Monardus tells us, that the priests of the American Indians, whenever they were consulted by the chief gentlemen, or caciques, as they are called, took certain leaves of the tobacco, and cast them into the fire, and then received the smoke which they thus produced in their mouths, in consequence of which they fell down upon the ground; and that after having remained for some time in a stupor, they recovered, and delivered the answers, which they pretended to have received during their supposed intercourse with the world of spirits. The sedative powers of the garden lettuce were known in the earliest times. Among the fables of antiquity we read, that after the death of Adonis, Venus threw herself upon a bed of lettuces, to lull her grief and repress her desires. The sea onion, or squill, was administered by the Egyptians in cases of dropsy, under the mystic title of the Eye of Typhon. The practices of incision and scarification, were employed in the camp of the Greeks before Troy, and the application of spirit to wounds, was also understood, for we find the experienced Nestor applying a cataplasm, composed of cheese, onion, and meal, mixed up with the wine of Pramnos, to the wounds of Machaon.

Footnote 29:

Æis addatur quod scripsit Necepsos, draconem radios habentem insculptum, collo suspensum, ita ut contingeret ventriculum, mire ei prodesse.—TIEDMAN.

Footnote 30:

On the subject of the Jewish magii, the works of Buxtorf, Lightfoot, Bekker, and others, have been consulted.

Footnote 31:

Les Juifs croient que Lilis veut faire mourir les garçons dans le huitième jour après leur naissance, et les filles dans le vingt-unième. Voici le remède des Juifs Allemans pour se préserver de ce danger. Ils tirent des traits en ronde avec de la craϊe, ou avec des charbons de bois, sur les quatre murs de la chambre oû est l’accouchée, et ils écrivent sur chaque trait: Adam! Eve! qui Lilis se retire. Ils écrivent aussi sur le parti de chambre les noms des trois anges qui président à la médicine, Senai, Sansenai, et Sanmangelof, ainsi que Lilis elle-même leur apprit qu’il falloit faire lorsqu’elle espéroit de les faire tout tous noyer dans la mer. Elias, as quoted by Becker.

Footnote 32:

This remarkable confession may be found in Menange’s. Observations sur la langue Françoise, Part II. p. 110.

Footnote 33:

This was written in 1560, and before the era of revolutions had commenced even among ourselves. He penetrated into the important principle merely by the force of his own meditation.

Footnote 34:

Vide Lectures on Phrenology, by Drs. Gall and Spurtzheim.

Footnote 35:

This word is supposed to be formed from the Greek ονομα, name; and μαντεια, divination. There is in fact something rather singular in the etymology; for, in strictness, Onomancy should rather signify divination by asses, being formed from oνos, asinus and μαντεια. To signify divination by names it should be Onomatomancy.

Footnote 36:

PYTHIAN or PYTHIA, in antiquity, the priestess of Apollo, by whom he delivered oracles. She was thus called from the god himself, who was styled Apollo Pythius, from his slaying the serpent Python; or as others will have it, αποτου ποδεσδαι, because Apollo, the sun, is the cause of rottenness; or, according to others, from πυνδανομαι, I hear, because people went to hear and consult his oracles.—The priestess was to be a pure virgin. She sat on the covercle, or lid, of a brazen vessel, mounted on a tripod; and thence, after a violent enthusiasm, she delivered her oracles; i. e. she rehearsed a few ambiguous and obscure verses, which were taken for oracles.

All the Pythiæ did not seem to have had the same talent at poetry, or to have memory enough to retain their lesson.—Plutarch and Strabo make mention of poets, who were kept in by Jupiter, as interpreters.

The solemn games instituted in honor of Apollo, and in memory of his killing the serpent Python with his arrows, were called Pythia or Pythian games.

Footnote 37:

The art of knowing the humour, temperament, or disposition of a person, from observation of the lines of the face, and the character of its members or features, is called Physiognomy. Baptist Porta and Robert Fludd, are among the top modern authors, and it has since been revived by Lavater, on this subject. The ancient authors are the Sophist Adamantius, and Aristotle, whose treatise on Physiognomy is translated into Latin by de Lacuna.

Footnote 38:

When the thoughts are much troubled, and when a person sleeps without the circumstance of going to bed, or putting off his clothes, as when he nods in his chair; it is very difficult, as Hobbes remarks, to distinguish a dream from a reality. On the contrary, he that composes himself to sleep, in case of any uncouth or absurd fancy, easily suspects it to have been a dream.—LEVIATHAN, par. i. c. 1.