Desultory notes on the origin, uses, and effects of ardent spirit / by a physician.

Date:
1834
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Desultory notes on the origin, uses, and effects of ardent spirit / by a physician. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    ates from the one same Almighty Power who has endowed us with the ability to acquire an increase of knowledge. In all it is improved by education in proportion to the natural capacity of the individual and species.* The Spanish muleteers select those animals for the most dangerous passages in the mountains— which reason best.—A post master in Peru while urging Mr. Temple to take a mule for the roughest roads instead of a horse, said, « I assure you this as being a right good rational animal. (i. 164.) Baron Humboldt describes these creatures moving their ears when in difficulty, as if reflecting, and considering attentively the safest method of proceeding. They are abandoned entirely to their own discretion, and it may be presumed that the obstinacy, with which they have been proverbially charged, has often proved the result of a better sense than they had credit for. In one of the papers of the Spectator there is a caution Prytheedo not value thyself on thy rea- son, at that exorbitant rate; and the dignity of human nature—take my word for it, a setting dog has as good reason as any man in England. In the beautiful imagery of the Book of Job, all these wonders are attributed to the action of that Great Source, Who hath put wisdom in the inward parts—and who hath given understanding to the heart.'1''] xxxviii. 36. Certain domestic animals have been taught to exhibit a disposition for strong drinks and other stimulants. Some of the tamed elephants are very fond of brandy and of wines—Bishop Heb^r remarks, in his Travels, vol. ii. 185, that Elephants in India are fed on stimulating substances, to make them furious, when they train them for fighting. Marco Polo relates of the Africans of the Island of Zenzibar and its neighbourhood, (among the Ethiopians—called Zengis or Blacks,) they have no horses, but fight upon elephants and camels. Pre- viously to the combats they give draughts of wine (made from rice and sugar) to the elephants. page 713. In the first book of Maccabees, there is a description of the employ- ment of elephants in battle, 163 years B. C. And to the end they might provoke the elephants to fight, they showed them the blood of grapes and of mulberries. chap. vi. 34. Bang is said to be sometimes given to Indian elephants, for the purpose of rendering them furious and insensible to danger.J * The French apply the term education in a very full and proper sense—and speak and write de l'education des inoutons—of the rearing, breeding, and management of sheep. We cannot refrain from reiterating the expression of an intelligent philoso- pher— we yet hope to witness^ national system of instruction, in which the volume of nature and of revelation shall he simultaneously perused.—Sir David Brew- ster's Letters on Natural Magic, addressed to Sir Walter Scott, page 314. t Horapollo tells us (lib. i. cap. 7.) that the hieroglyphic for the soul was a Itriwk, which in the Egyptian tongue was called baietht a word composed of bai and eth, the first of which signified, in that language, the soul; the other the heart: for according to the Egyptians the heart was the enclosure of the soul.—Dr. War- burton, Divine Legation of Moses demonstrated, ii. 174. The relations of the heart by its peculiar nervous and ganglionic connections, and the active sensations which are thereby induced and felt, amply justify such a reference. X Marsden's Notes to Marco Polo. p. 716.