Thaumaturgia Part 13

This fruit with its sh.e.l.l, is, as Clusius says, an inch and a half in length, but is somewhat more than an inch thick. Its sh.e.l.l or membraneous covering, is about the thickness of the blade of a knife, and outwardly of an ash colour mixed with brown. Clusius was in the right to say, that the sh.e.l.l of this nut was formed of several fibrous parts, but those fibres resemble rather those of the sh.e.l.l of a coco, than the fibrous parts of the back of the areca nut. He, moreover, has very properly observed, that this sh.e.l.l is armed, at its lower part, with a double calyx and that the opposite part terminates in a point; but it is necessary to observe, that this point is not formed by the prolongation of the sh.e.l.l, as the figure he has given of it seems to specify; but that from the middle of the upper part of the fruit, there juts out a sort of small needle.

The sh.e.l.l being taken off, the nut is found to be hard, ligneous, oblong, of unequal surface, furrowed, and of a chesnut yellow. One of its extremities is roundish, and the other, by the reunion and prolongation of three sorts of tubercles, terminates in a point; those protuberances being so formed, that the middlemost placed between the two others, has the appearance of a nose, and the two lateral protuberances resemble flat lips. On each side of that which forms what we call the nose, a small hole or nook is perceived, capable of containing a pea; but does not penetrate deep, and is surrounded with black filaments, sometimes like eye-brows and eyelashes, so that the nut on that side resembles an ape or a hare.

This _lusus naturae_, or sport of nature, has a very pretty effect, but is oftener found in stones than other substances. A great variety of such rare and singular productions of nature may be seen at the British Museum: but nothing can be more extraordinary in this respect than what is related concerning the agate of Pyrrhus, which represented, naturally, Apollo holding a lyre, with the nine muses distinguished each by their attributes. In all probability, there is great exaggeration in this fact, for we see nothing of the kind that comes near this perfection. However, it is said, that, at Pisa, in the church of St.

John, there is seen, on a stone, an old hermit perfectly painted by nature, sitting near a rivulet, and holding a bell in his hand; and that, in the temple of St. Sophia, at Constantinople, there is to be seen, on a white sacred marble, an image of St. John the Baptist, cloaked with a camel's skin, but so far defective that nature has given him but one foot.

There is an instance in the Mercury of France, for July 1730, of some curious sports of nature on insects. The rector of St. James at Land, within a league of Rennes, found in the month of March, 1730, in the church-yard, a species of b.u.t.terfly, about two inches long, and half-an-inch broad, having on its head the figure of a death's-head, of the length of one nail, and perfectly imitating those that are represented on the church ornaments which are used for the office of the dead. Two large wings were spotted like a pall, and the whole body covered with a down, or black hair, diversified with black and yellow, bearing some resemblance to yellow.

These freaks of nature are equally extended to animate as to inanimate bodies; and the human species, as well as the brute creation, affords numerous specimens, not only of redundance and deficiency in her work, but a variety of other phenomena not well understood. The march of intellect, however, it is to be hoped, will be as successful in this instance, as in obliterating the hobgoblins of astrologers and quacks who so long have ruled the destiny and health of their less sagacious fellow-creatures;--and when the public shall become persuaded of the advantages which science may derive from occurrences similar to those we shall enumerate in the next chapter, it will be more disposed to offer them to the consideration of scientific men.

FOOTNOTES:

[114] The author of a book, ent.i.tled "_Talismans justifies_" p.r.o.nounces a talisman to be the seal, figure, character, or image of a heavenly sign, constellation or planet, engraven on a sympathetic stone, or on a metal corresponding to the star, etc. in order to receive its influences.

[115] Acts of the Apostles, chap. xxviii. v. 3.

CHAPTER XIV.

ON THE MEDICINAL POWERS ATTRIBUTED TO MUSIC BY THE ANCIENTS.

The power of music over the human mind, as well as its influence on the animal creation, has been variously attested; and its curative virtues have been no less extolled by the ancients.[116] Martia.n.u.s Capella a.s.sures us, that fevers were removed by songs, and that Asclepiades cured deafness by the sound of the trumpet. Wonderful indeed! that the same noise which would occasion deafness in some, should be a specific for it in others! It is making the viper cure its own bite. But, perhaps Asclepiades was the inventor of the _acousticon_, or ear-trumpet, which has been thought a modern discovery; or of the speaking-trumpet, which is a kind of cure for distant deafness. These would be admirable proofs of musical power![117] We have the testimony of Plutarch, and several other ancient writers, that Thaletas the Cretan, delivered the Lacedemonians from the pestilence by the sweetness of his lyre.

Xenocrates, as Martia.n.u.s Capella further informs us, employed the sound of instruments in the cure of maniacs; and Apollonius Dyscolus, in his fabulous history (Historia Comment.i.tia) tells us, from Theophrastus's Treatise upon Enthusiasm, that music is a sovereign remedy for a dejection of spirits, and disordered mind; and that the sound of the flute will cure epilepsy and the sciatic gout. Athenaeus quotes the same pa.s.sage from Theophrastus, with this additional circ.u.mstance, that, as to the second of these disorders, to render the cure more certain, the flute should play in the Phrygian mode. But Aulus Gellius, who mentions this remedy, seems to administer it in a very different manner, by prescribing to the flute-player a soft and gentle strain, _si modulis lenibus_ says he, _tibicen incinet_: for the Phrygian mode was remarkably vehement and furious.

This is what Coelius Aurelia.n.u.s calls _loca dolentia decantare_, enchanting the disordered places. He even tells us how the enchantment is brought about upon these occasions, in saying that the pain is relieved by causing a vibration of the fibres of the afflicted part.

Galen speaks seriously of playing the flute on the suffering part, upon the principle, we suppose, of a medicated vapour bath.

The sound of the flute was likewise a specific for the bite of a viper, according to Theophrastus and Democritus, whose authority Aulus Gellius gives for his belief of the fact. But there is nothing more extraordinary among the virtues attributed to music by the ancients, than what Aristotle relates in its supposed power of softening the rigour of punishment. The Tyrhenians, says he, never scourge their slaves, but by the sound of flutes, looking upon it as an instance of humanity to give some counterpoise to pain, and thinking by such a diversion to lessen the sum total of the punishment. To this account may be added a pa.s.sage from Jul. Pallus, by which we learn, that in the _triremes_, or vessels with three banks of oars, there was always a _tibicen_, or flute-player, not only to mark the time, or cadence for each stroke of the oar, but to sooth and cheer the rowers by the sweetness of the melody. And from this custom Quintilian took occasion to say, that music is the gift of nature, to enable us the more patiently to support toil and labour.[118]

These are the princ.i.p.al pa.s.sages which antiquity furnishes, relative to the medicinal effects of music; in considering which, reliance is placed on the judgment of M. Burette, whose opinions will come with the more weight, as he had not only long made the music of the ancients his particular study, but was a physician by profession. This writer, in a dissertation on the subject, has examined and discussed many of the stories above related, concerning the effects of music in the cure of diseases. He allows it to be possible, and even probable, that music, by reiterated strokes and vibrations given to the nerves, fibres, and animal spirits, may be of use in the cure of certain diseases; yet he by no means supposes that the music of the ancients possessed this power in a greater degree than the modern music, but rather that a very coa.r.s.e and vulgar music is as likely to operate effectually on such occasions as the most refined and perfect. The savages of America pretend to perform these cures by the music and jargon of their imperfect instruments; and in Apulia, where the bite of the tarantula is pretended to be cured by music, which excites a desire to dance, it is by an ordinary tune, very coa.r.s.ely performed.[119]

Baglivi refines on the doctrine of effluvia, by ascribing his cures of the bite of the tarantula to the peculiar undulation any instrument or tune makes by its strokes in the air; which, vibrating upon the external parts of the patient, is communicated to the whole nervous system, and produces that happy alteration in the solids and fluids which so effectually contributes to the cure. The contraction of the solids, he says, impresses new mathematical motions and directions to the fluids; in one or both of which is seated all distempers, and without any other help than a continuance of faith, will alter their quality; a philosophy as wonderful and intricate as the nature of the poison it is intended to expel; but which, however, supplies this observation, that, if the particles of sound can do so much, the effluvia of amulets may do more.

Credulity must be very strong in those who believe it possible for music to drive away the pestilence. Antiquity, however, as mentioned above, relates that Thaletas, a famous lyric poet, contemporary with Solon, was gifted with this power; but it is impossible to render the fact credible, without qualifying it by several circ.u.mstances omitted in the relation. In the first place, it is certain, that this poet was received among the Lacedemonians during the plague, by command of an oracle: that by virtue of this mission, all the poetry of the hymns which he sung, must have consisted of prayers and supplications, in order to avert the anger of the G.o.ds against the people, whom he exhorted to sacrifices, expiations, purifications, and many other acts of devotion, which, however superst.i.tious, could not fail to agitate the minds of the mult.i.tude, and to produce nearly the same effects as public fasts, and, in catholic countries, processions, as at present, in times of danger, by exalting the courage, and by animating hope. The disease having, probably, reached its highest pitch of malignity when the musician arrived, must afterwards have become less contagious by degrees; till, at length, ceasing of itself, by the air wafting away the seeds of infection, and recovering its former purity, the extirpation of the disease was attributed by the people to the music of Thaletas, who had been thought the sole mediator, to whom they owed their happy deliverance.

This is exactly what Plutarch means, who tells the story; and what Homer meant, in attributing the curation of the plague among the Greeks, at the siege of Troy, to music:

With hymns divine the joyous banquet ends, The Poeans lengthen'd till the sun descends: The Greeks restor'd, the grateful notes prolong; Apollo listens and approves the song.[120]

For the poet in these lines seems only to say, that Apollo was rendered favourable, and had delivered the Greeks from the scourge with which they were attacked, in consequence of Chriseis having been restored to her father, and of sacrifices and offerings.

M. Burette thinks it easy to conceive, that music may be really efficacious in relieving, if not in removing, the pains of sciatica; and that independent of the greater or less skill of the musician. He supposes this may be effected in two different ways: first, by flattering the ear, and diverting the attention; and, secondly, by occasioning oscillations and vibrations of the nerves, which may, perhaps, give motions to the humours, and remove the obstructions which occasion this disorder. In this manner the action of musical sounds upon the fibres of the brain and animal spirits, may sometimes soften and alleviate the sufferings of epileptics and lunatics, and calm even the most violent fits of these two cruel disorders. And if antiquity affords examples of this power, we can oppose to them some of the same kind said to have been effected by music, not of the most exquisite sort. For not only M. Burette, but many modern philosophers, physicians, and anatomists, as well as ancient poets and historians, have believed, that music has the power of affecting, not only the mind, but the nervous system, in such a manner as will give a temporary relief in certain diseases, and, at length, even operate a radical cure.

In the Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences for 1707 and 1708, we meet with many accounts of diseases, which, after having resisted and baffled all the most efficacious remedies in common use, had, at length, given way to the soft impressions of harmony. M. de Mairan, in the Memoirs of the same Academy, 1737, reasons upon the medicinal powers of music in the following manner:--"It is from the mechanical and involuntary connexion between the organ of hearing, and the consonances excited in the outward air, joined to the rapid communication of the vibrations of this organ to the whole nervous system, that we owe the cure of spasmodic disorders, and of fevers attended with a delirium and convulsions, of which our Memoirs furnish many examples."

The late learned Dr. Branchini, professor of physic at Udine, collected all the pa.s.sages preserved in ancient authors, relative to the medicinal application of music, by Asclepiades; and it appears from this work that it was used as a remedy by the ancient Egyptians, Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans, not only in acute, but chronical disorders. This writer gives several cases within his own knowledge, in which music has been efficacious; but the consideration as well as the honour of these, more properly belong to _modern_ than to ancient music.

Music, of all arts, gives the most universal pleasure, and pleases longest and oftenest. Infants are charmed with the melody of sounds, and old age is animated by enlivening notes. The Arcadian shepherds drew pleasure from their reeds; the solitude of Achilles was cheered by his lyre; the English peasant delights in his pipe and tabor; the mellifluous notes of the flute solace many an idle hour; and the charming of snakes and other venomous reptiles, by the power of music, is well attested among the Indians. "Music and the sounds of instruments," says Vigneul de Marville, "contribute to the health of the body and mind; they a.s.sist the circulation of the blood, they dissipate vapours, and open the vessels, so that the action of perspiration is freer." The same author tells a story of a person of distinction, who a.s.sured him, that once being suddenly seized with a violent illness, instead of a consultation of physicians, he immediately called a band of musicians, and their violins acted so well upon his inside, that his bowels became perfectly in tune, and in a few hours were harmoniously becalmed.

Farinelli, the famous singer, was sent for to Madrid to try the effect of his magical voice on the king of Spain. His Majesty was absorbed in the deepest melancholy; nothing could excite an emotion in him; he lived in a state of total oblivion of life; he sat in a darkened chamber, entirely given up to the most distressing kind of madness. The physicians at first ordered Farinelli to sing in an outer room; and for the first day or two this was done, without producing any effect on the royal patient. At length it was observed, that the king, awakening from his stupor, seemed to listen; on the next day tears were seen starting from his eyes: the day after he ordered the door of his chamber to be left open, and at length the perturbed spirit entirely left our modern Saul, and the _medicinal_ music of Farinelli effected what medicine itself had denied.

"After food," says Sir William Jones,[121] "when the operations of digestion and absorption gives so much employment to the vessels, that a temporary state of mental repose, especially in hot climates, must be found essential to health, it seems reasonable to believe that a few agreeable airs, either heard or played without effort, must have all the good effects of sleep, and none of its disadvantages; putting, as Milton says, '_the soul in tune_' for any subsequent exertion; an experiment often made by myself. I have been a.s.sured by a credible witness, that two wild antelopes often used to come from their woods to the place where a more savage beast, Serajuddaulah, entertained himself with concerts, and that they listened to the strains with the appearance of pleasure, till the monster, in whose soul there was no music, shot one of them to display his archery." A learned native told Sir William Jones that he had frequently seen the most venomous snakes leave their holes upon hearing tunes on a flute, which, as he supposed, gave them peculiar delight.

Of the surprising effects of music, the two following instances, with which we shall close these remarks, are related in the history of the Royal Academy of Society of Paris.

A famous musician, and great composer was taken ill of a fever, which a.s.sumed the continued form, with a gradual increase of the symptoms. On the second day he fell into a very violent delirium, almost constantly accompanied by cries, tears, terrors, and a perpetual watchfulness. The third day of his delirium one of those natural instincts, which make, as it is said, sick animals seek out for the herbs that are proper to their case, set him upon desiring earnestly to hear a little concert in his chamber. His physician could hardly be prevailed upon to consent to it.

On hearing the first modulations, the air of his countenance became serene, his eyes sparkled with a joyful alacrity, his convulsions absolutely ceased, he shed tears of pleasure, and was then possessed for music with a sensibility he never before had, nor after, when he was recovered. He had no fever during the whole concert, but, when it was over, he relapsed into his former condition.

The fever and delirium were always suspended during the concert, and music was become so necessary to the patient, that at night he obliged a female relation who sometimes sat up with him, to sing and even to dance, and who, being much afflicted, was put to great difficulty to gratify him. One night, among others, he had none but his nurse to attend him, who could sing nothing better than some wretched country ballads. He was satisfied to put up with that, and he even found some benefit from it. At last ten days of music cured him entirely, without other a.s.sistance than of being let blood in the foot, which was the second bleeding that was prescribed for him, and was followed by a copious evacuation.

This account was communicated to the Academy by M. Dodart, who had it well authenticated.

The second instance of the extraordinary effect of music is related of a dancing-master of Alais, in the province of Languedoc. Being once over-fatigued in Carnival time by the exercise of his profession, he was seized with a violent fever, and on the fourth or fifth day, fell into a lethargy, which continued upon him for a considerable time. On recovering he was attacked with a furious and mute delirium, wherein he made continual efforts to jump out of bed, threatened, with a shaking head and angry countenance, those who attended him, and even all that were present; and he besides obstinately refused, though without speaking a word, all the remedies that were presented to him. One of the a.s.sistants bethought himself that music perhaps might compose a disordered imagination. He accordingly proposed it to his physician, who did not disapprove the thought, but feared with good reason the ridicule of the execution which might still have been infinitely greater, if the patient should happen to die under the operation of such a remedy.

A friend of the dancing master, who seemed to disregard the caution of the physician, and who could play on the violin, seeing that of the patient hanging up in the chamber, laid hold of it, and played directly for him the air most familiar to him. He was cried out against more than the patient who lay in bed, confined in a straight jacket; and some were ready to make him desist; when the patient, immediately sitting up as a man agreeably surprised, attempted to caper with his arms in unison with the music; and on his arms being held, he evinced, by the motion of his head, the pleasure he felt. Sensible, however, of the effects of the violin, he was suffered by degrees to yield to the movement he was desirous to perform,--when, strange as it may appear, his furious fits abated. In short, in the s.p.a.ce of a quarter of an hour, the patient fell into a profound sleep, and a salutary crisis in the interim rescued him from all danger.

FOOTNOTES:

[116] Dr. Burney's History of Music.

[117] It has been a.s.serted by several moderns, that deaf people can hear best in a great noise; perhaps to prove that Greek noise could do nothing which the modern cannot operate as effectually: and Dr. Willis in particular tells us of a lady who could hear only while a drum was beating, in so much that her husband, the account says, hired a drummer as her servant, in order to enjoy the pleasures of her conversation.

[118] Many of the ancients speak of music as a recipe for every kind of malady, and it is probable that the Latin was _praecinere_, to charm away pain, _incantare_ to enchant, and our own word _incantation_, came from the medical use of song.

[119] M. Burette, with Dr. Mead, Baglivi, and all the learned of their time throughout Europe, seem to have entertained no doubt of this fact, which, however, philosophical and curious enquirers have since found to be built upon fraud and fallacy. Vide Serrao, _della Tarantula o vero falangio di Puglia._

[120] Pope's translation of the Iliad, Book 1.

[121] See a curious Dissertation on the musical modes of the Hindoos by Sir W. Jones.

CHAPTER XV.

PRESAGES, PRODIGES, PRESENTIMENTS, ETC.

The common opinion of comets being the presages of evil is an old pagan superst.i.tion, introduced and entertained among Christians by their prejudice for antiquity; and which Mr. Bayle says is a remnant of pagan superst.i.tion, conveyed from father to son, ever since the first conversion from paganism; as well because it has taken deep root in the minds of men, as because Christians, generally speaking, are as far gone in the folly of finding presages in every thing, as infidels themselves.

It may be easily conceived how the pagans might be brought stedfastly to believe that comets, eclipses, and thunderstorms, were the forerunners of calamities, when man's strong inclination for the marvellous is considered, and his insatiable curiosity for prying into future events, or what is to come to pa.s.s. This desire of peeping into futurity, as has already been shown, has given birth to a thousand different kinds of divination, all alike whimsical and impertinent, which in the hands of the more expert and cunning have been made most important and mysterious tools. When any one has been rogue enough to think of making a penny of the simplicity of his neighbours, and has had the ingenuity to invent something to amuse, the pretended faculty of foretelling things to come, has always been one of the readiest projects. From hence always the a.s.sumption of judiciary astrology. Those who first began to consult the motions of the heavens, had no other design in view, than the enriching their minds with so n.o.ble a knowledge; and as they had their genius bent on the pursuit of useful knowledge, they never dreamed of converting astrology or a knowledge of the stars to the purpose of picking the pockets of the credulous and ignorant, of whose blind side advantage was taken by these sideral sages to turn them to account by making them believe that the doctrine of the stars comprehended the knowledge of all things that were, or are, or ever shall be; so that every one, for his money, might come to them and have their fortune told.

The better to gull the world, the Star-gazers a.s.sert that the heavens are the book in which G.o.d has written the destiny of all things; and that it is only necessary to learn to read this book, which is simply the construction of the stars, to be able to know the whole history of what is to come to pa.s.s. Very learned men, Origen and Plotinus among the rest, were let into the secret, and grew so fond of it, that the former,[122] willing to support his opinion by something very solid, catches at the authority of an Apocryphal book, ascribed to the patriarch Joseph, where Jacob is introduced speaking to his twelve sons: "I have read in the register of heaven what shall happen to you and your children."[123] But comets were the staple commodity that turned princ.i.p.ally to account. In compliance, however, with the impressions of fear which the strangeness and excessive length of these stars made upon mankind, the Astrologers did not hesitate to p.r.o.nounce them of a malign tendency; and the more so when they found they had, by this means, made themselves in some degree necessary, in consequence of the impatient applications that were made to them as from the mouth of an oracle, what particular disaster such and such a comet portended.