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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    not multiply too much. And some Scorpions do eat some venomous things, and have the worse venom, and so dragons do eat Scorpions, and those be worst. Bartholomew (Berthekt), bk. xviii. § 98. An Italian, through the oft smelling of an herb called basil, had a Scorpion bred in his brain, which did not only a long time grieve him, but also at the last killed him. Jacobus Hollerius a learned Physician affirms it for truth. Take heed, therefore, ye smellers of basil. Lupton, Notable Things, bk. i. § 38. If any be bitten or stricken of a Scorpion, which shall eat basil the same day, he shall be made whole thereof [ which refers to the man, not to the Scorpion, which might refuse to eat basil]. Ibid., bk. v. j 66. One handful of basil with ten sea-crabs, stamped or beaten together, doth make all the Scorpions to come to that place that are nigh to the same. ibid., § 73. Alexandrinus Jovianus Pontanus doth say, that he saw a man was grievously stung or stricken of a Scorpion, which presently was delivered and helped thereof, with drinking of frankincense, wherein was sealed the sign of a Scorpion : being after made in powder. But it must be graven in the stone of a ring (Scorpio ascending), the moon then being there, and placed in the Angle, and the frankincense must be sealed with that seal, when the moon is in Scorpio, and found in an Angle. Uid.^ bk. ix. § 40. There is an ancient town in Afric called Pescara, wherein the abundance of Scorpions do so much harm, that they drive away the inhabitants all the summer-time every year until November following. The authors have observed seven several kinds. The fifth kind eateth herbs, and the bodies of men, and yet remaineth insatiable ; it hath a bunch on the back, and a tail longer than other Scorpions. The sixth is like a crab, and is of a great body, and hath tongs and takers very solid and strong, like the gramuel or crayfish, and is therefore thought to take the beginning