Curiosities of Medical Experience Part 15

Pliny tells us that women are the best subjects for magical experiments; Quintilian is of the same opinion: Saul consults a witch; Bodin, in his calculations, estimates the proportion between wizards and witches as one to fifty. It is, perhaps, owing to these remarks that many ungenerous writers have denied _women_ a soul, as not belonging to _mankind_. There exists a curious anonymous work, published at the close of the sixteenth century, to prove that women are not men, or, in other words, reasonable creatures, and ent.i.tled "_Dissertatio perjucunda qua Anonymus probare nit.i.tur Mulieres homines non esse_." Our author upon this principle endeavours to show that women cannot be saved. One Simon Geddicus, a Lutheran divine, wrote a serious confutation of this libel upon the fair s.e.x, in 1595, and promises the ladies an expectation of salvation on their good behaviour. According to a popular tradition among the Mahometans, women are excluded from paradise: St. Augustin, however, calls them the _devout s.e.x_; and in the prayer to the Virgin of the Romish Church we find "_Intercede pro devoto foemineo s.e.xu_." An hypothesis still more absurd was broached by a Doctor Almaricus, a theological Parisian writer of the twelfth century, who advanced that, had it not been for the original sin, every individual of our species would have come into existence a complete man; and that G.o.d would have created them by himself, as he created Adam.

Our worthy doctor was a disciple of Aristotle, who maintained that woman was a defective animal, and her generation purely fortuitous and foreign to nature. Howbeit, my fair readers will learn with satisfaction that the doctrines of this aforesaid Almaricus were condemned by the church as heretical, and his bones were therefore dug up, and cast into a common sewer, as an _amende honorable_ to the offended ladies.

"A woman," says one of the primitive fathers of the church, "went to the play, and came back with the devil in her; whereupon, when the unclean spirit was urged and threatened, in the office of exorcising, for having dared to attack one of the faithful, 'I have done nothing,' replied he, 'but what is very fair; I found her on my own grounds, and I took possession of her.'"

St. Cyprian informs us, that when he was studying magic, he was particularly intimate with the devil. "I saw the devil himself," he says; "embraced him; I conversed with him, and was esteemed one of those who held a princ.i.p.al rank about him." Who can doubt the a.s.sertion of a saint!

It appears, that in those wonderful days the devil usually wore a black gown, with a black hat; and it was observed that, whenever he was preaching, his _glutei muscles_ were as cold as ice.

At all times satire has endeavoured to make invidious distinctions between the s.e.xes: this is not fair. Women are generally what men have made them.

In a physical, and, consequently, to a certain degree in a moral point of view, their organization is essentially different from ours; therefore, a masculine woman is as intolerable as an effeminate man. The education of females tends in a great measure to increase that susceptibility to trifling excitements, which in after-life urges them to the extremes of good or evil. While the toys and amus.e.m.e.nts of boys are of a manly nature, a girl is taught to practise upon her darling doll all the arts which a few years after she will practise upon herself. Many intelligent writers have doubted the expediency of giving woman any education beyond the sphere of her domestic pursuits and occupations; Erasmus wrote largely on this subject to Budaeus. Vives treats of it in his _Inst.i.tutio foeminae Christianae_; and a German auth.o.r.ess, Madame Schurman, has published a treatise on the problem, "_Num foeminae Christianae conveniat studium literarum?_"

It is this nervous flexibility in women that exposes them to that constant succession of emotions which are expressed by a rapid transition from tears to smiles; and, anomalous as it may appear, they are more exposed to fond impressions in their grief than at any other moment; they then feel more helpless, and stand in greater need of consolation. The story of the Matron of Ephesus is not so great a libel on the s.e.x as one might imagine.

Their mind is p.r.o.ne to romantic enthusiasm; they delight in the extraordinary, the terrible, and as Madame de Sevigne, who well knew her s.e.x, expresses it, they enjoy in chivalric tales _les grands coups d'epee_. Prudence preventing them too frequently from expressing their thoughts, thinking becomes more intense; and Publius Syrus has said, "_Mulier quae sola cogitat, male cogitat_:" but when the suppressed volcano bursts forth, its eruptions are boundless; it is then that one may exclaim, "_Notumque fuerit quid foemina possit_." No pa.s.sion is more overwhelming than when it has been kept down by dissimulation; opportunity is their curse: Montaigne has too truly said, "_Oh le furieux avantage que l'opportunite_!" and our Denham has beautifully ill.u.s.trated its fearful circ.u.mstances:

Opportunity, like a sudden gust, Hath swell'd my calmer thoughts into a tempest.

Accursed opportunity!

That works our thoughts into desires; desires To resolutions; those being ripe and quickened, Thou giv'st them birth, and bring'st them forth to action.

It is a perilous ordeal for such to whom the lines of Ovid might apply,

Quae, quia non liceat, non facit; illa facit.

To what prejudice against women are we to trace their s.e.x having been chosen to represent the Furies, stern and inexorable ministers of Divine wrath; the Harpies, who defiled all they touched; the perilous Sirens; unless it be to woman's fascinations in youth, and envious bitterness in old age--the conventional type of witchcraft? This unhappy selection of woman for working _malefices_ has been attributed to the facility which the devil found in tempting Eve. A witch is supposed by the most learned in the black art to be in compact with Satan, whom she is obliged to obey; whereas a sorcerer commands the devil himself by his knowledge of charms and invocations, but more especially of perfumes that the evil spirits delight in when properly suffumigated, or abhor when maliciously given them to smell. Thus the burning of a fish's liver by Tobit drove the devil into the remote parts of Egypt; and Lilly informs us, that one Evans having raised a spirit at the request of Lord Bothwell and Sir Kenelm Digby, and forgotten his favourite fumigation or incense, the angry elf whipped him up, and carried him from his house in the Minories to Battersea Causeway.

Although fairies are mostly considered juvenile, and many of their kind acts are recorded, yet are they in general mischievous imps; Mr. Lewis describes those he saw in the silver and lead mines of Wales, as only being about half a yard high. As a punishment for their vagaries, all their children are stunted and idiotic; and this accounts for their abominable custom of subst.i.tuting their own "base elfin breed" for healthy infants. Hence are idiots commonly called changelings.

Daemoniacs are p.r.o.ne to commit suicide, less from their loathing an irksome life than through fear, not of future torments, but of the renewal or the continuance of their worldly sufferings. Perhaps they may entertain some doubts as to the punishment of another existence, while their actual condition is intolerable; we not unfrequently see desperate men rus.h.i.+ng to meet the very fate they dread.

Daemonomania may be referred to a false view of divine justice,--ignorance, and consequent weakness of intellect,--and a pusillanimous apprehension of perhaps a merited chastis.e.m.e.nt. It is a disease which seldom admits of a cure. If the consolations of true religion are proffered, they are either spurned with anger, or merely produce an evanescent melioration. Zacutus relates the case of a daemoniac who was cured by a person who appeared to her in the form of an angel, to inform her that her sins had been forgiven: it is possible that stratagems of a similar nature might prevail. I attended a monomaniac lady in Paris, who fancied herself in Jerusalem on the eve of its destruction. She furiously opposed all endeavours to move her from her residence; and it was only by personating a Jewish rabbi, and offering to take her to New Jerusalem as a place of refuge, that she consented to accompany me in a carriage to a _maison de sante_ near the capital. Here imagination subdued imagination. I have had the pleasure to hear that ever since I thus succeeded in breaking a link in the morbid a.s.sociation of her fancies, her state of mind rapidly improved, and that she is now restored to perfect sanity.

Daemonomania has been known to be epidemic. From 1552 to 1554 no less than eighty-four persons became possessed in Rome. The endeavours of a French monk to exorcise them proved of no avail; and as most of the unfortunate victims of credulity were Jewesses who had consented to be baptized, the Jews were of course accused of sorcery. About the same period a similar disease broke out in a convent near Kerndrop, in Germany, when all the nuns were possessed, and denounced their cook, who, having confessed that she was a witch, was duly burnt alive with her mother.

Daemonomania has been considered an hereditary visitation, and whole families have therefore been deemed in pact with the evil one. Insanity is unfortunately known to attach itself to certain generations; but perhaps it has not been sufficiently observed, when endeavouring to account for this melancholy fact, that the mind becomes gradually influenced by the nature of the constant conversation we daily and hourly are exposed to hear; and it is not impossible but that this transmission of mental disease may be attributed to morbid moral and physical sympathies, which might be avoided by withdrawing the persons exposed to it from the sphere of their action. Constant anxious thoughts and painful reflections tend to produce an increased sensorial power in the brain, with a diminished sensibility to external impressions. So great has been this effect upon the senses, that maniacs have been seen to gaze upon the meridian sun without any sensible effect on the organs of vision. It is therefore possible that an individual who beholds with incessant horror insanity in his family, or who constantly hears of their aberrations, may ultimately experience a similar peculiarity of the mind: hence wit as well as madness have been known to be the heir-looms of a race. Although the examples of vice, one might imagine, would inspire a love for virtuous actions, yet we daily see profligacy the characteristic of an entire family; and there are names which have been rendered by misconduct synonymous with depravity.

This sad fact can only be attributed to natural temperament, whether it be sanguine or melancholic. It has been observed that our const.i.tutions exercise a control over diseases, that modifies them in a peculiar manner.

The more acute the sensibility, the greater is the predisposition to insanity. Warm and ungovernable pa.s.sions will drive one female into all the horrid excesses of nymphomania, while the timid hypochondriac and hysteric woman will gradually sink into a morose or a malevolent despondency. Burton attributes daemonomania to other causes, and tells us that the devil is so cunning that he is able to deceive the very elect; and, to compel them the more to stand in awe of him, he sends and cures diseases, disquiets their minds, torments and terrifies their souls, to make them adore him; and all his study, all his endeavour, is to divert them from true religion to superst.i.tion; and because he is d.a.m.ned himself, and is in error, he would have all the world partic.i.p.ate of his errors, and be d.a.m.ned with him.

Amongst the various motives that induced the evil one to pay his sinister visits to frail mortality, that of inflicting upon them a salutary, or a vexatious fustigation, is frequently recorded by the fathers and other writers. It was more especially upon the backs of saints that this castigation took place. St. Athanasius informs us that St. Anthony was frequently flagellated by the devil. St. Jerome states that St. Hilarius was often whipped in a similar manner; and he calls the devil "a wanton gladiator," and thus describes his mode of punishment: "Insidet dorso ejus festivus gladiator; et latera calcibus, cervicem flagello verberans."

Grimalacus, a learned divine, confirms the fact in the following pa.s.sage: "Nonnumquam autem et aperta impugnatione gra.s.santes, daemones humana corpora verberant, sicut B. Antonio fecerant." St. Francis of a.s.sisa received a dreadful flogging from the devil the very first night he came to Rome, which caused him to quit that city forthwith. Abbe Boileau's remarks on this circ.u.mstance savour not a little of impiety and freethinking, for he says, "It is not unlikely that, having met with a colder reception than he judged his sanct.i.ty ent.i.tled him to, he thought proper to decamp immediately, and when he returned to his convent told the above story to his brother monks." Howbeit, Abbe Boileau is no authority, and it is to be feared that, partaking of the satirical disposition of his brother, he sacrificed piety to wit; for it is well known, beyond the power of sceptic doubts, that the aforesaid saint's a.s.sertion cannot possibly be impugned by proper believers. His power over the fiery elements was established; whereby he possessed the faculty of curing erysipelas, honoured by the appellation of St. Anthony's fire. In the like manner St. Hubert cured hydrophobia, and St. John the epilepsy.

It is, however, pleasing to know that it was not always that the beatified succ.u.mbed to these Satanic pranks, and many instances are recorded of the devil's being worsted in these sacrilegious amus.e.m.e.nts, as fully appears in the history of the blessed Cornelia Juliana, in whose room, one day, says her history, "the other nuns heard a prodigious noise, which turned out to be a strife she had had with the devil, whom, after having laid hold of him, she fustigated most unmercifully; then, having him upon the ground, she trampled upon him with her foot, and ridiculed him in the most bitter manner (_lacerabat sarcasmis_)." This occurrence is incontrovertible, being affirmed by that learned and pious Jesuit, Bartholomew Fisen.

This partiality of devils for flagellation can most probably be attributed to their horribly jealous disposition; for it is well known that the saints took great delight in fustigating, not only those who offended them, but their most faithful votaries. Flagellation was therefore the most grateful punishment that could be inflicted to propitiate the beatified; and we have several well-authenticated facts which prove that the Virgin was frequently appeased by this practice. Under the pontificate of s.e.xtus IV., a heterodox professor of divinity, who had written against the tabernacle, was flogged publicly by a pious monk, to the great edification of the by-standers, more particularly the ladies. The description of this operation would lose materially by translation, I therefore give it in the original. "Apprehendens ipsum revolvit super ejus genua; erat enim valde fortis. Elevatis itaque pannis, quia ille minister contra sanctum Dei tabernaculum locutus fuerat, coepit c.u.m palmis percutere _super quadrata tabernacula_ quae erant nuda, non enim habebat _femoralia vel antiphonam_; et quia ipse infamare voluerat beatam Virginem, allegando forsitan Aristotelem in libro priorum, iste praedicator _illum confutavit legendo in libro ejus posteriorum_: de hoc autem omnes qui aderant gaudebant. Tunc exclamavit _quaedam devota mulier_, dicens, '_Domine Praedicator, detis ei alios quatuor palmatus pro me_; et alia postmodum dixit, 'Detis ei etiam quatuor; sicque _multae aliae_ rogabant, ita qud si illarum pet.i.tionibus satisfacere voluisset, per totum diem aliud facere non potuisset."

We need not seek for similar instances of the mighty power of proper fustigation in foreign parts. The Annals of Wales record a singular instance of the kind, which happened in the year 1188, as related by Silvester Gerald, in such a circ.u.mstantial manner that the most obdurate incredulity alone could doubt the fact:--"On the other side of the river Humber," he says, "in the parish of Hoeden, lived the rector of that church, with his concubine. This concubine, one day, sat rather imprudently on the tomb of St. Osanna, sister to King Osred, which was made of wood, and raised above the ground in the shape of a seat: when she attempted to rise from that place, she stuck to the wood in such a manner that she could not be parted from it, till, in the presence of the people who flocked to see her, she had suffered her clothes to be torn from her, and had received a severe discipline on her naked body, and that too to a great effusion of blood, and with many tears and devout supplications on her part; which done, and after she had engaged to submit to further penitence, she was divinely released."

In this instance, as in many others, freedom from vulgar habiliments appears to have been considered as acceptable to Heaven; so much so, indeed, that the state of greater or lesser nudity has been commensurate with the degree of the offence. The Cynic philosophers of Greece, among whom Diogenes made himself most conspicuous, used to appear in public without a rag upon them. The Indian wise men, called Gymnosophists, or naked sages, indulged in the same vagaries. In more modern times, the Adamites appeared in the simple condition of our first father. In the 13th century, a sect called _Les Turlupins_ (a denomination which appears to have been an opprobrious nickname), perambulated France, disenc.u.mbered of vain accoutrements; and, in 1535, some Anabaptists made an excursion in Amsterdam in the condition in which they had quitted their baths, for which breach of decorum the impious burgomasters had them bastinadoed. We further read of one Friar Juniperus, a worthy Franciscan, who, according to history, "entered the town of Viterboo, and, while he stood within the gate, he put his hose on his head, and his gown being tied round his neck in the shape of a load, he walked through the streets of the town, where he suffered much abuse and maltreatment from the wicked inhabitants; and, still in the same situation, he went to the convent of the brothers, who all exclaimed against him, but he cared little for them, _so holy was the good little brother_ (_tam sanctus fuit iste fraticellus_)."

The pranks of brother Juniper have been performed at sundry periods by various holy men. Are we not warranted in conceiving that these individuals were daemonomaniacs? for surely the devil alone could have inspired them with such fancies, although Cardinal Damian defends the practice in the following terms, when speaking of the day of judgment: "Then shall the sun lose its l.u.s.tre, the moon shall be involved in darkness; the stars shall fall from their places, and all the elements be confounded together: of what service then will be to you those clothes and garments with which you are now covered, and which you refuse to lay aside, to submit to the exercise of penitence?"

It must be remarked, in extenuation of these exhibitions, that they were accompanied by flagellation; which sometimes bore a close a.n.a.logy to those of the Saturnalia and Lupercalia, and the discipline of the flagellants was not always dissimilar to that of the Luperci.

To resume: Daemonomania may be considered the result of a morbid condition of the mind, and the dread of supernatural agency. The belief of an incarnation of the devil leads to the natural apprehension of his having taken possession of our bodies, when a credulous creature fancies that he has fallen into his snares, and forsaken the ways of the Omnipotent. This sad delusion has been admirably ill.u.s.trated by Sir Walter Scott in his curious and learned Demonology. "It is, I think," says he, "conclusive that mankind, from a very early period, have their minds prepared for such events (supernatural occurrences) by the consciousness of the existence of a spiritual world. But imagination is apt to intrude its explanations and inferences founded on inadequate evidence. Sometimes our violent and inordinate pa.s.sions, originating in sorrow for our friends, remorse for our crimes, our eagerness of patriotism, or our deep sense of devotion,--these, or other violent excitements of a moral character, in the visions of the night, or the rapt ecstasy of the day, persuade us that we witness with our eyes and ears an actual instance of that supernatural communication, the possibility of which cannot be denied. At other times the corporeal organs impose upon the mind, while the eye and the ear, diseased, deranged, or misled, convey false impressions to the patient.

Very often both the mental delusion and the physical deception exist at the same time; and men's belief of the phenomena presented to them, however erroneously, by the senses, is the firmer and more readily granted, that the physical impressions corresponded with the mental excitement."

From the foregoing observations we may venture to conclude, that an individual who gives credence to apparitions will also believe in the incarnation of the devil. In both cases we infer that spiritual beings can a.s.sume corporeal forms; and, although we may not presume to question the possibility of such appearances when it may please the Omnipotent so to will it, to believe in possession is actually to admit that the devil is a spiritual being endowed with specific attributes and powers, and acting either independently or with the consent of the Almighty. This admission would to a certain extent border on the heresy of the Manicheans, who believed, with the heresiarch Cubricus, that there existed a good and an evil principle coeternal and independent of each other. We find in Holy Writ that indulgence was granted to Satan to visit the earth. But the period when miraculous power ceased, or rather was withdrawn from the church, is not determined. The Protestants bring it down beneath the accession of Constantine, while the Roman Catholic clergy still claim the power of producing or procuring supernatural manifestations when it suits their purpose; but, as Scott justly observes, it is alike inconsistent with the common sense of either Protestant or Roman Catholic, that fiends should be permitted to work marvels, which are no longer exhibited on the part of religion.

Cullen's opinion on this disease is worthy of remark. He says, "I do not allow that there is any true daemonomania, because few people nowadays believe that demons have any power over our bodies or our minds; and, in my opinion, the species recorded are either a species of melancholy or mania,--diseases falsely referred by the spectators to the power of demons,--feigned diseases,--or diseases partly real or partly feigned."

Esquirol, moreover, justly observes, that "in modern times the punishments that the priest denounces have ceased to influence the minds and the conduct of men, and governments have recourse to restraints of a different kind. Many lunatics express now as much dread of the tribunals of justice, as they formerly entertained of the influence of stars and demons."

We frequently meet with despondent monomaniacs labouring under the fatal delusion of having forfeited all hopes of salvation, and being in fact inevitably doomed to perdition, but who are apparently of sound mind when touching upon other subjects. The case of one Samuel Brown was peculiarly striking. This unfortunate man, at a period when all his intellectual faculties were in full vigour, fancied that his rational soul had gradually succ.u.mbed under divine displeasure, and that he solely enjoyed an animal life in common with brutes.

Esquirol affirms that this form of lunacy is of rare occurrence, and that out of upwards of 20,000 insane persons whom he has observed, scarcely one case of daemonomania could be found in a thousand, and these were amongst the lowest and most uneducated cla.s.ses of society. The most powerful charm to withstand the efforts of the evil spirit, is the following one generally made use of in Livonia.

_Two eyes have seen thee--may three eyes deign to cast a favourable look upon thee, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost._

THE PLAGUE.

Pestilential diseases have ever been considered a punishment inflicted on mankind for their manifold offences. The ancients deified the calamity, and viewed it in the light of an avenging G.o.d. In the Oedipus of Sophocles, the chorus implore Minerva to preserve them from that divinity, which, without sword or buckler, strews the Theban streets with corpses, and is more invincible than Mars himself. Lucretius describes the plague of Athens as a holy fire,--

Et simul, ulceribus quasi inustis, omne rubore Corpus, ut est, per membra _sacer_ quum diditur _ignis_.

The plague was known in an early era both to the Israelites and to the Greeks, and its ancient and modern histories have descended to us depicted in the most terrific colours, in a regular stream of Hebrew, Greek, Arabic, and Roman writers, in most instances offering little variety from the descriptions of neoteric observers.

The pestilences that visited the Israelites were, however, of a different character. They were also considered as a Divine chastis.e.m.e.nt of the sins of that stiff-necked nation. This visitation, accurately described in Holy Writ, has led to the most curious disquisitions. Bryant has endeavoured by the most recondite researches to give us the reasons why the Creator thought proper thus to visit his disobedient people. It has been truly observed that the sublime is not far removed from the ridiculous; and it may be said with equal correctness, that enthusiasm in religion too frequently borders upon impiety. Bryant, in his erudite labour, has unhappily fallen into this extreme, in a.s.signing human motives to the decrees of the Deity. This matter is treated in so curious a manner that it will not be irrelevant to notice his bold a.s.sertions.

In the first instance, taking the language of the Exodus in the most literal sense, he tells us that the river was turned into blood, _because_ it was a punishment particularly well adapted to that blinded and infatuated people, as a warning to the Israelites of the insufficiency of the false G.o.ds that the Egyptians wors.h.i.+pped. They had rendered divine homage to the Nile; and Herodotus informs us that the Persians held their rivers in the highest veneration; while the same wors.h.i.+p obtained among the Medes, the Parthians, and the Sarmatians. The Greeks adored the Spercheius, to whose G.o.d Peleus vowed the hair of his son; the laureated Peneus, the earth-born Achelous, and the loving Alpheus. For, although it may be said that these streams were merely venerated as the symbols of their respective G.o.ds, it is possible that the Greeks might have fallen into the same errors as the wors.h.i.+ppers of saintly images in more modern and enlightened times. Therefore, says our learned author, there was a great propriety in the judgment brought upon this people by Moses. They must have felt the utmost astonishment and horror when they beheld the sacred stream changed and polluted, and the divinity which they wors.h.i.+pped so shamefully soiled and debased. Moreover, he tells us that the Egyptian priests were particularly nice and delicate in their outward habits, making constant ablutions; and abhorred blood, or any stain of gore. In this plague the fish that were in the river died, and the river stunk. Now the priests and holy men not only never tasted fish, but looked upon them as deities. A city was built in honour of the G.o.d-fish, Oxyrunchus; the Phagrus[12] was wors.h.i.+pped at Syene, the Maeotis at Elephantis, and Antiphanes tells us that the Egyptians equally reverenced the eel.

The second plague were frogs, _because_, further saith our sapient authority, they added to the stink of the land, as they "died out of the houses, out of the villages, and out of the fields, and were gathered together in heaps, and the land stunk," Exodus viii. 13, 14. Bryant candidly confesses that he is rather uncertain if this reptile was an object of reverence, or of abhorrence to the Egyptians; nevertheless, he draws the conclusion that, as the ancients wors.h.i.+pped many deities of dread, and others that they despised, (such as Priapus, Fatua, Vacuna, Cloacina,) Mephitis, or foul effluvia, was held in religious awe,--and, to use his own expressions, since Mephitis "signified stink in the abstract,"

and had a temple at Cremona, the pestilential emanation from the dead frogs might have been considered as ent.i.tled to some reverence.[13]

Plutarch tells us that the frog was an emblem of the sun in Egypt, and that the brazen palm-tree at Delphi had many of these animals engraved on its basis. On the Bembine table we find it sitting upon the lotus, a circ.u.mstance observed in various ancient gems; the water-lily being, perhaps, congenial to this aquatic tribe, which were denominated the attendants of the deities of streams and fountains. It is also alleged that the frog was deemed an emblem of Apollo and Osiris, from its habit of inflation, which was looked upon as being typical of inspiration. That frogs were considered as evil symbols further appears in the Apocalypse, where we find that "three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet; they are the spirits of devils working miracles."

The third plague was lice, _because_ the Egyptian priests affected great external purity, wore linen under their woollen garments, and shaved their heads, according to Herodotus, every third day, to prevent any louse, or any other detestable object, from finding a comfortable shelter. Some scholastics have ventured to insinuate that this insect was a species of gnat; but St. Jerome and Origen very properly observe that this would have been a presumptious antic.i.p.ation of the plague of flies, which const.i.tuted the _fourth_ visitation, _because_ flies were also held sacred by the Egyptians, and were wors.h.i.+pped under the name of _Achon_, _Acoron_, and _Zebub_, more particularly in the city of _Acaron_ or _Accoron_. Baal was the G.o.d of flies, and the fly was wors.h.i.+pped at _Ekron_, where it was called _Baal-ze-bub_,--hence _Belzebub_.

The next plague was the murrain of beasts; _because_ it was necessary that the Israelites should not only see that the cattle of the Egyptians were all infected, while theirs were exempted from the evil; but that their very living symbol of the bull Apis, in whom the soul of Osiris had taken up its dwelling, was affected with epizooty in common with other herds of horned deities, who were called _Dii Stercorei_; though it appears that the a.s.s and the camel were involved in the same calamity.

Our commentator attempts to account for the sixth plague of boils and blains with equal ingenuity. He affirms that this cruel disorder was sent among the Egyptians to show the Israelites that the medical men to whom they attributed divine powers, could neither cure nor alleviate the disease. The science of medicine bequeathed by Isis to her son Orus was of no avail, and the learned records of Tosorthrus yielded no information. In vain did their leeches search their cryptae and sacred caverns, or consult their mystic obelisks, which, according to Manetho, were inscribed with the aphorisms of medical experience; their physicians only increased the number of the _botches_ of the land. The Scriptures state that this pestilential malady was produced by the ashes that Aaron and Moses scattered up towards heaven to be wafted over the country. Bryant also accounts for this circ.u.mstance, and attributes this method of extending the calamity to the barbarous practice of the Egyptians of burning human victims and scattering the ashes in the air, in a like manner to propitiate their G.o.ds.

The fall of rain, hail, fire, and thunder, that const.i.tuted the seventh plague, was a chastis.e.m.e.nt inflicted on the wors.h.i.+ppers of these supposed elements. Their Isis presided over the waters, and Osiris and Hephaistus governed fire. Moreover the flax was smitten, whereby the Egyptians were deprived of the means of making linen, the finest of which was their boast and their pride. The barley was also destroyed, and they had no materials for brewing their favourite potation, barley-wine; a species of beer which const.i.tuted their chief beverage when the waters of the Nile were turbid and not potable.[14]

But, according to Jacob Bryant, this destruction was not deemed sufficient, since the fecundity of Egypt would soon have replenished their granaries, manufactures, and breweries; therefore locusts were sent to devour every thing that the former devastation had spared; and this plague was a punishment of their belief that Hercules and Apollo had the power of controlling these ravenous insects, which were called _Parnopes_ and _Cornopes_, whence Apollo was named _Parnopius_, and Hercules _Cornopion_.

It also appears that the gra.s.shoppers, or _cicadae_, were venerated, both as sacred and musical; and the Athenians wore golden ones in their hair, to denote the antiquity of their race of earth-born breed.

Now it is somewhat singular, that while our ingenious author makes such learned inquiries to account for the motives that induced G.o.d thus to visit the Egyptians, he does not venture to a.s.sign motives for similar calamities which befel other nations and countries; although his researches on the subject are so curious and interesting, that they deserve insertion.

The following is the account given by Beauplam of the destructive inroad of these devourers in the Ukraine:--"Next to the flies, let us talk of the gra.s.shoppers or locusts, which here are so numerous, that they put one in mind of the scourge of G.o.d sent upon Egypt when he punished Pharaoh. These creatures do not only come in legions, but in whole clouds, five or six leagues in length, and two or three in breadth, eating up all sorts of grain or gra.s.s, so that wheresoever they come, in less than two hours they crop all they can find, which causes great scarcity of provisions. It is not easy to express their numbers, for all the air is full and darkened; and I cannot better represent their flight to you, than by comparing it to the flakes of snow driven by the wind in cloudy weather; and when they alight to feed, the plains are all covered. They make a murmuring noise as they eat, and in less than two hours they devour all close to the ground; then rising, they suffer themselves to be carried away by the wind. When they fly, though the sun s.h.i.+nes never so bright, the air is no lighter than when most clouded. In June 1646, having stayed in a new town called Novogorod, I was astonished to see so vast a mult.i.tude. They were hatched here last spring; and being as yet scarcely able to fly, the ground was all covered, and the air so full of them, that I could not eat in my chamber without a candle, all the houses being full of them, even the stables, barns, chambers, garrets, cellars, &c. I have seen at night, when they sit to rest themselves, that the roads have been four inches thick of them, one upon another. By the wheels of the carts and the feet of our horses bruising these creatures, there came from them such a stink, as not only offended the nose but the brain. I was not able to endure the stench, but was forced to wash my nose with vinegar, and to hold a handkerchief dipped in it to my nostrils perpetually. These vermin increase and multiply thus: they generate in October, and with their tails make a hole in the ground, and having laid three hundred eggs in it, and covered them with their feet, die; for they never live above six months and a half. And though the rains should come, they would not destroy the eggs; nor does the frost, never so sharp, hurt them. But they continue to the spring, which is about mid-April; when the sun warming the earth, they are hatched, and leap about, being six weeks old before they can fly; when stronger, and able to fly, they go wherever the wind carries them. If it should happen that a north-east wind prevails, it carries them all into the black sea; but if the wind blows from any other quarter, they go into some other country to do mischief. I have been told by persons who understand the languages well, that the words _Boze Guion_, which mean the scourge of G.o.d, are written in Chaldee characters upon their wings."