The Book of Curiosities

by John Platts

Let us proceed a degree higher, to merely sensible creatures, who are not so immediately depending on the earth, the common mother, as the plants, nor rooted to it as they are, but walk about, and have a kind of independent existence, and are a sort of world by themselves. And here the individuation consists in such a particular contexture of their essential parts, and their relation one toward another, as enables them to exert the operations of the sensible or animal life. Thus, cut off the legs or any other parts of an animal, it is the same animal still; but cut off its head, or take away its life, and it is no longer that individual animal, but a mere carcase, and will, by degrees, resolve itself into common matter again.

To ascend now to the highest rank of visible beings,—the rational. The individuation of man appears to consist in the union of a rational soul with any convenient portion of fitly organized matter. Any portion of matter duly qualified, and united to the soul by such a union as we experience, is immediately individuated by it, and, together with that soul, makes a man; so that, if it were possible for one soul to be clothed over and over at different times with all the matter in the universe, it would in all those distinct shapes be the same individual man. Nor can a man be supposed in this case to differ more from himself, than he does from what he really was when an infant, or just passed an embryo, when compared with what he is when of adult or decrepit age; he having, during that intermediate time, changed his portion of matter over and over; as, being fat and lean, sick and well, having been exhausted by bleeding, effluvia, perspiration, &c.; and reunited again by aliment; so that perhaps not one particle, or but very few of the first matter which he took from his parents, and brought with him into the world, is now remaining.

The preceding article is naturally followed by Reproduction.—Reproduction is usually understood to mean the restoration of a thing before existing, and since destroyed. It is very well known that trees and plants may be raised from slips and cuttings; and some late observations have shewn, that there are some animals which have nearly the same property. The polype (See Hydra) was the first instance we had of this kind; but we had scarcely time to wonder at the discovery M. Trembley had made, when M. Bonnet discovered the same property in a species of water-worm. Amongst the plants which may be raised from cuttings, there are some which seem to possess this quality in so eminent a degree, that the smallest portion of them will become a complete tree again. A twig of willow, poplar, or many other trees, being planted in the earth, takes root, and becomes a tree, every piece of which will in the same manner produce other trees. The case is the same with these worms: they are cut to pieces, and these several pieces become perfect animals; and each of these may be again cut into a number of pieces, each of which will in the same manner produce an animal. It has been supposed by some, that these worms were oviparous; but, M. Bonnet, on cutting one of them to pieces, having observed a slender substance, resembling a small filament, to move at the end of one of the pieces, separated it, and on examining it with glasses, found it to be a perfect worm, of the same form with its parent, which lived and grew larger in a vessel of water into which he put it. These small bodies are easily divided, and very readily complete themselves again, a day usually serving for the production of a head to the part that wants one; and, in general, the smaller and more slender the worms are, the sooner they complete themselves after this operation. When the bodies of the large worms are examined by the microscope, it is very easy to see the appearance of the young worms alive, and moving about within them; but it requires great precision and exactness to be certain of this, since the ramifications of the great artery have very much the appearance of young worms, and they are kept in a sort of continual motion by the systoles and diastoles of the several portions of the artery, which serve as so many hearts. It is very certain, that what we force in regard to these animals by our operations, is done also naturally every day in the brooks and ditches where they live. A curious observer will find in these places many of them without heads or tails, and some without either; as also, other fragments of various kinds, all of which are in the act of completing themselves; but whether accidents have reduced them to this state, or they thus purposely throw off parts of their own bodies for the production of more animals, it is not easy to determine. They are plainly liable to many accidents, by which they lose the several parts of their bodies; and they must perish very early, if they had not a power of reproducing what was lost. They are often broken into two parts, by the resistance of some hard piece of mud which they enter; and they are subject to a disease, a kind of gangrene, rotting off the several parts of their bodies, by which they must inevitably perish, were they not possessed of this surprising property.

The reproduction of several parts of lobsters, crabs, &c. is one of the greatest curiosities in natural history. It seems, indeed, inconsistent with the modern philosophical system of generation, which supposes the animal to be wholly formed in the egg; that, in lieu of an organical part of an animal cut off, another should arise perfectly like it: the fact, however, is too well attested to be denied. The legs of lobsters, &c. consist each of five articulations; now, when any of the legs happen to break by any accident, as by walking, &c. which frequently occurs, the fracture is always found to be at the suture near the fourth articulation; and what they thus lose is exactly reproduced in some time afterwards; that is, a part of the leg shoots out, consisting of four articulations, the first whereof has two claws, as before; so that the loss is entirely repaired.

If the leg of a lobster be broken off by design at the fourth or fifth articulation, what is thus broken off is always reproduced, even after a second or third accident. But if the fracture be made in the first, second, or third articulation, the reproduction is not so certain. And it is very surprising, that if the fracture be made at these articulations, at the end of two or three days, all the other articulations are generally found broken off to the fourth, which, it is supposed, is done by the creature itself, to make the reproduction certain. The part reproduced, is not only perfectly similar in form to that retrenched, but also, in a certain space of time, it grows equal to it. The creature is, however, frequently taken before this is accomplished. Hence it is that we frequently see lobsters, which have their two large legs unequal in all proportions.

Peruke.—It appears that this term was originally applied to describe a fine natural head of long hair, and if this appellation had been retained, we should never have associated wigs with monsters. But whatever may have been the ancient use or meaning of the word, it has now almost become obsolete, though it was for more than a century in constant application to those artificial heads of hair, made probably at first to conceal natural or accidental baldness, but which afterwards became so ridiculously fashionable, as to be worn in preference to the most beautiful locks, absurdly shaved off the head to make room for them.

Ancient authors might be quoted, to prove, that the great and luxurious of that time, had recourse to this mode of concealing defects, and of decorating the head; nay, it might perhaps be proved, that the peruke of the Emperor Commodus was more absurdly composed than any modern peruke has ever been; and indeed it must be admitted, that a wig powdered with scrapings of gold, in addition to oils and glutinous perfumes, must have made a more wonderful appearance than our immediate ancestors ever witnessed. It was in the reign of our Charles the First, that perukes were introduced throughout Europe, when the moralists attacked them without mercy, as they perceived that the folly of youth even extended to the cutting off nature’s locks, to be replaced by the hair of the dead, and of horses, woven into a filthy piece of canvass. Admonition and ridicule were, however, of little avail, and the clergy began to be affected by the general mania. Those on the Continent being almost universally Roman Catholics, were so completely subject to their superiors, that the peruke was soon routed from their body; but as the dignified clergy of England conceive that their consequence is increased by the enormous bushes of hair upon their heads, and the judges have adopted their sentiments in this particular, it is probable many years will elapse before the shape and absurdity of two particular species of perukes are forgotten.

About the close of the seventeenth century, the peruke was made to represent the natural curl of the hair, but in such profusion, that ten heads would not have furnished an equal quantity, as it flowed down the back, and hung over the shoulders halfway down the arms. By 1721, it had become fashionable to tie one half of it on the left side into a club. Between 1730 and 1740, the bag-wig came into fashion, and the peruke was docked considerably, and sometimes plaited behind into a queue, though even till 1752 the long flowing locks maintained their influence. After 1770 those were rarely seen; and since that time persons wearing perukes have generally had substantial reasons for so doing, from baldness, and complaints in the head. At one time, indeed, when the stern virtues of Brutus were much in vogue, the young men of Europe wore perukes of black or dark hair, dressed from his statues. Many particulars on this subject have been preserved by Mr. Malcolm, in his “Anecdotes of the Manners and Customs of London,” from which we learn, that a young countrywoman obtained £60 for her head of hair in the year 1700, when human hair sold at £3 per ounce; and in 1720, the grey locks of an aged woman sold for £50 after her decease. Wigs of peculiar excellence were sold at £40 each.

A petition from the master peruke-makers of London and Westminster, presented to the King, in 1763, points out the great decline of their use to have taken place at that time. In this they complain of the public wearing their own hair; and say, “That this mode, pernicious enough in itself to their trade, is rendered excessively more so by swarms of French hair-dressers already in those cities, and daily increasing.”

We close this chapter with an account of Centaurs and Lapithæ.—Under the reign of Ixion, king of Thessaly, a company of bulls which fed upon Pelion ran mad, by which means the mountain was inaccessible. They also descended into the inhabited parts, ruining the trees and fruits, and killing the larger cattle. Upon which Ixion declared that he would give a great reward to any person that would destroy these bulls. Riding on horseback was never practised before that time. But some young men that lived in a village at the foot of Pelion, had attempted successfully to train horses fit to back, and had accustomed themselves to that exercise. These youths undertook to clear the mountain of the bulls, which they effected by pursuing them on horseback, and piercing them with their arrows as they fled; but when the bulls stopped or followed them, they retired without receiving any hurt. And from hence they were called Centaurs, viz. Pierce bulls. Having received of Ixion the recompense he promised them, they became so fierce and proud, that they committed a thousand insolences in Thessaly, not sparing even Ixion himself, who dwelt in the town of Larissa. The inhabitants of the country were at that time called Lapithæ, who one day invited the Centaurs to a feast which they celebrated: but the Centaurs abused their civility; for, having drunk too much, they took the Lapithites’ women from them, set them on their horses, and carried them away. This violence kindled a long war between the Centaurs and the Lapithæ: the Centaurs in the night came down into the plain, and laid ambushes for their enemies, and, as soon as day appeared, retired again into the mountain, with whatever they had taken. Thus, as they retired, the Lapithæ saw only the hinder parts of their horses, and the men’s heads; so that they seemed but as one animal, whence they believed the Centaurs had become half men and half horses, and that they were clouds, because the village where they dwelt was called Nophelus, which signified a cloud.