154 



HARJDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



much harder ... It is a fixt alcali, and something 

 styptick, and therefore a proper specifick against 

 agues and fevers for which it is of singular use, as 

 also against all inveterate pains of the stomach and 

 bowels, cholicks, &c." 



Those who have access to Salmon's " Seplasium," 

 which I confess I have not consulted, may therein 

 (lib. vii. cap. 28) discover the other many " vertues 

 and several preparations " of the manatee-stone. 



VI. — Proboscidea. 



Elephant. — Pliny tells us that the Indians made 

 a mixture of the bloods of dragons and elephants, 

 called cinnabar. But, though cinnabar, both native 

 and factitious, was in use by eighteenth-century 

 physicians, the former was a metallic substance and 

 the latter seems to have been invariably compounded 

 without the inclusion of the blood of either of these 

 creatures. 



Ivory, indeed, seems to have been the only 

 subsidy to physic demanded of the great probos- 

 cidean, and this he afforded liberally in conjunction 

 with a number of other animals which I have already 

 mentioned or shall, later on, enumerate. By far the 

 greatest amount was furnished by the elephant. 

 The trade in its tusks is of quite the remotest 

 antiquity. The ivory of Scripture was obtained by 

 this means, so was that of the ancient states of 

 Southern Europe. At the beginning of the 

 Renaissance, Marco Polo, the pioneer of modern 

 travel, affirms that the traffic still flourished in the 

 East. And so it has continued right down to the 

 present day ; ourselves and our ancestors, our 

 neighbours and theirs, have all been unfalteringly 

 supplied with this invaluable commodity by the 

 monarch of the palceotropical forests. 



The medical status of ivory was based on its 

 alkaline properties, and on their account we find it 

 quoted in a multitude of former prescriptions. For 

 some unknown reason — or perhaps for none — Bate 

 seems to have had a predilection for its use. He 

 puts its raspings in his Vinuin chalybeatiun (p. 565), 

 to the disapprobation of Salmon, "for, being fixt 

 alcalies, they will destroy the acid of the wine, which 

 is the principal instrument for drawing forth the 

 internal property of the Mars " (iron). This chaly- 

 beate wine was for the cure of dropsies, jaundices 

 and ague, a purpose which Bate attempted with 

 other medicines containing the same ingredient. I 

 append a few references to remedies containing ivory 

 in greater or less proportions : — 



Pulvis cardiacus Eboratus (p. 626) consisted of 

 one ounce of magistery of ivory, one ounce of 

 cinnamon, and three ounces of sugar, mixed and 

 pulverised. It was reputed a cordial, like the 

 P. c. co-i-allatits, but reckoned more astringent, and 

 was given in doses of half to one dram, in syrup or 

 confection, twice a day for weakness. 



P. diatrachia (p. 637), a kidney-regulating powder,, 

 of which it forms a sixth part. 



Dccoctum ictcrkum (p. 5S4), for jaundice. 



Gtfatina coroborans (p. 612), for consumption. 



Extraction ictericum (p. 279), for jaundice and, 

 green sickness ; and in fever powders (p. 634), 

 uterine tablets (p. 667), and worm tablets (p. 672). 



Mammoth. — I have already stated that the use of 

 defunct \ species of animals was not unknown in 

 medicine. Foremost among these, perhaps, was that 

 pleistocene monster whose remains may yet be strew- 

 ing the northern ocean bed. That ivory was of fre- 

 quent request in pharmacy, has already been made]evi- 

 dent. That mammoth-ivory was known to commerce 

 during the eighteenth century is as much beyond, 

 dispute. Smollet, writing in 1769, of Great Tartary, 

 remarks : " Great quantities of a kind of ivory, called 

 by the natives mammon's-horn, are found in this country 

 and in Siberia on the banks of the Oby. This horn 

 has all the appearance of the teeth of a large elephant, 

 but when or how these teeth came so far to the 

 northward, where no elephants can at present 

 subsist during the winter season, is what we are 

 unable to determine. They are commonly found on. 

 the banks of rivers that have been washed by floods. 

 Some of them are very entire and fresh like the best 

 ivory in all respects, excepting only the colour, which 

 is of a yellowish hue. In Siberia they make snuff- 

 boxes, combs, and divers sorts of turnery ware of 

 them. Some have been found weighing above an. 

 hundred pounds English." (" Present State," vol. vii. 

 p. 17.) It is quite within the bounds of probability, 

 then, that the tusks of this gigantic woolly pachyderm, 

 after an immurement of centuries in their icy tomb, 

 found their way into the shop of the London druggist 

 to be rasped and pounded into remedies for dames 

 and dandies whose delicate livers had fallen out of 

 order. 



OBSERVATIONS OX PLANTS DURING THE 

 MILD WINTER 89-90. 



THE above winter having been so much milder 

 than an average winter, it gave peculiai 

 facilities for observations regarding any variation, 

 from the usual form adopted by plants during an. 

 average winter season. 



There is no doubt that such variations, when 

 thoroughly studied, would lead to some important 

 points regarding extension or diminution of range, 

 temporary or permanent variation in structure, 

 development, and so on. 



All I intend to do here is to mention a few facts 

 which came under my own notice in a locality which 

 is familiar to me, and in which I have been in the 

 habit of studying the plants both in summer and 

 in winter for many years. 



Making an imaginary division of the plants coming. 



