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

[Lacmus or litmus is now prepared from Lecanora tartarea , the famous Cudbear , so called after a Mr. Cuthbert, who first brought it into use. It is imported largely from Norway, where it grows more abundantly than with us; yet in the Highland districts many an industrious peasant gets a living by scraping off this lichen with an iron hoop, and sending it to the Glasgow market.]

Linn. Mantissa Plantarum, i. p. 132.

See Wallis’s Natural History and Antiquities of Northumberland, 1769, 2 vols. 4to, i. p. 279.

In his Kollektaneen. Berlin, 1790, ii. p. 117.

Aëtii Op. 1. ii. c. 25.

In Stephani Artis Med. Princip. ii. p. 253.

De Lapidibus, lib. ii. p. 131.

J. J. Wecker, De Secretis.

I took the trouble to search for this passage in Jac. Hollerii lib. de morbis internis, Parisiis 1711, 4to, but I could not find it, though the beginning of the book treats expressly of head-aches.

Magia Naturalis, lib. vii.

Kircheri Magnes, sive De Arte Magnetica, lib. iii. c. i.

P. Borrelli, Hist. et Observ. Medico-physic. cent. 4. obs. 75.

Observations sur l’usage de l’aimant en médecine, par MM. Audry et Thouret.

Heberden in the Neue Hamburg. Mag. xvii. p. 219. I am convinced that many of the accounts we have of the extraordinary effects of poison are fabricated, like those mentioned in Frid. Hoffmanni Dissert. de Læsionibus externis, abortivis Venenis ac Philtris. Francof. 1729, et recusa Lips. 1755. That author, however, denies some which are true. It is, for example, certain that camphor and rue do not produce the effects ascribed to them by Dioscorides, Paulus Ægineta, and others; but there are without doubt other substances which will produce these effects.

Sennerti Instit. Med. ii. 2, 12.

He gave to Aratus a poison, not speedy and violent, but of that kind which at first occasions a slow heat in the body, with a slight cough, and then gradually brings on a consumption. One time, when Aratus spat up blood, he said, “This is the effect of royal friendship.” See Plutarch, Vit. Arati.

Quint. Declamat. xvii. 11.

With the poison of the Indians, however, the ancients could not be acquainted, as it is prepared from a plant unknown in Europe before the discovery of America. Kalm, in his Travels, does not name it, and in that he has done right; for, as the plant is now to be found everywhere, no government could guard against a misapplication of it, were it publicly known.

They say a poison can be prepared from aconite so as to occasion death within a certain period, such as two, three, or six months, a year, and even sometimes two years. Those, we are told, whose constitutions are able to hold out longest, die in the greatest misery; for the body is gradually consumed, and must perish by continual wasting. Those die easiest who die speedily. No remedy has been found out for this poison. – Theophr. Hist. Plant. ix. c. 16.

Livius, lib. viii. c. 18.

Taciti Annal. lib. iv. c. 8.

The account given by Tacitus deserves to be read; see lib. xii. c. 66.

The history of this horrid affair may be found both in Tacitus, Annal. xiii. c. 15 and 16, and in Suetonius, vi. cap. 33. Respecting Locusta, see also Juvenal, sat. i. 71.

This account is given by Aulus Gellius from the now lost works of Tuditanus. – Noct. At. lib. vi. cap. 4. Cicero often speaks of the magnanimity of Regulus; as, for example, in his Oration against Piso, and in his Offices, book iii. chap. 27; but he makes no mention of his having been poisoned. Valerius Maximus also, book i. chap. i. 14, says nothing of poison.

Apollonii Vit. lib. vi. c. 14.

Histor. Animal. lib. ii. c. 45.

Lib. ix. c. 48, and lib. xxxii. c. 1.

In Linnæi Systema Nat., through an error of the press, stands Laplysia , which word has since become common. Ἀπλυσία signifies an uncleanness which cannot be washed off; and in Aristotle’s History of Animals, b. v. ch. 15, and Pliny, b. ix. ch. 45, it is the name of a zoophyte. In the like manner other errors in the System of Linnæus have been copied into the works of others, such as Dytiscus instead of Dyticus , &c.

J. B. Bohadsch De quibusdam animalibus marinis. Dresdæ, 1761, 4to, p. 1–53. In this work there is a full description, with a figure of this animal, under the name of Lernæa , which was used in the first editions of Linnæus.

The accounts given by the ancients of the sea-hare have been collected in Grevini Lib. de Venenis, Antverpiæ 1571, p. 209. In the Annals of Glycas, iii. ( Script. Byz. ), it is said that Titus was despatched by this poison; and in the first book, b. 27, he says the sea-hare occasions speedy and inevitable destruction to man.

See Stenzelii Diss. de venenis terminatis et temporaneis, quæ Galli les poudres de succession vocant; resp. J. G. Arnold. Vitebergæ, 1730. This tract contains several historical relations; but the reader is often referred to authors who either do not say that for which they were quoted, or who must relate the same thing in a different manner in some other place. As for example, Galen in b. ii. c. 7, De Antidotis, speaks of poisons without mentioning secret poison in particular. Avicenna is made to say, in his book De Viribus Cordis, that the Egyptian kings often employed this poison; but if by that quotation we are to understand Fen. undecima de dispositionibus cordis, I have sought for this information in vain. In lib. iv. fen. 6. tract. 2. c. 14, it is said “Fel canis aquatici interficit post hebdomadam.” Rhodiginus also does not relate that for which he is quoted by Stenzel. p. 7.

Vol. iv. p. 33.

J. F. le Bret, Magazin zum Gebrauche der Staaten und-Kirchen-Geschichte, part iv. Francf. and Leips. 1774, 8vo, p. 131–141.

The following account is collected from Causes celèbres, par M. Guyot de Pitaval, tome i. – Lettres de Mad. de Sevigné, tome iv. – Histoire du Règne de Louis XIV., par M. de Reboulet. Avignon, 1746, v. p. 159. – Histoire de Louis XIV., par M. B. de la Martinière, 1740, iv. p. 229. – Le Siècle de Louis XIV., par Voltaire, etc.

Voltaire says that the father did not get Sainte Croix thrown into the Bastille, but sent to his regiment. This however is not the case, for this reprobate was at that time not in the army.

This circumstance is denied by Voltaire, but only, as appears, to contradict Pitaval, whom he calls un avocat sans cause .

This request was as follows: – “I humbly beg that those into whose hands this box may fall, will do me the favour to deliver it into the hands only of the Marchioness de Brinvillier, who resides in the Rue Neuve Saint Paul, as everything it contains concerns her, and belongs to her alone; and as, besides, there is nothing in it that can be of use to any persons except her; and in case she shall be dead before me, to burn it, and everything it contains, without opening or altering anything; and in order that no one may plead ignorance, I swear by the God whom I adore, and by all that is most sacred, that I advance nothing but what is true. And if my intentions, just and reasonable as they are, be thwarted in this point, I charge their consciences with it, both in this world and the next, in order that I may unload mine, protesting that this is my last will. Done at Paris this 25th of May in the afternoon, 1672.