Jan. 27. 1855.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



67 



Waverley Novels. — When and where did Sir 

 Walter Scott publicly acknowledge the author- 

 ship of the Waverley l!f ovels ? John Scribe. 



[At a theatrical dinner, Febriiar3'- 23, 1827, of which an 

 account is given in Lockhart's Life of Svott, edit. 1845, 

 pp.652, 653.] 



PRUSSIC ACI0 AS BLOOD, OE BULl's BLOOD AS 

 rOISON. 



(Vol. xi., p. 12.) 



The supposition of Niebuhr with respect to 

 bull's blood in old Greek writers, is extremely 

 far-fetched, and unworthy of his great reputation. 

 It is to be regretted that Blakesley, in his elabo- 

 rate edition of Herodotus, has taken no notice of 

 the passage (lib. iii. cap. 15.) where Psammenitus 

 IS said to have been put to death by Carabyses by 

 means of this poison ; for a subject which could 

 present such difficulty to the acutest historian of 

 modern times, ought not to be slurred over by an 

 English commentator, whose professed object is 

 " to illustrate, through his text, the time in which 

 his author lived, and the influences under which 

 his work would necessarily be composed." 



If we allow that the Greeks were acquainted 

 with prussic acid, we must reject the usual 

 modern opinions respecting the conditions of 

 chemical science in ancient times, and must sup- 

 pose there were men, living two thousand years 

 ago, who were acquainted with all the discoveries 

 hitherto supposed to have been due to the re- 

 searches of the alchemists, who knew In fact as 

 much, or more, of chemistry than many an expe- 

 rienced practitioner of the last century. We have 

 then to account for the strange fact, thav they 

 have not chosen to reveal such scientific acquire- 

 ments in writing, for not the remotest trace of 

 such extensive knowledge is to be found in Greek 

 authors. Although bull's blood contains the che- 

 mical^ agents necessary for the production of 

 prussic acid, the process of Its preparation from , 

 animal substance in any form, but especially in i 

 that of blood, is long and intricate ; such as re- 

 <iuired the advanced science of 1782, and the 

 ingenuity of a Scheele, combined with far greater 

 patience for scientific investigation than Greeks 

 generally seem to have been capable of to dis- 

 cover. The process commences with evaporating 

 the blood to dryness, and then heating It In a 

 close crucible; but in its next stage It requires 

 an acquaintance with other chemical agents, such 

 as Is not to be found in any extant Greek work. 

 Moreover, the blood. In character and appearance, 

 differs so entirely from the acid, that It Is highly 

 improbable the Greeks, careful as they generally 

 were to mark in terms such differences, should 

 have used the same name for substances so wholly 



dissimilar : still more improbable that the Romans 

 would have imitated them in such carelessness. 

 I am surprised that the acute and cautious Niebuhr 

 did not use a little research, or consult a scien- 

 tific man, before he propounded such improbable 

 hypotheses. Had he referred to the Alexiphar- 

 maca of Dioscorldes Pedacius, a Greek writer on 

 the materia medica of the time as supposed of 

 Nero, and whose work, though it probably era- 

 bodied all that had been previously known, as it 

 was certainly long after held the very best on the 

 subject. Is replete with mistakes, he would have 

 found a much more probable solution of the 

 difficulty than that he has attempted. Chap. xxv. 

 of the Alexipharmaca, which is wholly devoted to 

 this poison, commences thus In the translation of 

 the editor (J. A. Saracenus) of the best edition : 



" Tauri recens jugulati sanguis epotus, spirandi difficul- 

 tatem strangulatiimque concitat, dum tonsillarum fauciumque 

 meatus cum vehementi convulsione obstruit. Vomitum in. 

 hoc male vitabimus ne forte grumi ejusmodi attractu in 

 sublime elati gulte magis impingantur." 



He then propounds such remedies as we might 

 expect. The simple experiment of stirring a 

 little fresh blood with a stick, when a mass of 

 fibrine will form around It, will serve to explain 

 its modus operandi as poison. Pliny too. In his 

 Natural Histo7-y, repeatedly refers to the danger 

 of swallowing bull's blood, owing to the celerity 

 with which it coagulates : see Hist. Nat., lib. xi- 

 90. 1., and lib. xxviii. 41. 1. And it Is worthy of 

 notice, that he recommends the very same reme- 

 dies as Dioscorldes, viz. alkaline solvents com- 

 bined with purgatives ; as " semen brassicas 

 tostum," lib. XX. 26. 3. ; " gross! caprlfici," lib. 

 xxili. 64. 3. ; " nitrum cum lasere," lib. xxxl. 46. 

 13.; " coagulum hsedi et leporls ex aceto," lib. 

 xxxviii. 45. 4. 



In brief, then, as ancient authors themselves 

 Inform us that the at/xa ravpou veoff((>ayes acts as 

 poison by coagulating in the stomach, we need 

 not have recourse to the fanciful hypothesis that 

 prussic acid was so designated, when we are told 

 that Psammenitus, Hannibal, Themistocles, and 

 others, died by Its means. F. J. Leachman, B.A. 



20. Compton Terrace, Islington. 



PBOPHECIES RESPECTING CONSTANTINOPLE. 



(Vol. X., pp. 147. 192. 374.) 



Among those moral diagnostics by which the 

 philosophic observer is enabled to predicate the 

 condition of nations and individuals, the tendency 

 to utter gloomy vaticinations respecting them- 

 selves Is not the least unfavourable. Indicative, 

 In the first Instance, of the presumptive probability 

 of the event foretold, and of that want of confi- 

 dence In their own powers in Itself so conducive to 

 failure, the prediction, once uttered, assumes the 



