[h] Gibs. Ibid.
[] It would nauseate the Reader to reckon up the Places famed for the Conveyance of Whispers, such as the Prison of Dionysius at Syracuse, which is said to encrease a Whisper to a Noise; the clapping ones Hands to the Sound of a Cannon, &c. Nor the Aquaducts of Claudius, which carry a Voice sixteen Miles, and many others both Ancient and Modern. If the Reader hath a mind to be entertained in this way, he may find enough in Kircher’s Phonurgia. But it may not be irksome to mention one or two of our own in England. Among which, one of the most famed is the Whispering-Place in Gloucester Cathedral, which is no other than a Gallery above the East-end of the Choir, leading from one side thereof to the other. It consisteth, (if I mistake not) of five Angles, and six Sides, the middle-most of which is a naked, uncovered Window, looking into a Chapel behind it. I guess the two Whisperers stand at about twenty five Yards Distance from one another. But the Dome of St. Paul’s, London, is a more considerable Whispering-Place, where the ticking of a Watch (when no Noise is in the Streets) may be heard from Side to Side; yea, a Whisper may be sent all round the Dome. And not only in the Gallery below, but above, upon the Scaffold, I tried, and found that a Whisper would be carried over one’s Head round the top of the Arch, notwithstanding there is a large Opening in the middle of it into the upper part of the Dome.
[k] Auditus autem semper patet: ejus enim sensu etiam dormientes egemus: A quo cùm sonus est acceptus, etiam è somno excitamur. Flexuosum iter habet, nè quid intrare possit, si simplex, & directum pateret; provisum etiam, ut siqua minima bestiola conaretur irrumpere, in sordibus aurium, tanquàm in visco, inhæresceret. Cicer. de Nat. Deor. l. 2. c. 57.
It deserves a particular Remark here, that in Infants in the Womb, and newly born, the Meatus Auditorius is shut up very closely, partly by the Constriction of the Passage, and partly by a glutinous Substance, whereby the Tympanum is guarded against the Water in the Secundine, and against the Injuries of the Air as soon as the Infant is born.
[l] It is remarkable, that in most, if not all Animals, whose Ears are tunnelled, or where the Meatus Auditorius is long enough to afford Harbour to Ear-wigs, or other Insects; that, I say, in the Ears of such, Ear-wax is constantly to be found. But in Birds, whose Ears are covered with Feathers, and where the Tympanum lies but a little way within the Skull, no Ear-wax is found, because none is necessary to the Ears so well guarded, and so little tunnelled.
[m] The Ear-wax was thought by the old Anatomists to be an Excrement of the Brain: Humor biliosus à cerebro expugnatus, the Bartholines say of it, l. 3. c. 9. But as Schelhammer well observes, Nil absurdius, quàm cerebri excrementum hoc statuere. Nam & ratio nulla suadet, ut in cerebro fieri excrementum tale credamus:——neque viæ patent per quas ab eo seclusum in meatum auditorium possit inde penetrare. As to its Taste, Casserius gives Instances of its being sweet in some Creatures. But Schelhammer says, Ego verò semper, cum amaritie aliquid dulcedinis in illo deprehendi. Vid. Schel. de Audit. p. 1. c. 2. §. 10. But I could never distinguish any Sweetness in it; but think it insipid mixed with a Bitterness.
[n] Cerumina amara Arteriolis exudantia. Willis de Anim. Brut. par. 1. c. 14. In the Skin——are little Glands, which furnish a yellow and bitter Humour. Monsieur Dionis’s Dem. 18. An handsome Cut of those Glandulæ ceruminosæ is in Dr. Drake, from Valsalva.
Pliny attributes a great Virtue to the Ear-wax; Morsus hominis inter asperrimos numeratur: medentur sordes ex auribus: ac ne quis miretur, etiam Scorpionum ictibus Serpentiumque statim impositæ. Plin. Nat. Hist. l. 28. c. 4. And that it hath an healing Quality, and may be accounted a good Balsam, I my self have experienced.
[o] That there is such a Thing as the innate Air, (talked of much by most Authors on this Subject) Schelhammer very justly, I think, denies, by Reason there is a Passage into the inner Ear from the Throat, through which the innate Air may pass out, and the outward Air enter in. V. Par. Alt. p. 2. c. 1. §. 10. When by stopping our Breath, and Straining, we force the external Air into the Ear, it may be heard rushing in; and if much be forced in, it may be felt also to beat against the Tympanum. When the Passage to the Throat is by any Means stopp’d, as by a Cold in the Head, &c. the Hearing thereby becomes dull and blunt; by Reason the Communication between the outward and inward Air are obstructed: But when by strong Swallowing, or such-like Motion of the Throat, the Passage is opened, we perceive it by a sudden Smack or Crack, and we immediately hear very clearly; the load of feculent Air being at that Time discharged from the inner Ear.
It is a wise Provision, that the Passage for the Air into the Ear, is from the Throat; Ut non statim quivis aer externus irrumpere queat (as Schelhammer saith, Par. Ult. c. 4. §. 8.) sed nonnihil immutatus, ac temperatus, calore ex medio ventre exspirante; imò fortassis non facilè alius, nisi ex pulmonibus.