One of the strangest aberrations of a disordered state of mind was exhibited by some impudent fellows who fancied themselves virtuous and modest females. Esquirol relates the case of a young man of 26 years of age, handsome and of a good figure, who had been in the habit of occasionally putting on woman’s attire to perform female parts in private theatricals, and who had actually fancied himself a woman. In his paryoxysms he would put off his male clothes, and equip himself like a nymph,—the greater part of his day was spent before his looking-glass, decorating his person and dressing his hair—he was incurable!
ANCIENT IDEAS OF PHRENOLOGY.
Although Gall and Spurzheim may fairly claim the merit of having developed in this science the particular parts of the brain that are the seat of different faculties, yet we find in various ancient writers similar notions. Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy, thus expresses himself on this subject: “Inner senses are three in number, so called because they are in the brain-pan; as common sense, phantasie, memory. This common sense is the judge or moderator of the rest, by whom we discern all differences of objects; the fore part of the brain is his organ or seat. Phantasie, or imagination, which some call æstimative, or cogitative, (confirmed saith, Fernelius, by frequent meditation,) is an inner sense, which doth more fully examine the species perceived by common sense, of things present or absent, and keeps them longer, recalling them to mind again, or making new of his own: his organ is the middle cell of the brain. Memory layes up all the species which the senses have brought in, and records them as a good register, that they may be forthcoming when they are called for by phantasie and reason; his organ is the back part of the brain.” This corresponds with the account of the faculties given by Aristotle, and repeated by the writers of the middle ages. Albertus Magnus, Bishop of Ratisbon, designed a head divided into regions according to these opinions in the thirteenth century; and a similar plan was published by Petrus Montaguana in 1491. Ludovico Dolce published another engraving on the subject at Venice in 1562. In the British Museum is a chart of the universe and the elements of all sciences, and in which a large head of this description is delineated. It was published at Rome in 1632. In the Tesoretto of Brunetto Latini, the preceptor of Dante, we find this doctrine taught in the following lines:
Nel capo son tre celle,
Ed io dirò di quelle,
Davanti è lo intelletto
E la forza d’apprendere
Quello que puote intendere;
In mezzo è la ragione
E la discrezione,
Che scherne buono e male;
E lo terno e l’iguale
Dirietro sta con gloria
La valente memoria,
Che ricorda e retiene
Quello ch’in essa viene.
PERFUMES.
At all periods perfumes seem to have been more or less adopted as a luxury among the wealthy and fashionable. Tradition states that they were frequently rendered instrumental to sinister purposes, as the vehicle of poisonous substances. Historians relate that the Emperor Henri VI. and a prince of Savoy, were destroyed with perfumed gloves. Jeanne d’Albret, Queen of Navarre, and mother of Henri IV., died from the poisonous effect of gloves purchased from the noted René, perfumer and confidential agent of Catherine de Medicis. Lancelot, King of Naples, was destroyed by a scented handkerchief prepared by a Florentine lady. Pope Clement VII. sunk under the baneful effluvia of a torch that was carried before him; and Mathioli relates, that nosegays thus impregnated have been frequently known to prove fatal. It is certain that, without the aid of venenous substances, various flowers have caused serious accidents. Barton tells us that the magnolia glauca occasioned a paroxysm of fever, and increased the severity of an attack of gout. Jacquin had seen the lobelia longiflora producing a sense of suffocation; and the nerium oleander in a close chamber, has caused death. The injurious effects of bulbous flowers in giving rise to violent headachs, giddiness, and even fainting, are generally known. The horror roses inspire to the Roman ladies is scarcely credible; and Cromer affirms that it was to the odour of that ornament of our gardens that the death of one of the daughters of Nicolas I., Count of Salm, and of a Polish bishop, was attributed. The sympathetic effect that this flower can create is illustrated by Capellini, who saw a lady fall into a syncope on perceiving a rose in a girl’s bosom, although it turned out to be an artificial one. The partiality or antipathy to certain odours is equally unaccountable, for the Italian ladies, who dread the rose, delight in the disgusting aroma of rue, which they carry about as a salubrious plant, that, according to their notions, dispels the cattiva aria, although it is not impossible that they might fancy it possessed of those salutary qualities to which Ovid had alluded:
Utilius summas acuentes lumina rutas,
Et quidquid veneri corpora nostra negat.
Rue, according to Serenus Samonicus, was one of the ingredients of the fabled antidote of Mithridates, which he thus describes: