Natural history in Shakespeare's time : being extracts illustrative of the subject as he knew it / Made by H. W. Seager, M. B., &c. Also pictures thereunto belonging.

  • Seager, H. W. (Herbert West), 1848-
Date:
1896
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Natural history in Shakespeare's time : being extracts illustrative of the subject as he knew it / Made by H. W. Seager, M. B., &c. Also pictures thereunto belonging. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    Rats, the Physicians cure the falling-ofF of the hair. And if their urine do fall upon the bare place of a man, it maketh the flesh rot unto the bones, neither will it suffer any scar to be made upon the bones. Topsell, Four-footed Beasts, pp. 403-4.. It is found by observation that Rats and Dormice will forsake old and ruinous houses, three months before they fall; for they perceive by an instinct of nature, that the joints and fastening together of the posts and timber of the houses, by little and little will be loosed, and so thereby that all will fall to the ground. Lupton, Notable Things, bk. ii. § 87. It is said that no Rats have ever been seen in this town [Hatfield, Yorkshire]. Camden, Britannia, col. 849. V. Mouse, Water-rat, Island. Ratsbane. ii. King Henry IV., i. 2, 48. [The following quotation from Holland's Pliny, bk. xxii. ch. xviii., seems appropriate : If there be water and oil mingled to the juice of Chameleon [carline Thistle], it draweth rats and mice to it, but it is their bane, unless presently they drink water. But probably Shakespeare used the word as simply mean- ing any poison. Florio gives Ratsbane as an equivalent for corrosive sublimate and for arsensic] Raven. The Raven beholdeth the mouth of her birds when they yawn. But she giveth them no meat ere she know and see the likeness of her own blackness, and of her own colour and feathers ; and when they begin to wax black, then afterward she feedeth them with all her might and strength. Ravens' birds be fed with dew of heaven all the time that they have no black feathers. And is a crying fowl, and hath diverse sound and voice ; for among fowls only the Raven hath four and sixty changings of voice. And is a guileful bird, and taketh away things thievishly, and layeth and hideth them in privy places. 17