Apeil 21. 1855.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



307 



among the collected Essays and Orations of the 

 accomplished President — the idea that the blood 

 of bullocks or oxen is poisonous, and that the death 

 of Themistocles or Hannibal was occasioned by its 

 agency, is treated as a fable. Sir Henry farther 

 states, that he had been informed by a nobleman 

 that, at a bull-fight in Spain at which he had been 

 a spectator, a man rushed forth, caught the blood 

 of the dying animal in a goblet, and drank it off 

 in the belief of its efficacy as a cure for consump- 

 tion. A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine 

 (vol. xxviii. p. 312.) asserts, that he has heard it 

 said of the Rapparees in Ireland, that it was cus- 

 tomary with them to bleed the black cattle in the 

 night-time, and to carry off the blood for their 

 nourishment ; and that though it is taken from 

 bulls, cows, and oxen indiscriminately, no incon- 

 venience was experienced from its use. I myself 

 am informed by a friend who has resided for some 

 years in the south of Africa, that an exhausted 

 Kaffir will plunge his attaghai between the ribs of 

 a bull or cow, plunge his hand into the gory ori- 

 fice, tear forth the heart, and gulp down its con- 

 tents with avidity, without the slightest fear of 

 gastric inconvenience. Pliny, after denouncing 

 horse-blood as poison, tells us of delicate cakes 

 made by the Sarmatians by mixing it with meal : 

 and visitors to the Great Exhibition may remem- 

 ber the scheme of M. Brocchieri for utilising the 

 blood of the animals killed in the abattoirs of Paris : 

 by separating the serum from the crassamentiim, a 

 hard dry substance was formed, available for food 

 in various forms, as biscuit, bonbons, &c. 



On the other hand, it was believed by Carcel- 

 laeus and others, that one reason of the injunction 

 given by Moses to the Israelites to abstain from 

 blood was a consideration of its unwholesome 

 nature ; and that the prohibition is therefore bind- 

 ing upon Christians at the present time. Michaelis, 

 in his Comment, on the Laws of Moses, expresses 

 the same opinion as to the deleterious properties 

 of blood as food ; and ascribes its rejection partly 

 to this, and partly to its former use in idolatrous 

 sacrifices. He adds : 



" It is actually dangerous to drink blood ; for, if taken 

 warm, and in large quantity, it may prove fatal ; parti- 

 cularly ox-blood, which, by coagulating in the stomach, 

 causes convulsions and sudden death ; and was with this 

 view given to criminals in Greece, as a poisoned draught. 

 It is true the blood of other animals may not alwaj's pro- 

 duce the same effects ; but still, if it is not in very small 

 quantity, its effects will be hurtful. At any rate, the cus- 

 tom of drinking blood in sacrifice, and in taking oaths, 

 may from imprudence sometimes have the same effects 

 which Val. Max. ascribes to it in the case of Themistocles ; 

 only that he purposely drank as much during a sacrifice 

 as was sufficient to kill him ; which others might also do 

 from inadvertence or superstitious zeal." — Vol. iii. p. 252. 



There have been more modern instances of 

 poisoning at the altar : 



" Sacraments have been no sanctuaric 

 From death ; nor altars, for kings offering-up : 



Th' hell-hallowed host poysons imperial Harrie, 

 Pope Victor dies drinking th'immortall cup." 

 Memorials of Mortalitie, 8t.c., by Piere Mathiev ; 

 translated by Josuah Sylvester. 



(See Browne's Vulgar Er7'ors, book vii. c. xix.) 

 It has also been asserted, that the death of Gan- 

 ganelli was caused by poison administered in the 

 eucharist ; so also in 1153, William Cumyn, Arch- 

 bishop of York, who, as we are told by Fordun — 



" Was poisoned at mass, in St. Peter's Church, by the 

 ministers of the altar. He perceived the poison in the 

 eucharist ; yet, full of faith, he hesitated not to drink it, 

 and speedily died." — Fordimi, Scotichronicon, Lib. v. 

 c. xliv. 



In the Middle Ages, the blood of bullocks was 

 in high repute as a styptic. The blood-baths, 

 once held so efficacious in cases of elephantiasis, or 

 white leprosy, were supplied by human victims 

 (Plin., Nat. Hist., lib. xxviii. c. 5.). Louis XL of 

 France in vain endeavoured to prolong his days — 

 if we may receive the testimony of the credulous 

 Gaguin — by drinking the blood of children (Cro- 

 niques de Frances, feuillet. ccij., folio, 1516) : a 

 liquid more likely to cause than to prevent death, 

 according to, Bacon, who attributes the "disease 

 of Naples" to cannibalism, and "the venomous 

 nature of man's flesh ; and affirms that — 



" At this day the mortallest poisons practised by the West 

 Indians, haue some mixture of the bloud, or fatt, or flesh 

 of man," &ic. — Nat. Hist, Cent. i. 26. 



If the tendency of blood to rapid coagulation 

 may become the cause of illness or death when 

 taken in too great quantities into the stomach, it 

 is more certainly productive of these effects when 

 received into the system by way of transfusion. 

 Magendie informs us that he has seen this process 

 produce death, because the blood had to traverse 

 a small tube two inches in length, where it partly 

 coagulated before passing into the circulation of 

 the patient. Besides this, the corpuscules, of 

 which the blood of animals is composed, being of a 

 different size to those of human blood, injection 

 of the former into the veins of man may be held 

 to be deleterious ; and the experiments of Dief- 

 fenbach have conclusively shown that a few drops 

 of the blood of mammalia is fatal to birds, and 

 that of fishes to both. 



Dr. Mead, in his Mechanical Account of Poisons, 

 makes no allusion to the effects ascribed to bidTs 

 blood by the ancients ; and the more recent and 

 elaborate works of Orfila, Chrlstlson, Taylor, &c. 

 are equally devoid of information on the subject. 

 A chapter, however, is devoted to it in the curious 

 Treatise of Poysons, &c., by William Ramesey, 

 "larpos, 12 mo., London, 1664, in which the ra- 

 tionale of its action is thus quaintly described : 



"It having no venomous property in it, but being 

 drank coaguiateth in the stomach, and so is only hurtfull, 

 and no otherwise, which Grevinus approves ; adding that 

 after the blood is concreated in the stomach, and converted 



