THE GTJENAED &E01JP. 167 



burnt child fears the fire/ implying that no wotinded 

 fisherman will rashly expose himself to a second hurt. 

 Pliny^s recommendation, therefore, that the scorpsena 

 be held either head downwards by the tail, or firmly 

 grasped (like a nettle) round the middle between finger 

 and thumb, is so much superfluous good advice, since 

 none but a person void of eyes or understanding would 

 on any account think of handling it otherwise. The 

 attestations of the mischievous properties of the wounds 

 inflicted by this rascasse, as they call him at Marseilles,* 

 (which, if it be not a patois word for ' rascal,^ we give up 

 etymology as a vain conceit,) are endless, and, as usual, 

 great exaggerations of the truth. The severe smart of 

 an ordinary cut, the pungency of which is often height- 

 ened no doubt by a little brine entering the incision, 

 used to be ascribed formerly to a ' morbus venenatus' set 

 up in the part ; and cases are continually quoted by the 

 older modern pathologists of dire mischiefs succeeding 

 these supposed envenomed pricks. ' Pai vu,' writes Son- 

 nini, ' un enfant bien blesse de ce poisson le voulant ca- 

 cher dans son sein, lequel je gueris ' (how complacently 

 he misinforms the credulous !) ' en lui mettant dessus de 

 la plaie un surmulet fendu en deux et le foie du scor- 

 pene meme, d'oii par experience j'ai connu etre vrai ce 

 que les anciens ont cent de remedes contre la blessure 

 du scorpene.'t The Arabian physicians deal in the same 

 Arabian tales, wringing inferences from admitted facts 

 wholly inadmissible : thus Avicenna had seen a dropsy 

 supervene in one instance with fatal results from one of 

 these fish-wounds. We, too, have seen oedema and 

 death foUow the prick of a thorn ; but how many thou- 



* Diable Orapaud de Mer, ScrofaneUo, and Klemsehuppigter 

 Drachenkopf, are other synonyms. 



t Lime drugged with liver of rascasse is highly medicinal in he- 

 patic and vesical affections. 



