POPULAR ERRORS.
A popular error of the most fatal kind was the idea formerly prevalent that a drowned person, being overpowered by the quantity of water he had swallowed, was susceptible of restoration by suspending him with the head downwards, so as to force him to disgorge it. More persons owed their death to this stupid operation, than to the suspended respiration it was intended to restore. It is only during the present century that the experiments of the faculty all over the world have pointed out that the only course to pursue with persons taken insensible out of the water, is to restore circulation by warmth and friction of the extremities; and respiration, by the introduction of air into the lungs.
An equally strange legislative abuse connected with this subject, prevailed in Paris till within the last few years. A reward of twelve francs, or ten shillings was given to any person who saved another from drowning by extricating his body from the Seine, while a reward of six-and-thirty francs, or three times as much, was given to the person who rescued a dead body from the water! This was evidently conceived in the hygienic interests of a city, where the river water is in such extensive use for baths and drinking; but it was in point of fact offering a premium for murder: the morality of navigatory populations being in most countries at a low ebb.
Another French delusion fatal to human preservation, is the idea that the person who cuts down the body of another found hanging, legally involves himself in an accusation of murder; and nothing can be more injudicious than the harshness with which the proceedings of an inquest are often pursued; as if to justify the poltroonery of those whose first impulse on discovering a body is to go in search of witnesses of the circumstances attending the discovery, instead of lending immediate aid.
A more innocent, but not less groundless popular prejudice is, that which attaches itself to that most useful of domestic animals, the ass—the war-horse of the poor. In all countries, this sure-footed and faithful animal is adopted as an emblem of stupidity, from the patience with which it submits to punishment and endures privation. A pair of ass’s ears is inflicted upon a child in reproof of his duncehood; and through life we hear every blockhead of our acquaintance called an ass. Whereas the ass is a beast of great intelligence; and we often owe our safety to its sure and unerring foot beside the perilous precipice, where the steps of the man of science would have faltered.
The Fathers of the Church, and the Disciples of the Sorbonne, persuaded of the universal influence of the Christian faith, believed the dark cross on the back of the ass to date only from the day on which our Saviour made his entry into Jerusalem. The ass of the desart was an animal of great price. Pliny mentions that the Senator Arius paid for one the sum of four hundred thousand sesterces. Naturalists have frequently remarked the extraordinary dimensions of an ass’s heart, which is thought an indication of courage; and it is the custom of the peasantry of some countries to make their children wear a piece of ass’s skin about their person. The ass’s skin is peculiarly valuable, both for the manufacture of writing-tablets and drums; which may be the reason why a dead ass is so rarely seen. It is too valuable to be left on the highway. In many places, the ass serves as a barometer. If he roll in the dust, fine weather may be expected; but if he erect his ears, rain is certain. Why should not animals experience the same atmospheric influences as man? Are we not light-hearted in the sunshine, and depressed in a heavy atmosphere.
Louis XI., of France, was a great patron of the ass. His astrologers having failed in their predictions concerning the weather, he dismissed them, and substituted an ass in their place, as being more weather-wise. Certain physicians consider the emanations from the ass’s body to possess beneficial medical properties; while, in former days, the blood of the bull was considered poisonous.
The credulous Plutarch declared that Themistocles poisoned himself with bullock’s blood, upon the authority of the priests of Egina, who are also cited by Pliny; and this same bullock’s blood, esteemed poisonous, was also considered a moral purification;—sins being expiated by the sprinkling of the human body with the blood of the bull. On solemn occasions, when the criminal was a man of wealth and distinction, so that a bull was dedicated to his use, the blood was made to fall in a perforated vessel, and the criminal standing beneath, received the sacred aspersion upon his face and attire. The Emperor Julian submitted to this act of expiation. Bullock’s blood is now known to be as innocuous as that of other animals; and is extensively used in more than one manufacture.
During the Middle Ages, ground glass was supposed to act as an infallible poison; and was long known by the name of “Succession Powder.” Montfleury speaks of it in one of his comedies. One of the personages, showing a packet of it, observes: “Here is the making of many an heir!”
Portal, and several other French physicians, have asserted in their works, that ground glass is fatal to the swallower; and it is frequently used by the poor as ratsbane, mixed up with the compositions intended for the extermination of vermin. Jugglers were the first to controvert this error, by publicly swallowing it with impunity, a feat which Dr. Franck having witnessed, he immediately experimentalized on himself, and published the results as conclusive against the received opinion.