On Medical ^ritomology . 5 1 



plted*. Several soldiers were also stung in their lodgings, 

 and at the military hospital, which swarmed with these 

 animals. Some ot" the patients came to nie with the in- 

 sects still adhering to the part of the body which they had 

 wounded : none of them experienced any accident more 

 serious than I did. G. Fabbroni of Florence, G. Vasi of 

 Rome, and G. L. Targioni of Naples, assured me that the. 

 sting of the scorpion is scarcely ever accompanied with 

 alarming symptoms in these cities, though the temperature 

 there is much warmer than in Lombardy. These imaginary 

 dangers, however, have given rise to the preparation or oil 

 of scorpions, which, notwithstanding the present improved 

 state of science, is classed in several new works among the 

 alexipharmacs : v/e must not, however, reject with con- 

 tempt the testimony of Monardes, who pretends that he 

 found benefit in the plague from liniments of this oil, as 

 the horrid etFects of that terrible scourge have often been 

 prevented by frictions with olive oil f- 



The Arabs injected oil of scorpions into the bladder to 

 dissolve the stone, and it is needless to add that their at- 

 tempts were always fruitless. The moderns have severely 

 reproached the Arabians for their stupid confidence ; but 

 they have not been less credulous or more successful : we 

 have seen them extol saponaceous and alkaline preparations, 

 lime water, the interior bark of the lime tree, and, in par- 

 ticular, the trailing arbutus, arhiitut uva Jirsi. This shrub 

 has in turns heated the imagination of Barbeyrac, (2"'^'^*'» 

 Girardi, Murray, de Haen, &c. The last does not hesitate 

 to propose it as a real lithontriptic. But no one is igno- 

 rant that this man, so haughty and so passionately fond of 

 fame, has not always impressed his writings with the seal 

 of truth. If there exists a solvent of the stone in the 

 bladder, it must be discovered by chemistry, and the phi- 

 lanthropic labours of Foureroy seem already to hold out a 

 consoling prospect. But still our hopes are very feeble, 

 and it is much to be apprehended that the resources of me- 

 dicine will be always confined to one infallible lithontriptic^ 

 namely cystotomy. 



Cancer — Tke Crab. — The numerous species which con- 

 stitute this genus have forms exceedingly various. Their 



• I caused myself to be stiinfj at Florence, and with the same result, in 

 the presence of F. Fonlana, who had been employed in analysing chemically 

 the European Scorpion, and who had found in the juices of that insect an 

 acid completely formed, and a gummy viscid matter, analogous to the poison 

 fii tlie viper. 



f Desgcnctte's HUt. Med. dc TArfnce d'Orient. 



D 2 internal 



