Pedipalpi—Scorpions.
Concerning the generation of the Scorpion, Topsel, in his History of Four-footed Beasts and Serpents, printed in 1658, treats as follows:
“Now, then, it followeth that we inquire about the manner of their (Scorpions’) breed or generation, which I find to be double, as divers authors have observed, one way is
by putrefaction, and the other by laying of egges, and both these ways are consonant to nature, for Lacinius writeth that some creatures are generated only by propagation of seed—such are men, vipers, whales, and the palm-tree; some again only by putrefaction, as mice, Scorpions, Emmets, Spiders, purslain, which, first of all, were produced by putrefaction, and since their generation are conserved by the seed and egges of their own kinde. Now, therefore, we will first of all speak of the generation of Scorpions by putrefaction, and afterward by propagation.
“Pliny saith[1085] that when Sea-crabs dye, and their bodies are dried upon the earth, when the sun entereth into Cancer and Scorpius, out of the putrefaction thereof ariseth a Scorpion; and so out of the putrefied body of the crefish burned arise Scorpions, which caused Ovid thus to write:
Concava littoreo si demas brachia cancro,
Cætera supponas terræ, de parte sepulta
Scorpius exibit, caudaque minabitur unca.
And again:
Obrutus exemptis cancer tellure lacertis,
Scorpius exiguo tempore factus erit.
In English thus:
If that the arms you take from Sea-crab-fish,
And put the rest in earth till all consumed be,
Out of the buried part a Scorpion will arise,
With hooked tayl doth threaten for to hurt thee.
“And therefore it is reported by Ælianus that about Estamenus, in India, there are abundance of Scorpions generated only by corrupt rain-water standing in that place. Also out of the Basalisk beaten into pieces and so putrefied are Scorpions engendered. And when as one had planted the herb basilica on a wall, in the room or place thereof he found two Scorpions. And some say that if a man chaw in his mouth fasting this herb basill before he wash, and afterward lay the same abroad uncovered where no sun cometh at it for the space of seven nights, taking it in all the daytime, he shall at length finde it transmuted into a Scorpion, with a tayl of seven knots.[1086]
“Hollerius,[1087] to take away all scruple of this thing, writeth that in Italy in his dayes there was a man that had a Scorpion bred in his brain by continuall smelling to this herb basill; and Gesner, by relation of an apothecary in France, writeth likewise a story of a young maid who, by smelling to basill, fell into an exceeding headache, whereof she died without cure, and after death, being opened, there were found little Scorpions in her brain.
“Aristotle remembreth an herb which he calleth sissimbria, out of which putrefied Scorpions are engendered, as he writeth. And we have shewed already, in the history of the Crocodile, that out of the Crocodile’s egges do many times come Scorpions, which at their first egression do kill their dam that hatched them, which caused Archelaus, which wrote epigrams of wonders unto Ptolemæus, to sing of Scorpions in this manner:
In vos dissolvit morte, et redigit crocodilum
Natura extinctum, Scorpii omnipotens.
Which may be Englished thus:
To you by Scorpions death the omnipotent
Ruines the crocodil in nature’s life extinct.”[1088]
The remarks referred to by Topsel in the last paragraph in his history of the Crocodile are as follows:
“It is said by Philes that, after the egge is laid by the crocodile, many times there is a cruel Stinging Scorpion which cometh out thereof, and woundeth the crocodile that laid it.[1089]
“The Scorpion also and the crocodile are enemies one to
the other, and therefore when the Egyptians will describe the combat of two notable enemies, they paint a crocodile and a Scorpion fighting together, for ever one of them killeth another; but if they will decipher a speedy overthrow to one’s enemy, then they picture a crocodile; if a slow and slack victory, they picture a Scorpion.”[1090]
“Some maintain,” says Moufet, “that they (Scorpions) are not bred by copulation, but by exceeding heat of the sun. Ælian, lib. 6, de Anim. cap. 22, among whom Galen must first be blamed, who in his Book de fœt. form. will not have nature, but chance to be the parent of Scorpions, Flies, Spiders, Worms of all sorts, and he ascribes their beginning to the uncertain constitutions of the heavens, place, matter, heat, etc.”[1091]
Topsel further says: “The principall of all other subjects of their (the Scorpions’) hatred are virgins and women, whom they do not only desire to harm, but also when they have harmed are never perfectly recovered. (Albertus).…
“The lion is by the Scorpion put to flight wheresoever he seeith it, for he feareth it as the enemy of his life, and therefore writeth S. Ambrose, Exiguo Scorpionis aculeo exagitatur leo, the lion is much moved at the small sting of a Scorpion.”[1092]
Naude tells us that there is a species of Scorpions in Italy, which are so domesticated as to be put between sheets to cool the beds during the heat of summer.[1093] Pliny mentions that the Scorpions of Italy are harmless.[1094]
Among the curious things recorded by Pliny concerning the Scorpion, the following have been selected: Some writers, he says, are of opinion that the Scorpion devours its offspring, and that the one among the young which is the most adroit avails itself of its sole mode of escape by placing itself on the back of the mother, and thus finding a place where it is in safety from the tail and the sting. The one that thus escapes, they say, becomes the avenger of the rest,
and at last, taking advantage of its elevated position, puts its parent to death.[1095]
According to Pliny, those who carry the plant “tricoccum,” or, as it is also called, “scorpiuron,”[1096] about their person are never stung by a Scorpion, and it is said, he continues, that if a circle is traced on the ground around a Scorpion with a sprig of this plant, the animal will never move out of it, and that if a Scorpion is covered with it, or even sprinkled with the water in which it has been steeped, it will die that instant.[1097]
Attalus assures us, says Pliny, that if a person, the moment he sees a Scorpion, says “Duo,”[1098] the reptile will stop short and forbear to sting.[1099]
Concerning Scorpions, Diophanes, contemporary with Cæsar and Cicero, has collected the following several opinions of the more ancient writers: If you take a Scorpion, he says, and burn it, the others will betake themselves to flight: and if a person carefully rubs his hands with the juice of radish, he may without fear and danger take hold of Scorpions, and of other reptiles: and radishes laid on Scorpions instantly destroy them. You will also cure the bite of a Scorpion, by applying a silver ring to the place. A suffumigation of sandarach[1100] with galbanum, or goat’s fat, will drive away Scorpions and every other reptile. If a person will also boil a Scorpion in oil, and will rub the place bit by a Scorpion, he will stop the pain.[1101] But Apuleius says, that if a person bit by a Scorpion sits on an ass, turned toward its tail, that the ass suffers the pain, and that it is destroyed.[1102] Democritus says that a person bit by a Scorpion, who instantly says to his ass, “A Scorpion has bit me,” will suffer no pain, but it passes to the ass.[1103] The newt
has an antipathy to the Scorpion: if a person, therefore, melts a newt in oil, and applies the oil to the person that is bitten, he frees him from pain. The same author also says that the root of a rose-tree being applied, cures persons bit by Scorpions. Plutarch recommends to fasten small nuts to the feet of the bed, that Scorpions may not approach it. Zoroaster says that lettuce-seed, being drunk with wine, cures persons bit by Scorpions. Florentinus says, if one applies the juice of the fig to the wound of a person just bitten, that the poison will proceed no farther; or, if the person bit eat squill, he will not be hurt, but he will say that the squill is pleasant to his palate. Tarentinus also says that a person holding the herb sideritis may take hold of Scorpions, and not be hurt by them.[1104] Dioscorides, among many other remedies for the sting of the Scorpion, prescribes “a fish called Lacerta, salted and cut in pieces; the barbel fish cut in two; the flesh of a fish called Smaris; house-mice cut asunder; horse or ass dung; the shell of an Indian small nut; ram’s flesh burnt; mummie, four grains, with butter and cow’s milk; a broiled Scorpion eaten; river-crabs raw and bruised, and drank with asses’ milk: locusts broiled and eaten,” etc. Rabby Moyses prescribes pigeon’s dung dried; Constantinus, hens’ dung, or the heart applied outwardly; Anatolius, crows’ dung; Averrhois, the bezoar-stone; Monus, silver; Silvaticus, from Serapis, pewter; and Orpheus, coral.
“Quintus Serenus writes thus, and adviseth:
These are small things, but yet their wounds are great,
And in pure bodies lurking do most harm,
For when our senses inward do retreat,
And men are fast asleep, they need some charm,
The Spider and the cruel Scorpion
Are wont to sting, witnesse great Orion,
Slayn by a Scorpion, for poysons small
Have mighty force, and therefore presently
Lay on a Scorpion bruised, to recall
The venome, or sea-water to apply
Is held full good, such virtue is in brine,
And ’tis approved to drink your fill of wine.
“And Macer writes of houseleek thus:
Men say that houseleek hath so soveraign a might,
Who carries but that, no Scorpion can him bite.”[1105]
The natives of South Africa, when bitten by a Scorpion, apply, as a remedy, a living frog to the wound, into which animal it is supposed the poison is transferred from the wound, and it dies; then they apply another, which dies also: the third perhaps only becomes sickly, and the fourth no way affected. When this is observed, the poison is considered to be extracted, and the patient cured. Another method is to apply a kidney, scarlet, or other bean, which swells; then apply another and another, till the bean ceases to be affected, when they consider the poison extracted.[1106]
There is a vast desert tract, says Pliny, on this side of the Ethiopian Cynamolgi—the “dog-milkers”—the inhabitants of which were exterminated by Scorpions and venomous ants.[1107]
Navarette tells us, in the account of his voyage to the Philippine Islands, that there was there in practice a good and easy remedy against the Scorpions which abound in that country. This was, when they went to bed, to make a commemoration of St. George. He himself, he says, for many years continued this devotion, and, “God be praised,” he adds, “the Saint always delivered me both there and in other countries from those and such like insects.” He confesses, however, they used another remedy besides, which was to rub all about the beds with garlic.[1108]
Navarette[1109] and Barbot[1110] both tell us that a certain remedy against the sting of a Scorpion, is to rub the wound with a child’s private member. This, the latter adds, immediately takes away the pain, and then the venom exhales. The moisture that comes from a hen’s mouth, Barbot says, is also good for the same.
The Persians believe that Scorpions may be deprived of the power of stinging, by means of a certain prayer which they make use of for that purpose. The person who has the power of “binding the Scorpion,” as it is called, turns his
face toward the sign Scorpio, in the heavens, and repeats this prayer; while every person present, at the conclusion of a sentence, claps his hands. After this is done they think that they are perfectly safe; nor, if they should chance to see any Scorpions during that night, do they scruple to take hold of them, trusting to the efficacy of this fancied all-powerful charm. “I have frequently seen,” says Francklin, “the man in whose family I lived, repeat the above-mentioned prayer, on being desired by his children to bind the Scorpions; after which the whole family has gone quietly and contentedly to bed, fully persuaded that they could receive no hurt by them.”[1111]
Bell says the Persians “have such a dread of these creatures, that, when provoked by any person, they wish a Kashan Scorpion may sting him.”[1112]
An old story is, that a Scorpion surrounded with live coals, finding no method of escaping, grows desperate from its situation, and stings itself to death. This, though considered a mere fable of antiquity, may still have some truth, if we believe the following from the pen of Ulloa: “We more than once,” says this traveler, “entertained ourselves with an experiment of putting a Scorpion into a glass vessel, and injecting a little smoke of tobacco, and immediately by stopping it found that its aversion to this smell is such, that it falls into the most furious agitations, till, giving itself several stings on the head, it finds relief by destroying itself.”[1113] There is also told a story in the East Indies, that “the Scorpion is sometimes so pestered with the pismires, that he stings himself to death in the head with his tail, and so becomes a prey to the pismires.”[1114]
The Scorpion was an emblem of the Egyptian goddess Selk; and she is usually found represented with this animal bound upon her head.[1115]
Ælian mentions Scorpions of Coptos, which, though inflicting a deadly sting, and dreaded by the people, so far respected the Egyptian goddess Isis, who was particularly worshiped in that city, that women, in going to express
their grief before her, walked with bare feet, or lay upon the ground, without receiving any injury from them.[1116]
The Ethiopians that dwell near the River Hydaspis commonly eat Scorpions and serpents without the slightest harm, “which certainly proceeds from no other thing than a secret and wonderful constitution of the body!” says Mercurialis.[1117]
Lutfullah, the learned Mohammedan gentleman, in his Autobiography, relates the following:
“On the morning of the 11th (April, 1839), I ordered my servant boy to shake my bedding and put it in the sun for an hour or so, that the moisture imbibed by the quilt might be dried. As soon as the quilt was removed from its place, what did I behold but an immense Scorpion, tapering towards its tail of nine vertebræ, armed with a sting at the end, crawling with impunity at the edge of the carpet. I had never seen such a large monster before. It was black in the body, with small bristles all over, dark green in the tail, and red at the sting. This hideous sight rendered me and the servant horror-struck. In the mean time, an Afghan friend of mine, by name Ata Mohamed Khan Kakar, a respectable resident of the town, honoured me with a visit, and, seeing the reptile, observed, ‘Lutfullah, you are a lucky man, having made a narrow escape this morning. This cursed worm is called Jerrara, and its fatal sting puts a period to animal life in a moment; return, therefore, your thanks to the Lord, all merciful, who gave you a new life in having saved you from the mortal sting of this evil bed-companion of yours.’ ‘I have no fear of the worm,’ replied I, ‘for it dare not sting me unless it is written in the book of fate to be stung by it.’ Saying this, I made the animal crawl into a small earthen vessel, and stopped the mouth of it with clay; and then making a large fire, I put the vessel therein for an hour or so, to turn the reptile into ashes, which, administered in doses of half a grain to adults, are a specific remedy for violent colicky pains.”[1118]
The ashes of burnt Scorpions, besides being good for colicky pains, as Lutfullah says, were often prescribed by the ancient physicians for stone in the bladder;[1119] and Topsel,
quoting Kiranides, has the following: “If a man take a vulgar Scorpion and drown the same in a porringer of oyl in the wane of the moon, and therewithall afterward anoynt the back from the shoulders to the hips, and also the head and forehead, with the tips of the fingers and toes of one that is a demoniack or a lunatick person, it is reported, that he shall ease and cure him in short time. And the like is reported of the Scorpion’s sting joyned with the top of basil wherein is seed, and with the heart of a swallow, all included in a piece of harts skin.”[1120] The oil of Scorpions, Brassavolus says, “drives out worms miraculously;” and oil of Scorpions’ and vipers’ “tongues is a most excellent remedy against the plague, as Crinitus testifies, i. 7.”[1121] Galen prescribes Scorpions for jaundice, and Kiranides the same for the several kinds of ague. “Plinius Secundus saith, that a quartan ague, as the magicians report, will be cured in three daies by a Scorpion’s four last joynts of his tail, together with the gristle of his ear, so wrapped up in a black cloth, that the sick patient may neither perceive the Scorpion that is applied, nor him that bound it on.… Samonicus commends Scorpions against pains in the eyes, in these verses:
If that some grievous pain perplex thy sight,
Wool wet in oyl is good bound on all night.
Carry about thee a live Scorpion’s eye,
Ashes of coleworts if thou do apply,
With bruised frankincense, goat’s milk, and wine,
One night will prove this remedy divine.”[1122]
The following Asiatic fable of the Scorpion and the Tortoise is from the Beharistan of Jamy: A Scorpion, armed with pernicious sting and filthy poison, undertook a journey. Coming to the bank of a wide river, he stopped in great perplexity, wanting height of leg to cross over, yet very unwilling to return. A Tortoise, seeing his situation, and moved with compassion, took him on his back, sprang into the river, and was swimming toward the opposite shore, when he heard a noise on his shell as of something striking him; he called out to know what it was; the ungrateful Scorpion answered, “It is the motion of my sting only, I
know it cannot affect you, but it is a habit which I cannot relinquish.” “Indeed,” replied the Tortoise, “then I cannot do better than free so evil-minded a creature from his bad disposition, and secure the good from his malevolence.” Saying which he dived under the water, and the waves soon carried the Scorpion beyond the bourn of existence.
When, in this banquet house of vice and strife,
A knave oft strikes the various stings of fraud,
’Tis best the sea of death ingulf him soon,
That he be freed from man, and man from him.[1123]
Topsel, in his History of Four-footed Beasts and Serpents, has the following in his chapter on the Scorpion:
“There is a common adage, Cornix Scorpium, a Raven to a Scorpion, and it is used against them that perish by their own inventions: when they set upon others, they meet with their matches, as a raven did when it preyed upon a Scorpion, thus described by Alciatus, under his title Justa ultio, just revenge, saying as followeth:
Raptabat volucer captum pede corvus in auras
Scorpion, audaci præmia parta gulæ.
Ast ille infuso sensim per membra venemo,
Raptorem in stygias compulit ultor aquas.
O risu res digna! aliis qui fata parabat,
Ipse periit, propriis succubuitque dolis.
Which may be Englished thus:
The ravening crow for prey a Scorpion took
Within her foot, and therewithal aloft did flie,
But he empoysoned her by force and stinging stroke,
So ravener in the Stygian Lake did die.
O sportfull game! that he which other for bellyes sake did kill,
By his own deceit should fall into death’s will.
“There be some learned writers, who have compared a Scorpion to an epigram, or rather an epigram to a Scorpion, because as the sting of the Scorpion lyeth in the tayl, so the force and vertue of an epigram is in the conclusion, for vel acriter salse mordeat, vel jucunde atque dulciter delectet, that is, either let it bite sharply at the end, or else delight pleasingly.”[1124]