90 REPORT — 1859. 



1. The suction or pump-vacuum. 



2. The thermic (including the steam-) vacuum. 



3. The Torricellian or barometer-vacuum. 



4. The chemical vacuum. 



The instrument for producing the first is, par excellence, the air-pump, the philo- 

 sopher's chief vacuum-producer, although for some purposes, as the recent researches 

 on the electric discharge have shown us, both the Torricellian and the chemical vacuum 

 are preferable to the pump-vacuum. 



The instruments for producing the second or thermic vacuum, as represented for 

 the mechanician by the condenser of the steam-engine, and for the industrial chemist 

 by the vacuum-pan and vacuum-still, constitute the practician's vacuum-producer. Now 

 these two instruments, the philosopher's air-pump and the practician's steam-con- 

 denser, may be shown to have come down to us by different lines from prehistoric 

 times. 



Suction Vacuum. — The simplest and earliest suction vacuum-producer was the 

 mouth of a suckling, and passing over other mammals, we may be content to begin 

 with the human infant. The mouth, including the lips, cheeks and tongue, constitutes 

 an exhausting apparatus more perfect than any artificial contrivance. What the in- 

 fant does instinctively, the adult continues by an almost unconscious effort of will, 

 occasionally to perform. To suck a bleeding wound, or poisoned bite, seems natural 

 even to highly civilized man, and is practised by all barbaric nations. From this 

 there is but one step to interposing, between the mouth and the wound, a tube or 

 funnel, especially when the mouth of one individual sucks a bleeding or poisoned 

 surface in the body of another. This step was taken by the ancient cupper, who after 

 scarifying the skin of his patient, employed the extremity of a bullock's horn pierced 

 at the tip and left open at the base. When the latter was applied to the bleeding 

 orifices, and suction made through the hollow tip, the blood rose into the cone, and 

 it was easy to close the upper aperture by the tongue, the finger, a little soft wax, a 

 piece of wet membrane, or a leather valve, as in truth was variously done. 



Such a cupping horn is alluded to by Hippocrates as an instrument which was 

 ancient in his days. The later Greek and Roman physicians describe it more mi- 

 nutely. Three cupping horns have been found in the tombs of Saccara, at Memphis, 

 and have been described by Dr. Abbot, in whose museum, formerly at Cairo, they were 

 deposited. Of their genuineness and antiquity there appears, according to Sir Gardner 

 Wilkinson, who has seen one of them and has favoured the author with his opinion, 

 to be no doubt. Similar horns provided with a leather valve or tongue at the upper 

 aperture, are still, according to this high authority, in familiar use among the modern 

 Egyptians. In Abyssinia Parkyns has seen the horn used for cupping. Mungo 

 Park gives a similar account. Dr. Brown, of Her Majesty's Indian Service, informs 

 the author that he has seen the cupping horn used by the natives of the Punjaub. 

 Dr. Cannon, formerly Civil Surgeon at Simla, adds that he has witnessed a Cashmeer 

 Hakeem cup most skilfully with the tip of the mountain ram's horn. When a party 

 of Red Indians of the Ioway tribe were in Edinburgh some years ago, Professor Simp- 

 son, on visiting them on one occasion, found one of the men cupping another with part 

 of a cow's horn. Lastly, the author exhibited a cupping horn still in use among the 

 Shetlanders. He was indebted for it to Prof. Simpson, who had received it from the 

 Rev. Mr. Ingram, parish clergyman of Unst. It is styled by the natives a "blude 

 horn ;" the operation of cupping with it is named " horning." 



It thus appeared that a suction vacuum-producer, or mouth air-pump, has been in 

 use as a cupping instrument for some thousand years, its origin being lost in remote 

 antiquity ; and also that it has been and is in use among nations widely separated 

 from each other. If we suppose these peoples to have acquired the practice from one 

 common source, the extreme antiquity of the practice must be conceded. If, on the 

 other hand, as is more likely, several at least of those nations devised it for themselves, 

 then the facility with which men construct a vacuum-producer is rendered apparent. 

 Without endeavouring to establish precise dates, we may safely affirm that a mouth 

 air-pump has been known for more than twenty centuries in various regions of the 

 globe. 



That such an instrument should lead directly to the construction of an air-pump 

 seems at first sight in the highest degree probable; for if we look at Otto v. Gue- 



