The Book Of Curiosities Part 2

The capacity of the lungs varies considerably in different individuals.[3]

On a general average, they may be said to contain about 280 cubic inches, or nearly five quarts of air. By each inspiration about forty cubic inches of air are received into the lungs, and at each expiration the same quant.i.ty is discharged. If, therefore, we calculate that twenty respirations take place in a minute, and forty cubic inches to be the amount of each inspiration, it follows, that in one minute, we inhale 800 cubic inches; in an hour, the quant.i.ty of air inspired will be 48,000 cubic inches; and in the twenty-four hours, it will amount to 1,152,000 cubic inches. This quant.i.ty of air will almost fill 78 wine hogsheads, and would weigh nearly 53 pounds. From this admirable provision of nature, by which the blood is made to pa.s.s in review, as it were, of this immense quant.i.ty of air, and over so extensive a surface, it seems obvious, that these two fluids are destined to exert some very important influence on each other; and it has been proved, by a very decisive experiment of Dr.

Priestley's, that the extremely thin membrane, which is alone interposed, does not prevent the exercise of the chemical affinity which prevails between the air which is received in the lungs, and the blood which is incessantly circulating through them. It must surely, therefore, be of the first importance to health, that the fluid of which we hourly inhale, at least, three hogsheads, should not be contaminated by the suspension of noxious effluvia.

The purity of the atmosphere may be impaired either by the operation of what some denominate natural causes, or by the influence of circ.u.mstances resulting from our social condition. Its chemical const.i.tution is changed by respiration; the vital principle is destroyed, and its place supplied by a highly poisonous gas.

The emanations from the surface of our bodies contribute, in a still greater degree, to vitiate the atmosphere, and to render it less fit for the healthful support of life. Many of the organs which compose our wonderfully complicated frame are engaged in discharging the const.i.tuent parts of our bodies, which, by the exercise of the various animal functions, are become useless, and, if retained, would become noxious.

Physiologists have inst.i.tuted a variety of experiments, to ascertain the amount of the exhalations from the surface of the body. Sanctorius, an eminent Italian physician, from a series of experiments performed during a period of thirty years, estimates it as greater than the aggregate of all our other discharges. From his calculations it would appear, that if we take of liquid and solid food eight pounds in the twenty-four hours, that five pounds are discharged by perspiration alone, within that period; and of this, the greater part is what has been denominated insensible perspiration, from its not being cognizable to the senses. We may estimate the discharge from the surface of the body, by sensible and insensible perspiration, as from half an ounce to four ounces per hour.

The exhalations from the lungs and the skin are, to a certain extent, offensive even in the most healthy individuals; but when proceeding from those labouring under disease, they are in a state very little removed from putrefaction.

Animal miasmata, like all other poison, become more active in proportion to the quant.i.ty which we imbibe. When, therefore, the air is stagnant, and when many individuals contribute their respective supplies of effluvia to vitiate it, the atmosphere necessarily becomes satured with the poison; and when inhaled, conveys it in a more virulent and concentrated state to the extensive and delicate surface of the lungs.

The collection of animal effluvia in confined places, is the source of the generation and diffusion of febrile infection: but when the miasmata are respired, in a diluted state, the ill effects which they produce, though slower in their operation, are equally certain. They, to a certain extent, pollute the fountain of life, and ultimately break down the vigour of the most robust frame; impairing the action of the digestive organs, engendering the whole train of nervous disorders, and rendering the body more susceptible of disease.

The lungs and the skin may equally become the means of introducing poisonous or infectious matter into the const.i.tution. The venom of a poisonous animal, the matter of small-pox, and many other contagions, produce their influence through the medium of the skin. Infectious diseases are communicated by the reception of air in our lungs, impregnated with contagious matter. The influence of the constant respiration of air in any degree impure, is fully evinced in the pallid countenances and languid frames of those who live in confined and ill-ventilated places; and the health of all cla.s.ses of society suffers precisely in proportion to the susceptibility of their const.i.tutions, and according to the greater or less impurities of the air which they habitually respire.

Of the offensive nature of animal effluvia, the senses of every one who enters a crowded a.s.sembly, must immediately convince him. When, therefore, we reflect on the state of the air which we breathe in churches, theatres, schools, and all crowded a.s.semblies; and when we consider the amount of the exhalations emitted by each individual, and the very offensive nature of those emitted by many; and when, on the other hand, we take into consideration the importance of air to life, and the great quant.i.ty of this fluid which we daily respire, we must be naturally led to the adoption of such measures as would secure in our private dwellings, as well as in our public buildings, a full and unintermitting supply of fresh atmospheric air.

It is curious to observe the influence of habit, in reconciling us to many practices which would otherwise be considered in the highest degree offensive. Thus, while, with a fastidious delicacy, we avoid drinking from a cup which has been already pressed to the lips of our friends, we feel no hesitation in receiving into our lungs an atmosphere contaminated by the breath and exhalations of every promiscuous a.s.sembly.

"Were once the energy of air deny'd, The heart would cease to pour its purple tide The purple tide forget its wonted play, Nor back again pursue its curious way."

The next Subject of Curiosity we shall consider, is, THE HAIR OF THE HEAD.

If we consider the curious structure, and different uses of the hair of our heads, we shall find them very well worth our attention, and discover in them proofs of the wisdom and power of G.o.d.

In each entire hair we perceive with the naked eye, an oblong slender filament, and a bulb at the extremity thicker and more transparent than the rest of the hair. The filament forms the body of the hair, and the bulb the root. The large hairs have their root, and even part of the filament, enclosed in a small membraneous vessel or capsule. The size of this sheath is proportionate to the size of the root, being always rather larger, that the root may not be too much confined, and that some s.p.a.ce may remain between it and the capsule. The root or bulb has two parts, the one external, the other internal. The external is a pellicle composed of small laminae; the internal is a glutinous fluid, in which some fibres are united; it is the marrow of the root. From the external part of the bulb proceed five, and sometimes, though rarely, six small white threads, very delicate and transparent, and often twice as long as the root. Besides these threads, small knots are seen rising in different places; they are viscous, and easily dissolved by heat. From the interior part of the bulb proceeds the body of the hair, composed of three parts; the external sheath, the interior tubes, and the marrow.

When the hair has arrived at the pore of the skin through which it is to pa.s.s, it is strongly enveloped by the pellicle of the root, which forms here a very small tube. The hair then pushes the cuticle before it, and makes of it an external sheath, which defends it at the time when it is still very soft. The rest of the covering of the hair, is a peculiar substance, and particularly transparent at the point. In a young hair this sheath is very soft, but in time becomes so hard and elastic, that it springs back with some noise when it is cut. It preserves the hair a long time. Immediately beneath the sheath are several small fibres, which extend themselves along the hair from the root to the extremity. These are united amongst themselves, and with the sheath that is common to them, by several elastic threads; and these bundles of fibres form together a tube filled with two substances; the one fluid, the other solid; and these const.i.tute the marrow of the hair.

The wonders of creating power are seen in every thing, even in the hair that adorns our surface.

All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body Nature is, and G.o.d the soul.

That, chang'd thro' all, and yet in all the same; Great in the earth, as in th' ethereal frame; Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees, Lives thro' all life, extends thro' all extent, Spreads undivided, operates unspent; Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part, As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart; As full, as perfect, in vile Man that mourns, As the rapt seraph that adores and burns: To him no high, no low, no great, no small; He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all.

_Pope._

We shall now introduce to our readers some _Ancient and Modern Opinions respecting the Hair_.

The ancients held the hair a sort of excrement, fed only with excrement.i.tious matters, and no proper part of a living body. They supposed it generated of the fuliginous parts of the blood, exhaled by the heat of the body to the surface, and then condensed in pa.s.sing through the pores. Their chief reasons were, that the hair being cut, will grow again, even in extreme old age, and when life is very low; that in hectic and consumptive people, where the rest of the body is continually emaciating, the hair thrives; nay, that it will even grow again in dead carcases. They added, that hair does not feed and grow like the other parts, by introsusception, i. e. by a juice circulating within it, but, like the nails, by juxtaposition. But the moderns are agreed, that every hair properly and truly lives, and receives nutriment to fill it, like the other parts; which they prove hence, that the roots do not turn grey in aged persons sooner than the extremities, but the whole changes colour at once; which shews that there is a direct communication, and that all the parts are affected alike. In strict propriety, however, it must be allowed, that the life and growth of hairs is of a different kind from that of the rest of the body, and is not immediately derived therefrom, or reciprocated therewith. It is rather of the nature of vegetation. They grow as plants do, or as some plants shoot from the parts of others; from which, though they draw their nourishment, yet each has, as it were, its distinct life and economy. They derive their food from some juices in the body, but not from the nutritious juices of the body; whence they may live, though the body be starved. Wulferus, in the _Philosophical Collections_, gives an account of a woman buried at Nurenberg, whose grave being opened forty-three years after her death, hair was found issuing forth plentifully through the clefts of the coffin. The cover being removed, the whole corpse appeared in its perfect shape; but, from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot, covered over with thick-set hair, long and curled. The s.e.xton going to handle the upper part of the head with his fingers, the whole fell at once, leaving nothing in his hand but a handful of hair: there was neither skull nor any other bone left: yet the hair was solid and strong. Mr. Arnold, in the same collection, gives a relation of a man hanged for theft, who, in a little time, while he yet hung upon the gallows, had his body strangely covered over with hair.

Before we dismiss this subject, we shall give the following curious _Instances of the Internal Growth of Hair_.

Though the external surface of the body is the natural place for hairs, we have many well-attested instances of their being found also on the internal surface. Amatus Lusita.n.u.s mentions a person who had hair upon his tongue. Pliny and Valerius Maximus say, that the heart of Aristomenes the Messenian, was hairy. Caellus Rhodiginus relates the same of Hermogenes the rhetorician; and Plutarch, of Leonidas king of Sparta. Hairs are said to have been found in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of women, and to have occasioned the distemper called _trichiasis_; but some authors are of opinion, that these are small worms, and not hairs. There have been, however, various and indisputable evidences of hairs found in the kidneys, and voided by natural discharge. Hippocrates says, that the glandular parts are the most subject to hair; but bundles of hair have been found in the muscular parts of beef, and in parts of the human body equally firm. Hair has been often found in abscesses and imposthumations. Schultetus, opening the abdomen of a human body, found twelve pints of water, and a large lock of hair swimming loosely in it. It has, however, been found on examination, that some of the internal parts of the body are more subject to an unnatural growth of hair than others. This has long been known to anatomists; and many memorable instances have been recorded by Dr. Tyson, and others. In some animals, hairs of a considerable length have been discovered growing in the internal parts; and on several occasions, they have been found lying loosely in the cavities of the veins. There are instances of mankind being affected in the same manner. Cardan relates, that he found hair in the blood of a Spaniard; Slonatius, in that of a gentlewoman of Cracovia; and Schultetus declares, from his own observation, that those people, who are afflicted with the plica polonica, have very often hair in their blood.

We shall, in the next place, call the reader's attention to some CURIOUS REMARKS CONCERNING THE BEARD.

A beard gives to the countenance a rough and fierce air, suited to the manners of a rough and fierce people. The same face without a beard appears milder; for which reason, a beard becomes unfashionable in a polished nation. Demosthenes, the orator, lived in the same period with Alexander the Great, at which time the Greeks began to leave off beards. A bust, however, of that orator, found in Herculaneum, has a beard, which must either have been done for him when he was young, or from reluctance in an old man to a new fashion. Barbers were brought to Rome from Sicily, the 454th year after the building of Rome. And it must relate to a time after that period, what Aulus Gellius says, that people accused of any crime were prohibited to shave their beards till they were absolved. From Hadrian downward, the Roman emperors wore beards. Julius Capitolinus reproaches the Emperor Verus for cutting his beard at the instigation of a concubine. All the Roman generals wore beards in Justinian's time. The pope shaved his beard, which was held a manifest apostasy by the Greek church, because Moses, Jesus Christ, and even G.o.d the Father, were always drawn with beards by the Greek and Latin painters. Upon the dawn of smooth manners in France, the beaus cut the beards into shapes, and curled the whiskers. That fashion produced a whimsical effect: men of gravity left off beards altogether. A beard, in its natural shape, was too fierce even for them; and they could not, for shame, copy after the beaus. This accounts for a regulation, anno 1534, of the University of Paris, forbidding the professors to wear a beard.

Now follows, _A curious account of_ WOMEN _with Beards_.

Of women remarkably bearded we have several instances. In the cabinet of curiosities at Stutgard, in Germany, there is the portrait of a young woman, called _Bartel Graetje_, whose chin is covered with a very large beard. She was drawn in 1787, at which time she was but twenty-five years of age. There is likewise, in another cabinet, the same portrait of her when she was more advanced in life, but likewise with a beard. It is said, that the Duke of Saxony had the portrait of a poor Swiss woman taken, remarkable for her long bushy beard; and those who were at the carnival of Venice in 1726, saw a female dancer astonish the spectators, not more by her talents, than by her chin covered with a black bushy beard. Charles XII. had in his army a female grenadier, who wanted neither courage nor a beard to be a man. She was taken at the battle of Pultowa, and carried to Petersburg, where she was presented to the czar, in 1724: her beard measured a yard and a half. We read in the Trevoux Dictionary, that there was a woman seen at Paris, who had not only a bushy beard on her face, but her body likewise covered all over with hair. Among a number of other examples of this nature, that of the great Margaret, the governess of the Netherlands, is very remarkable. She had a very long stiff beard, which she prided herself on: and being persuaded that it contributed to give her an air of majesty, she took care not to lose a hair of it. It is said, that the Lombard women, when they were at war, made themselves beards with the hair of their heads, which they ingeniously arranged on their cheeks, that the enemy, deceived by the likeness, might take them for men. It is a.s.serted, after Suidas, that in a similar case the Athenian women did as much. These women were more men than our _Jemmy-Tessamy_ countrymen. About a century ago, the French ladies adopted a mode of dressing their hair in such a manner, that curls hung down their cheeks as far as their bosom.

These curls went by the name of _whiskers_. This custom, undoubtedly, was not invented after the example of the Lombard women, to fight men.

We shall close this chapter with some curious observations ON SNEEZING.

The practice of saluting the person who sneezed existed in Africa, among nations unknown to the Greeks and Romans. Strada, in his _Account of Monomotapa_, informs us, (_Prol. Acad._) that when the prince sneezes, all his subjects in the capital are advertised of it, that they may offer up prayers for his safety. The author of the conquest of Peru a.s.sures us, that the cacique of Gachoia having sneezed in the presence of the Spaniards, the Indians of his train fell prostrate before him, stretched forth their hands, and displayed to him the accustomed marks of respect, while they invoked the sun to enlighten him, to defend him, and to be his constant guard. The ancient Romans saluted each other on these occasions: and Pliny relates, that Tiberius exacted these signs of homage when drawn in his chariot. Superst.i.tion, whose influence debases every thing, had degraded this custom for several ages, by attaching favourable or unfavourable omens to sneezing, according to the hour of the day or night, according to the signs of the zodiac, according as a work was more or less advanced, or according as one had sneezed to the right or to the left. If a man sneezed at rising from table, or from his bed, it was necessary for him to sit or lie down again. 'You are struck with astonishment,' said Timotheus to the Athenians, who wished to return into the harbour with their fleet, because he had sneezed; 'you are struck with astonishment, because among ten thousand there is one man whose brain is moist.' It is singular enough, that so many ridiculous, contradictory, and superst.i.tious opinions, have not abolished those customary civilities which are still preserved equally among high and low. The reason is obvious: they are preserved, because they are esteemed civilities, and because they cost nothing. Among the Greeks, sneezing was almost always a good omen. It excited marks of tenderness, of respect, and attachment. The young Parthenis, hurried on by her pa.s.sion, resolved to write to Sarpedon an avowal of her love; she sneezes in the most tender and impa.s.sioned part of her letter: this is sufficient for her; this incident supplies the place of an answer, and persuades her that Sarpedon is her lover. Penelope, hara.s.sed by the vexatious courtship of her suitors, begins to curse them all, and to pour forth vows for the return of Ulysses. Her son Telemachus interrupts her by a loud sneeze. She instantly exults with joy, and regards this sign as an a.s.surance of the approaching return of her husband. (_Hom. Odyss._ lib. xvii.). Xenophon was haranguing his troops; a soldier sneezed in the moment when he was exhorting them to embrace a dangerous but necessary resolution. The whole army, moved by this presage, determined to pursue the project of their general; and Xenophon orders sacrifices to Jupiter the preserver. This superst.i.tious reverence for sneezing, so ancient, and so universal even in the times of Homer, excited the curiosity of the Greek philosophers, and of the rabbins. These last have a most absurd tradition respecting it. Aristotle remounts likewise to the sources of natural religion, because the brain is the origin of the nerves, of our sentiments, sensations, &c. Such were the opinions of the most ancient and sagacious philosophers of Greece; and mythologists affirmed, that the first sign of life Prometheus's artificial man gave, was by sternutation.

CHAP. II.

CURIOSITIES RESPECTING MAN.--(_Continued._)

_Difference between the s.e.xes--Comparative Number of the s.e.xes at a Birth--Extraordinary Prolification--Extraordinary Instances of Rapid Growth--Giants--Dwarfs--Kimos--Curious Account of the Abderites--Account of a Country in which the Inhabitants reside in Trees._

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE s.e.xES.

O woman, lovely woman! Nature made you To temper man!------------ Angels are painted fair to look like you.

There's in you all that we believe of heav'n, Amazing brightness, purity, and truth, Eternal joy, and everlasting love!

_Otway._

Under his forming hands a creature grew; --------------------------------adorn'd With what all earth or heaven could bestow, To make her amiable.---- Grace was in all her steps, heav'n in her eye, In every gesture dignity and love.

_Milton._

Lavater has drawn the following characteristic distinctions between the male and female of the human species. The primary matter of which women are const.i.tuted, appears to be more flexible, irritable, and elastic, than that of man. They are formed to maternal mildness and affection; all their organs are tender, yielding, easily wounded, sensible, and receptible.

Among a thousand females, there is scarcely one without the generic feminine signs,--the flexible, the circular, and the irritable. They are the counterpart of man, taken out of man, to be subject to man; to comfort him like angels; and to lighten his cares. This tenderness, this sensibility, this light texture of their fibres and organs, this volatility of feeling, render them so easy to conduct and to tempt, so ready of submission to the enterprise and power of the man; but more powerful, through the aid of their charms, than man with all his strength.

The female thinks not profoundly; profound thought is the power of the man. Women feel more. SENSIBILITY is the power of woman: they often rule more effectually, more sovereignly, than man. They rule with tender looks, tears, and sighs, but not with pa.s.sion and threats; for if, or _when_, they so rule, they are no longer _women_ but _abortions_. They are capable of the sweetest sensibility, the most profound emotion, the utmost humility, and the excess of enthusiasm. In their countenance are the signs of sanct.i.ty and inviolability, which every feeling man honours, and the effects of which are often miraculous. Therefore, by the irritability of their nerves, their incapacity for deep inquiry and firm decision, they may easily, from their extreme sensibility, become the most irreclaimable, the most rapturous enthusiasts. Their love, strong and rooted as it is, is very changeable; their hatred almost incurable. Men are most profound; women are more sublime. Man hears the bursting thunder, views the destructive bolt with serene aspect, and stands erect amidst the fearful majesty of the streaming clouds; woman trembles at the lightning, and the voice of distant thunder; and sinks into the arms of man. Woman is in anguish when man weeps, and in despair when man is in anguish; yet has she often more faith than man. Man, without religion, is a diseased creature, who would persuade himself he is well, and needs not a physician; but women without religion are monstrous. A woman with a beard is not so disgusting as a woman who is a free-thinker; her s.e.x is formed to piety and religion: to them Christ first appeared. The whole world is forgotten in the emotion caused by the presence and proximity of him they love. They sink into the most incurable melancholy, as they also rise to the most enraptured heights. Male sensations is more imagination, female more heart. When communicative, they are more communicative than man; when secret, more secret. In general they are more patient, long-suffering, credulous, benevolent, and modest. They differ also in their interior form and appearance. Man is the most firm; woman is the most flexible. Man is the straightest; woman the most bending. Man is serious; woman is gay. Man is the tallest and broadest; woman the smallest and weakest. Man is rough and hard; woman smooth and soft. Man is brown; woman is fair. Man is wrinkly; woman is not. The hair of man is more strong and short; of woman more long and pliant. The eye-brows of man are compressed; and of woman less frowning. Man has most convex lines; woman most concave. Man has most straight lines; woman most curved. The countenance of man, taken in profile, is more seldom perpendicular than that of woman. Man is most angular; woman most round.

In determining the comparative merit of the two s.e.xes, if it should be found (what is indeed the fact) that women fill up their appointed circle of action with greater regularity than men, the claim of preference must decide in their favour. In the prudential and economical parts of life, they rise far above us.

The following is a very curious calculation of THE COMPARATIVE NUMBER OF THE s.e.xES AT A BIRTH.

The celebrated M. Hufeland, of Berlin, has inserted in his Journal of Practical Medicine, some interesting observations in ill.u.s.tration of the comparative numbers of the s.e.xes at a birth. The number of males born, to that of females, observes the learned Professor, seems to be 21 to 20 over the whole earth; and before they reach the age of p.u.b.erty, the proportion of the s.e.xes is reduced to perfect equality; more boys than girls die before they are fourteen. After extending his interesting comparison over animated nature in general, Professor Hufeland enters into an inquiry, peculiar to himself, in endeavouring to ascertain the principles and commencement of the equality of the s.e.xes. In some families, says he, equality evidently does not hold. In some, the children are all boys; in others, all girls. He next proceeds to take several families, as 20, 30, 40, or 50, in one place, in conjunction; or small villages of 150 or 300 inhabitants. But even then, the just proportion was not yet established.

In some years, only boys, in others only girls were born; nay, this disproportion continued for a series of a year or two; but by uniting ten or fifteen years together, the regular equality appeared. He next considered, that what took place in small populations must take place every year in larger societies; and he accordingly found it confirmed by actual enumeration. He went so far as, by the aid of the minister of state, Schackman, to ascertain the comparative number of boys and girls born in one day over the whole Prussian dominions, and the result corresponded with his antic.i.p.ations. The general conclusions arrived at by M. Hufeland, are as follow:--

1st. There is an equal number of males and females born in the human race.--2d. The equality occurs every day in a population of ten millions.--3d. Every week in 100,000.--4th. Every month in 50,000.--5th.

Every year in 10,000.--6th. And in small societies of several families, every ten or fifteen years.--7th. That it does not occur in individual families.

The reader will be amused by the following instances of EXTRAORDINARY PROLIFICATION.