[Nekrokedeia]: or, the art of embalming etc. : With ... the particular opinions, experiments and inventions of modern physicians, surgeons, chymists and anatomist ... And a pharmacopoeia Galeno-chymica, anatomia sicca sive incruenta, etc / [Thomas Greenhill].

Greenhill, Thomas, 1681-1740?

Date:: 1705

Credit: [Nekrokedeia]: or, the art of embalming etc. : With ... the particular opinions, experiments and inventions of modern physicians, surgeons, chymists and anatomist ... And a pharmacopoeia Galeno-chymica, anatomia sicca sive incruenta, etc / [Thomas Greenhill]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$3^4 Both Wk\ «nd Oil in a Lamp. The Art of Embalming. fpirituous and inflammable, that they will of them- felves catch Fire £t a great diftance, yet mud thefe needs be too volatile to occafion a Lamp to burn perpetually, unlefs they are fix’d with fome more per¬ manent Matter, and then they cannot be fo eafily lighted without a Wiek} neither can we underftand how it Ihould burn fo above the Lamp, unlefs the Flame be fupported by a little Cord or Wiek, the Vehicle of the Oil: Befides, What can that little Fo¬ ramen at the Beak of all the Lamps mean, but only to thruft the Wiek and Light out at? Tis plain there¬ fore they had Wieks, but what they were made of, whether of Afbe/los, Amiantus, or any of the before- mention’d Things, is fomewhat difficult to decide 5 forafmuch as they being reported both to have been inconfumable and inextinguilhable, when once lighted, they muff needs have burn’d perpetually, and confe- quently the Lamps have had no occafion for any Oil 3 but this is certainly falfe, for both the Lamps and Fu¬ neral Shrouds burn’d only fo long as there was any Oil, Fat, or oleaginous Moifture remaining, which being confum’d they likewife ceas’d, yet might per¬ haps remain unconfunid , but that without any Flame. However, we muff not deny there were any Wieks in Lamps, becaufe they could not, as mod are of opinion, continue to burn of themfelves without any oily inflammable Matter, but rather all believe both the Oil and Wiek had a Virtue to aflift each other, and on the contrary could not burn feparate- ]y for any duration or confiderable Time. But fome have thought quite otherwife of this matter, viz. That what Country-Peafants imagine they fee at the firft break- r - \ J$