A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins, Volume I (of 2)

964

“C’est ainsi que se ramonent toutes les cheminées de Paris; et des régisseurs n’ont enrégimenté ces petits malheureux, que pour gagner encore sur leur médiocre salaire. Puissent ces ineptes et barbares entrepreneurs se ruiner de fond en comble; ainsi que tous ceux qui ont sollicité des privileges exclusifs!” – Tableau de Paris. Hamburg, 1781, tom. ii. p. 249. [Owing to many serious accidents which attended the climbing of chimneys, this practice was put down in this country by Act of Parliament, (3 & 4 Victoria, c. 85. sec. 2.). The use of machinery is now substituted, but does not perform the operation so effectively as the old mode, especially where the flues are in angles.]

965

Universal Lexicon, vol. xlix. p. 1340.

966

Traité de la Chemie, par N. le Febure. Leyde, 1669, 2 vols. 12mo, i. p. 474.

967

In his notes to Blumentrost’s Haus- und Reise-apotheke. Leipzig, 1716, 8vo, cap. 16, p. 47.

968

Succincta Medicorum Hungariæ et Transilvaniæ Biographia, ex adversariis St. Wespremi. Wien, 1778, 8vo, p. 213.

969

Selectiora remedia multiplici usu comprobata, quæ inter secreta medica jure recenseas. In page 6 the following passage occurs: “For the gout in the hands and the feet. As the wonderful virtue of the remedy given below has been confirmed to me by the cases of many, I shall relate by what good fortune I happened to meet with it. In the year 1606 I saw among the books of Francis Podacather, of a noble Cyprian family, with whom I was extremely intimate, a very old breviary, which he held in high veneration, because, he said, it had been presented by St. Elizabeth, queen of Hungary, to some of his ancestors, as a testimony of the friendship which subsisted between them. In the beginning of this book he showed me a remedy for the gout written by the queen’s own hand, in the following words, which I copied: —

“‘I Elizabeth, queen of Hungary, being very infirm and much troubled with the gout in the seventy-second year of my age, used for a year this receipt given to me by an ancient hermit whom I never saw before nor since; and was not only cured, but recovered my strength, and appeared to all so remarkably beautiful, that the king of Poland asked me in marriage, he being a widower and I a widow. I however refused him for the love of my Lord Jesus Christ, from one of whose angels I believe I received the remedy. The receipt is as follows:

“‘℞. Take of aqua vitæ, four times distilled, three parts, and of the tops and flowers of rosemary two parts: put these together in a close vessel, let them stand in a gentle heat fifty hours, and then distil them. Take one dram of this in the morning once every week, either in your food or drink, and let your face and the diseased limb be washed with it every morning.

“‘It renovates the strength, brightens the spirits, purifies the marrow and nerves, restores and preserves the sight, and prolongs life.’ Thus far from the Breviary.” – Then follows a confirmation which Prevot gives from his own experience.

970

Medicorum Hungariæ Biographia, ut supra, p. 214.

971

The book of Zapata, who is not noticed in the Gelehrten Lexicon, was printed at Rome, as Haller says in his Biblioth. Botan. vol. i. p. 368, in the year 1586; and other editions are mentioned in Boerhavii Methodus Studii Medici, p. 728 and 869. I have now before me, Joh. Bapt. Zapatæ, Medici Romani, Mirabilia seu Secreta Medico-chirurgica – per Davidem Spleissium. Ulmiæ, 1696. The passage above alluded to occurs in page 49.

972

What is here observed in regard to the pores of cork has been stated, in general, by Lucretius, vi. 5984.

973

Duhamel, Traité des Arbres et Arbustes, Tozzetti, Viaggi, iv. p. 278.

974

[In MacCulloch’s Dictionary the word every is changed into for, and the author then proceeds to observe, that “This erroneous statement having been copied into the article Cork in Rees’ Cyclopædia, has thence been transplanted into a number of other works!” The mistake, however, is wrongly attributed to Beckmann.]

975

Histor. Plantar. lib. iii. cap. 16. He repeats the same thing lib. iv. cap. 18, where he remarks as an exception, that the cork-tree does not die after it has lost its bark, but becomes more vigorous. In the southern parts of France the cork-trees are barked every eight, nine or ten years.

976

Lib. iii. cap. 4. This difficulty the commentators have endeavoured to remove by reading here φελλόδρυς instead of the two words φελλὸς and δρῦς which are separated; and indeed φελλόδρυς occurs in other parts of the same work among the evergreens, lib. i. cap. 15.

977

Clusius in Rar. Plantar. Histor. lib. i. cap. 14, describes this tree as he found it without leaves in the month of April in the Pyrenees near Bayonne. Theophrastus, p. 234, says, “The cork-tree, φελλὸς, which drops its leaves γίνεται ἐν Τυῤῥηνίᾳ:” but the Aldine manuscript and that of Basle have Πυῤῥηνίᾳ. The latter reading is condemned by Robert Constant and others: but though the cork-tree is indeed indigenous in Tyrrhenia or Etruria, I see no reason why Πυῤῥηνίᾳ should not be retained, as it is equally certain that the tree grows in the Pyrenees, and that it there loses its leaves according to the observation of Clusius. If, on the other hand, we read Τυῤῥηνίᾳ, this is opposed by the experience of Theophrastus; for in Italy, as well as in France and Spain, the tree keeps its leaves the whole winter through. Stapel therefore has preferred the word Πυῤῥηνίᾳ. Labat, who saw the tree both in the Pyrenees and in Italy, says that in the former it drops its leaves in winter, and in the latter preserves them. According to Jaussin (Mémoires sur les évènemens, arrivés dans l’Isle de Corse. Lausanne, 1759, 8vo, ii. p. 398) it is in Corsica an evergreen; and Carter (Reise von Gibraltar nach Malaga, Leipsic, 1799, 8vo, p. 190) says that the case is the same in Spain, but he expressly adds that beyond the Alps it loses its leaves in autumn.

978

In his Gardener’s Dictionary. Bauhin, in his Pinax, p. 424, mentions this species particularly.

979

Hist. Plant. lib. i. cap. 15.

980

Lib. xvi. cap. 21.

981

De Re Rustica, i. cap. 7.

982

Lib. xvi. cap. 8.

983

The botanists of the seventeenth century, who paid more attention to the names of the ancients than those of the present time, say that the cork-tree is in Greek called also ἴψος, or ἰψὸς, which word is not to be found in Ernesti’s dictionary. I have found it only once in Theophrastus, Histor. Plantar. lib. iii. cap. 6, where those plants are named which blow late. Because Pliny, lib. xvi. cap. 25, says tardissimo germine suber; ἰpψὸς is considered to be the same as φελλός. Hesychius however says that ἰψὸς in some authors signifies ivy.

984

Our German word Kork, as well as the substance itself, came to us from Spain, where the latter is called chorcha de alcornoque. It is, without doubt, originally derived from cortex of the Latins, who gave that appellation to cork without any addition. Horace says, Od. iii. 9, “Tu levior cortice;” and Pliny tells us, “Non infacete Græci (suberem) corticis arborem appellant.” These last words are quoted by C. Stephanus in his Prædium Rusticum, p. 578, and Ruellius De Natura Stirpium, p. 174, and again p. 256, as if the Greeks called the women, on account of their cork soles, of which I shall speak hereafter, cortices arborum. This gives me reason to conjecture a different reading in Pliny, and indeed I find in the same edition already quoted, the words cortices arborum. This variation ought to have been remarked by Hardouin.

985

Plin. p. 7.

986

Mosella, 246.

987

Linnæi Flora Suec. p. 358. Gmelin’s Reise durch Russland, i. p. 138. It is a mistake in Duroi, Harbkescher Baumzucht, ii. p. 141, that ropes for fishing-nets are prepared from this bark.

988

Parkinson’s Voyage to the South Seas, 1773, 4to.

989

De Militia Navali Veterum. Upsaliæ, 1654, 4to, lib. ii. cap. 5.

990

In Stephens’s Thesaurus he says, “Usus ancoralibus navium; int. sustinendis, et minuendo pondere ancorarum.”

991

Pausanias, viii. 12, p. 623, where he speaks of the different kinds of oak in Arcadia. When any one had the misfortune to fall into the sea, the cork affixed to the anchor, ancoralia, was thrown overboard, in order that the person in danger might catch hold of it. This we learn from the account of Lucian (Epist. i. 1, p. 7), when two men, one of whom had fallen into the sea and another who jumped after him to afford him assistance, were both saved by these means.

992

And to conceal contraband goods in them, of which I have seen instances during my travels.

993

Xenophon De Tuenda Re Famil. and Clemens Alexand. lib. iii. Pæda.

994

Plutarchus in Vita Camilli.

995

De Re Rustica, cap. 120.

996

Lib. iii. od. 8, 10.

997

Before cork came to be used for this purpose pitching was more necessary, and therefore mention of pitch occurs so often in the Roman writers on agriculture. When the farmer, says Virgil (Georg. i. 275), has brought his productions to the city, he carries back articles of every kind, such, for example, as pitch. On such occasions our poets would have mentioned articles entirely different. Strabo (lib. v. p. 334) also extols Italy, because together with wine it had a sufficiency of pitch, so that the price of wine was not rendered dearer.

998

As proofs of this may everywhere be found, it is hardly worth while to quote them. Columella, xii. 12, teaches the manner of preparing cement for stopping up wine-casks. The earthen wine-jars found at Pompeii appear to have had oil poured over them, and to have had no other care bestowed upon them. In Italy, even at present, large flasks have no stoppers, but are filled up with oil.

999

Alexand. ab Alex. Dier. Gen. v. 21, p. 302. When the Romans went out to the chase, they carried with them some wine in a laguncula. – Plin. Epist. i. 6. p. 22. I do not know however that these flasks were of glass; all those I have seen were made of clay or wood. See Pompa De Instrum. Fundi, cap. 17, in the end of Gesner’s edition of Scriptores Rei Rust. ii. p. 1187.

1000

Le Grand d’Aussy, Histoire de la Vie Privée des François, ii. p. 367.

1001

Petron. Sat. cap. xxxiv. p. 86. In the paintings of Herculaneum I find many wide-mouthed pitchers, with handles, like decanters, but no figure that resembles our flasks.

1002

Aringhi Roma Subterranea. Romæ, 1651. fol. i. p. 502, where may be seen an account of a flask with a round body and a very long neck.

1003

Glossarium Novum, i. p. 1182: “le dit Jaquet print un conouffle de voirre, ou il avoit du vin … et de fait en but.”

1004

Grand d’Aussy quotes from Chronique Scandaleuse de Louis XI. “Des bouteilles de cuyr.” That word however is of German extraction, though we have received it back from the French somewhat changed, like many other German things. It is evidently derived from butte, botte, buta, buticula, buticella, which occur in the middle ages. See C. G. Schwarzii Exercitat. de Butigulariis. Altorfii, 1723, 4to, p. 5.

1005

See his Observations on Petronius, p. 259.

1006

De Natura Stirpium, p. 256.

1007

Dendrologia, p. 194.

1008

Gmelin’s Reise durch Russland, i. p. 138. Pallas, Flora Russica, i. p. 66.

1009

Loureiro Flora Cochin-Chin. p. 447.

1010

Dr. Mohsen has already published a considerable part of what belongs to this subject in his Geschichte der Wissenschaften in der Mark Brandenburg, besonders der Arzneywissenschaft. Berlin, 1781, 4to, p. 372. Some information also respecting the history of apothecaries may be found in Thomassii Dissert. de Jure circa Pharmacopolia Civitatum, in his Dissertationes Academicæ, Halle, 1774, 4 vols. quarto.

1011

Digest. lib. xlviii. tit. 8, 3, 3.

1012

De Mulomedic. iii. 2, 21, p. 1107.

1013

Plin. lib. xxxiv. cap. 11.

1014

Maximus Tyrius, Dissert. x. p. 121. Aulus Gellius, lib. i. cap. 15.

1015

Lib. xix. cap. 6.

1016

Cod. Theodos. iii. tit. 16.

1017

Proofs of this may be found in Glossarium Manuale, vol. i. p. 298. From the word apotheca the Italians have made boteca, and the French boutique.

1018

In the Nurnberger Bürgerbuch mention is made of Mr. Conrade Apotheker, 1403; Mr. Hans Apotheker, 1427; and Mr. Jacob Apotheker, 1433. See Von Murr’s Jornal der Kunstgeschichte, vi. p. 79. Henricus Apothecarius occurs as a witness at Gorlitz, in a charter of the year 1439; and one John Urban Apotheker excited an insurrection against the magistrates of Lauban in 1439. See Buddæi Singularia Lusatica, vol. ii. p. 424, 500. One cannot with any certainty determine whether these people were properly apothecaries, which must be borne in mind in reading the following passage of Von Stetten in his Kunstgeschichte der Stadt Augsburg, p. 242: “In very old times there was a family here who had the name of Apotheker, and it is very probable that some of this family had kept a public apothecary’s shop. Luitfried Apotheker, or in der Apothek, lived in the year 1285, and Hans Apotheker was, in 1317, city chamberlain.”

1019

De Hermetica Medicina libri duo. Helmst. 1669, p. 293.

1020

This edict may be found in Lindenbrogii Codex Legum Antiquarum, p. 809. The law properly here alluded to, de probabili experientia medicorum, is by most authors ascribed to the emperor Frederic I., but by Conring to his grandson Frederic II. See Conring De Antiquitatibus Academicis. Gottingæ, 1739, 4to, p. 60.

1021

These gardens in most cities have been revoked, but they still retain their ancient names, though applied to other purposes. In this manner the œconomical garden at Göttingen is called by the common people the apothecary’s garden.

1022

Hist. of Commerce, i. 319.

1023

Histoire de Paris, par Sauval, ii. p. 474. – Histoire de Paris, par Felibien, ii. p. 927. – Traité de la Police, par De la Mare, i. p. 618.

1024

Sattlers Geschichte Würtenberg, v. p. 159. Addenda, p. 329.

1025

Lersner’s Frankfurter Chronik, i. p. 26, 493; ii. pp. 57, 58.

1026

Goldasti Constitutiones Imperiales. Francof. 1607, fol. p. 192.

1027

Mohsens Geschichte, p. 379.

1028

Beschreibung von Berlin, i. p. 39 and 87.

1029

Von Dreyhaupts Beschreibung des Saal-Creyses, ii. 561.

1030

Hamelmanns Oldenburgische Chronik, 1599, fol. p. 491.

1031

Grupens Origines Hannoverenses. Gott. 1740, 4to, p. 341.

1032

“By her apothecary’s shop and still-house one may discover what real compassion the Christian-like electress showed towards the poor who were sick or infirm; for, by having medicines prepared, and by causing all kinds of waters to be distilled, she did not mean to assist only her own people and those belonging to her court, but the poor in general, whether natives or foreigners, and not for the sake of advantage or gain, but gratis and for the love of God.” – Letzners Dasselsche und Eimbecksche Chronica. – Erfurt, 1596, fol. p. 104.

1033

This account is taken from the learned information collected by Professor Spittler, in his Geschichte Hannover. Gött. 1786, 8vo, p. 275. That the council of Göttingen began very early to pay great attention to medical institutions, is proved by the following passage from the Göttingischen Chronike of Franciscus Lubecus: – “Anno 1380, the city procured a surgeon from Eschwege, who with his servant was to be exempted from contributions and watching; and to receive clothes yearly from the council.”

1034

Von Dalins Geschichte Schweden, übersetzt von Dahnert. 4 vols. 4to, p. 318 and 394.

1035

Backmeister, Essai sur la Biblioth. à St. Pétersb. 1776, 8vo, p. 37.

1036

Constantinus Porphyrogen. de Ceremoniis Aulæ Byzantinæ. Lipsiæ, 1751, fol. i. p. 270.

1037

Bibliotheca Botan. i. p. 244. Ricettario di dottori dell’ arte e di medicina del collegio Florentino, all’ instantia delli Signori Consoli della università delli speciali. Firenz. 1498, fol. Maittaire. Primum, quantum repperi, dispensarium.

1038

Introductio in Artem Medicam. Helmstadii, 1687, 4to, p. 375.

1039

C. G. Kestneri Bibliotheca Medica, Jenæ, 1746, 8vo, p. 638.

1040

The author says that the principal writers on this subject are Alexander, a monk of the order of St. Benedict; Paute, his countryman; and our Derham.

1041

Histor. Astron.

1042

Encyclopædia, art. Clock.

1043

Bona De Div. Psalmod. cap. 3. s. 2.

1044

Act. SS. cap. 16. 20 Jan. p. 273. Chrom. “Habeo cubiculum holovitrum, in quo omnis disciplina stellarum ac mathesis mechanica est arte constructa, in cujus fabrica pater meus Tarquinius amplius quam ducenta pondo auri dignoscitur expendisse.” St. Sebast. “Si hoc tu integrum habere volueris, te ipsum frangis.” Chrom. “Quid enim? Mathesis aut ephemeris aliquo sacrificiorum usu coluntur, cum tantum eis mensium et annorum cursus certo numero per horarum spatia distinguuntur; et lunaris globi plenitudo, vel diminutio, digitorum motu, rationis magisterio, et calculi computatione praevidetur?”

1045

“Illic signa Leonis, et Capricorni, et Sagittarii, et Scorpionis, et Tauri sunt; illic in Ariete Luna, in Cancro hora, in Jove stella, in Mercurio tropica, in Venere Mars, et in omnibus istis monstruosis daemonibus ars Deo inimica cognoscitur.”

1046

Hist. Ticin. lib. vii. c. 17.

1047

Var. lib. i. in fine.

1048

In the original, Monasterium Vivariense. – Trans.

1049

“Horologium vobis unum, quod solis claritas indicet, praeparasse cognoscor; alterum vero aquatile, quod die noctuque horarum iugiter indicat quantitatem; quia frequenter nonnullis diebus solis claritas abesse cognoscitur.” – De Institut. Div. Litter. c. 29.

1050

Mabil. Annales St. O. B. sec. i. p. 123.

1051

Antiq. Med. Ævi, Diss. 24, p. 392.

1052

Lucæ Holstenii Codex Regularum. Paris, 1663, p. 172.

1053

Annales.

1054

Capp. 54, 55. 95.

1055

Index Onomasticus ad tom. iv. De Antiq. Eccl. Rit.

1056

Martene, Coll. ampl. tom. v. p. 960. “Misit rex Persarum – horologium, in quo XII horarum cursus cognoscebantur, cymbalo ibi personante et equitibus, qui per singulas horas per fenestras exibant, et in ultima hora diei redeuntes, in regressione sua fenestras apertas claudebant.”

1057

Ad a. 807. Calmet, Hist. de Lorraine, vol. i. p. 582. “Nec non et horologium, ex aurichalco arte mechanica mirifice compositum, in quo duodecim horarum cursus ad clepsydram vertebatur, cum totidem æreis pilulis, quæ ad completionem horarum decidebant, et casu suo subjectum sibi cymbalum tinnire faciebant.”

1058

Panuvini Antiq. Veron. lib. vi. p. 153. Scip. Maffei Degli Scrittori Veronesi, p. 32. Muratori, Ant. Ital. Med. Ævi, Diss. 24. p. 392.

1059

Bouquet, Recueil des Historiens de la Gaule, tom. v. p. 513.

1060

See Martene De Ritib. Eccl. tom. iv. p. 5.

1061

Martene, tom. iv. p. 853.

1062

“Non fabulis vacet, non longa cum aliquo misceat, non denique, quid a secularibus agatur, inquirat; sed commissæ sibi curæ semper intentus, semper providus, semperque sollicitus, volubilis sphæræ necessitatem, quiescere nescientem, siderum transitum, et elabentis temporis meditetur semper excursum. Porro psallendi sibi faciat consuetudinem, si discernendi horas quotidianam habere desiderat notionem; ut, quandocunque solis claritas, sive stellarum varietas nubium densitate non cernitur, illic in quantitate psalmodiæ, quam tenuerit, quoddam sibi velut horologium metiatur.”

1063

Journal des Sçavans, 1734, p. 773.

1064

Chron. lib. vi. p. 83. Franc. 1580. fol. “Gerbertus, a finibus suis expulsus, Ottonem petiit imperatorem, et cum eo diu conversatus, in Magdaburg horologium fecit, illud recte constituens, considerata per fistulam quadam stella nautarum duce.”

1065

Le Beuf. Rec. de div. écrits, &c. vol. ii. p. 89.

1066

Published by Car. Stengelius. Aug. Vind. 1611, p. 1.

1067

“Ab æstivali solstitio usque ad solstitium hiemale sic horologium temperetur, quatenus illud noctis spatium, quod matutinas præcedat, per singulos menses secundum incrementa noctium aliquantulum crescat, donec paulatim crescendo tandem in hiemali solstitio spatium illud, quod est ante matutinas, ad illud quod sequitur, duplum fiat. Similiter per contrarium ab hiemali solstitio usque ad æstivale solstitium sic temperetur, quatenus spatium, quod præcedit, secundum noctium decrementum per singulos menses decrescat, donec paulatim decrescendo, tandem in solstitio æstivali spatium, quod est ante matutinas, et quod post sequitur, æquale fiat.”

1068

Diss. ii. c. 8. ap. Martene De Ant. Rit. tom. iii. p. 909.

1069

“On lit, au chap. 21 de la première partie de leurs Usages, compilez vers l’an 1120, qu’on ne fera sonner les cloches pour aucun exercice, pas même pour l’Horloge, dépuis la messe du Jeudi saint jusqu’à celle du Samedi saint; et au chap. 114, il est ordonné au sacristain de regler l’Horloge, en sorte qu’elle sonne, et qu’elle l’éveille pendant l’hyver avant matines, ou avant les nocturnes; et au chap. 68 et 114, que quand on s’est levé trop tôt, le sacristain avertît celui qui lit la dernière leçon, de la prolonger jusqu’à ce que l’Horloge sonne, ou qu’on fasse signe au lecteur de cesser.”