Notes and Queries, Number 57, November 30, 1850. Various
supplied by your correspondents (Vol. ii., pp. 116. 196.) may be added the following from Tertullian, De Anima, c. 53. (vol. ii. col. 741., ed. Migne, Paris, 1844):
"Evenit sæpe animam in ipso divortio potentius agitari, sollicitiore obtutu, extraordinariâ loquacitate, dum ex majori suggestu, jam in libero constituta, per superfluum quod adhuc cunctatur in corpore enuntiat quæ videt, quæ audit, quæ incipit nosse."
Change in the Appearance of the Dead.—A woman near Maidstone, who had had much experience as a sick-nurse, told me some years ago that she had always noticed in corpses a change to a more placid expression on the third day after death; and she supposed this to be connected with our Lord's resurrection. I omitted to ask her whether the belief were wholly the result of her own observation, or whether it had been taught her by others, and were common among her neighbours.
Strange Remedies.—I find some curious prescriptions in an old book entitled The Pathway to Health, &c. (I will not trouble you with the full title), "by Peter Levens, Master of Arts in Oxford, and Student in Physick and Chirurgery."… "Printed for J.W., and are to bee sold by Charles Tym, at the Three Bibles on London Bridge, MDCLXIV." The first is a charm
For all manner of falling evils.—Take the blood of his little finger that is sick, and write these three verses following, and hang it about his neck:
'Jasper fert Mirrham, Thus Melchior Balthazar Aurum,
Hæc quicum secum portat tria nomina regum,
Soleitur à morbo, Domini pietate, caduca.'
and it shall help the party so grieved."
"For a man or woman that is in a consumption.—Take a brasse pot, and fill it with water, and set it on the fire, and put a great earthen pot within that pot, and then put in these parcels following:—Take a cock and pull him alive, then flea off his skin, then beat him in pieces; take dates a pound, and slit out the stones, and lay a layer of them in the bottom of the pot, and then lay a piece of the cock, and upon that some more of the dates, and take succory, endive, and parsley roots, and so every layer one upon another, and put in fine gold and some pearl, and cover the pot as close as may bee with coarse dow, and so let it distill a good while, and so reserve it for your use till such time as you have need thereof."
I could select some exceedingly ludicrous prescriptions (for the book contains 400 pages), but the most curious unfortunately happen to be the most indelicate. Besides this, I am afraid the subject is scarcely worthy of much space in such an important and useful work as "NOTES AND QUERIES."
Abridge, Essex.
Mice as a Medicine (Vol. i., p. 397.).—An old woman lately recommended an occasional roast mouse as a certain cure for a little boy who wetted his bed at night. Her own son, she said, had got over this weakness by eating three roast mice. I am told that the Faculty employ this remedy, and that it has been prescribed in the Oxford Infirmary.
Omens from Birds.—It is said that for a bird to fly into a room, and out again, by an open window, surely indicates the decease of some inmate. Is this belief local?
MODE OF COMPUTING INTEREST
The mode of computing interest among the ancient Greeks appears to have been in many respects the same as that now prevailing in India, which has probably undergone no change from a very remote period. Precisely the same term, too, is used to denote the rate of interest, namely, τοκος in Greek and taka or tuka in the languages of Western India. Τοκοε επιδεκατοι in Greek, and dus také in Hindostanee, respectively denote ten per cent. At Athens, the rate of interest might be calculated either by the month or by the year—each being expressed by different terms (Böckh. Pub. Econ. of Athens, i. 165.). Precisely the same system prevails here. Pono taka, that is, three quarters of a taka, denotes ¾ per cent. per month. Nau také, that is, nine také, denotes nine per cent. per annum. For the Greek mode of reckoning interest by the month, see Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, p. 524. At Athens, the year, in calculating interest, was reckoned at 360 days (Böckh, i. 183.). Here also, in all native accounts-current, the year is reckoned at 360 days.
The word τοκος, as applied to interest, was understood by the Greeks themselves to be derived from τικτω, "to produce," i.e. money begetting money; the offspring or produce of money lent out. Whether its identity may not be established with the word in current use for thousands of years in this country to express precisely the same meaning, is a question I should like to see discussed by some of your correspondents. The word taka signifies any thing pressed or stamped, anything on which an impression is made hence a coin; and is derived from the Sanscrit root
ON THE CULTIVATION OF GEOMETRY IN LANCASHIRE
If our Queries on this subject be productive of no other result than that of eliciting the able and judicious analysis subsequently given by MR. WILKINSON (Vol. ii., p. 57.), they will have been of no ordinary utility. The silent early progress of any strong, moral, social, or intellectual phenomenon amongst a large mass of people, is always difficult to trace: for it is not thought worthy of record at the time, and before it becomes so distinctly marked as to attract attention, even tradition has for the most part died away. It then becomes a work of great difficulty, from the few scattered indications in print (the books themselves being often so rare1 that "money will not purchase them"), with perhaps here and there a stray letter, or a metamorphosed tradition, to offer even a probable account of the circumstances. It requires not only an intimate knowledge of the subject-matter which forms the groundwork of the inquiry, both in its antecedent and cotemporary states, and likewise in its most improved state at the present time; it also requires an analytical mind of no ordinary powers, to separate the necessary from the probable; and these again from the irrelevant and merely collateral.
MR. WILKINSON has shown himself to possess so many of the qualities essential to the historian of mathematical science, that we trust he will continue his valuable researches in this direction still further.
It cannot be doubted that MR. WILKINSON has traced with singular acumen the manner in which the spirit of geometrical research was diffused amongst the operative classes, and the class immediately above them—the exciseman and the country schoolmaster. Still it is not to be inferred, that even these classes did not contain a considerable number of able geometers anterior to the period embraced in his discussion. The Mathematical Society of Spitalfields existed more than half a century before the Oldham Society was formed. The sameness of pursuit, combined with the sameness of employment, would rather lead us to infer that geometry was transplanted from Spitalfields to Manchester or Oldham. Simpson found his way from the country to London; and some other Simpson as great as Thomas (though less favourably looked upon by fortune in furnishing stimulus and opportunity) might have migrated from London to Oldham. Or, again, some Lancashire weaver might have adventured to London (a very common case with country artisans after the expiration of apprenticeship); and, there having acquired a taste for mathematics, as well as improvement
Although at one period of our life we took great pains to make a collection of the