Delicias pariunt Veneri crudelia flagra.
Dum nocet, illa juvat; dum juvat, ecce nocet.
Menghus Faventinus had long before extolled this practice, mentioned also by Cœlius Rhodiginus, and various ancient writers, and more recently recognised as effectual by Rousseau, in his Confessions.
A remarkable case of leanness is mentioned by Lorry in a priest, who became so thin and dry in all his articulations, that at last he was unable to go through the celebration of mass, as his joints and spine would crack in so loud and strange a manner at every genuflexion, that the faithful were terrified, and the faithless laughed. One of these miserable laths once undertook a long journey to consult a learned physician on his sad condition, and having begged to know, in a most piteous tone, the cause of his desiccation, was favoured with the following luminous answer: “Sir, there is a predisposition in your constitution to make you lean, and a disposition in your constitution to keep you so.” Another meager patient being told that the celebrated Hunter had fattened a dog by removing his spleen, exclaimed, with a deep sigh, “O, sir! I wish Mr. Hunter had mine.”
DWARFS.
We can scarcely believe that the ancients gave any credence to the fabulous accounts of dwarfish nations, or could be persuaded of the existence of those pigmies spoken of by Aristotle and other writers, who, in all probability, described as such a species of diminutive monkeys.
Athenæus mentions a race of dwarfs who were in perpetual war with cranes, who harnessed partridges to their chariots, and were obliged to cut down corn with felling-axes, like forest trees. Pliny asserts that their constant enemy, the crane, drove them out of Thracia, but that they still were to be met with in Ethiopia, near the source of the Nile, and above the rise of the Ganges, where they were named Spithania, their stature not exceeding three palms. Nicephorus Calixtus, in his Ecclesiastical History, mentions an Egyptian who was not longer than a partridge, and who, at the age of twenty-five, displayed considerable mental endowment. Strabo, however, judiciously observed that these stories arose from the circumstance of the small size of every animal in intemperate regions. Various modern travellers have recorded the most absurd stories of diminutive men, as well as of gigantic nations; but to most of them we may apply the words of Congreve—
Fernandez Mendez Pinto was but a type of thee,
Thou liar of the first magnitude.
It is nevertheless true, that man exhibits differences of stature in various climes. The Laplanders and Samoïdes in Europe, the Ostiacks and Tungooses in Asia, the Greenlanders and Esquimaux in America—all the natives indeed of high northern latitudes are remarkably short, measuring little more than four feet; and Niels Sara, the Laplander mentioned by Von Buch in his Travels, and who measured five feet eight inches, may be considered as a gigantic exception. It had been reported by travellers, that a nation of white dwarfs, called Quimos or Kimos, existed in the interior of Madagascar; but Flacourt has positively denied the fact, although Commerson, the naturalist of Bougainville, and De Modave, confirm the former statement. It has also been remarked by various travellers, that dwarfs are not uncommon amongst robust and manly races, instanced in Poland and Lithuania. Sigismund de Herbestein made the same observation in Samogitia, the population of which was of a high stature.