A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins, Volume I (of 2). Johann Beckmann
who has not some of it lying carelessly on her toilette with her smelling-bottles. She alone knows the phial, and can distinguish it. Even the waiting-woman, who is her confidant, is not in the secret, and takes this phial for distilled water, or water obtained by precipitation, which is the purest, and which is used to moderate perfumes when they are too strong.
“The effects of this poison are very simple. A general indisposition is at first felt in the whole frame. The physician examines you, and perceiving no symptoms of disease, either external or internal, no obstructions, no collection of humours, no inflammations, orders detergents, regimen, and evacuation. The dose of poison is then doubled, and the same indisposition continues without being more characterized. The physician, who can see in this nothing extraordinary, ascribes the state of the patient to viscous and peccant humours, which have not been sufficiently carried off by the first evacuation. He orders a second – a third dose – a third evacuation – a fourth dose. The physician then sees that the disease has escaped him; that he has mistaken it, and that the cause of it cannot be discovered but by changing the regimen. He orders the waters, &c. In a word, the noble parts lose their tone, become relaxed and affected, and the lungs particularly, as the most delicate of all, and one of those most employed in the functions of the animal œconomy. The first illness then carries you off; because the critical accumulation settles always on the weak part, and consequently on the lobes of the lungs; the pus there fixes itself, and the disease becomes incurable. By this method they follow one as long as they choose for months, and for years. Robust constitutions resist a long time. In short, it is not the liquor alone that kills, it is rather the different remedies, which alter and then destroy the temperament, exhaust the strength, extenuate and render one incapable of supporting the first indisposition that comes.”
138
England und Italien, ii. p. 354.
139
Universal History, xxiii. p. 299–323. – The information contained there is taken from Fraser’s History of Nadir Shah. Aurengzebe also caused one of his sons to be put to death by this poison.
140
Georg. iv. 171.
141
Lib. vii.
142
Epist. 90.
143
Lib. i. 8.
144
A complete description and a figure of these bellows may be found in Schluter’s Unterricht von Hütten-werken. Brunswick, 1738. – Traité de la fonte des mines par le feu du charbon de terre; par M. de Genssane. Paris, 1770, 2 vols. 4to. [Ure’s Dictionary, p. 1128, also contains an excellent figure of these wooden bellows.]
145
“Germany is the country of machines. In general the Germans lessen manual labour considerably by machines adapted to every kind of movement; not that we are destitute of able mechanics; we have the talent of bringing to perfection the machines invented by our neighbours.” – P. 200. [This remark of Grignon will sound rather odd to English ears.]
146
Becher’s Narrische Weisheit und weise Narrheit. Frankfort, 1683, 12mo, p. 113.
147
In this dissertation, the time of the invention is stated to be about forty years before, which would be the year 1629 or 1630; but in an improved edition, printed with additions at Hamburg, in 1725, a different period is given. “About eighty years ago,” says the author, “a new kind of bellows, which ought rather to be called the pneumatic chests, was invented in the village of Schmalebuche, in the principality of Coburg, in Franconia. Two brothers, millers in that village, Martin and Nicholas Schelhorn, by means of some box made by them, the lid of which fitted very exactly, found out these chests, as I was told by one of their friends, a man worthy of credit. These chests are not of leather, but entirely of wood joined together with iron nails. In blacksmiths’ shops they are preferred to those constructed with leather, because they emit a stronger blast, as leather suffers the more subtile part of the air to escape through its pores.”
148
In many places these bellows were at first put in a wooden case, to prevent their construction from being known.
149
In J. P. Ludewig, Scriptores Rerum Episcopatus Bambergensis. Francof. 1718, fol. Where any bishop of latter times is praised, I find no mention of this useful and ingenious invention.
150
See Leges XII. tab. illustratæ a J. N. Funccio, p. 72. Gellius, xx. 1.
151
Scheffer de Re Vehiculari, Spanhem. de Præstant. Numismatum. Amst. 1671, 4to, p. 613. Propertius, iv. 8. 23, mentions
152
In my opinion the height here alluded to is to be understood as that of the body, rather than that of the wheels, as some think.
153
Codex Theodos. lib. xiv. tit. 12. and Cod. Justin. lib. xi. tit. 19.
154
Lersner, Chronica der Stadt Frankfurt, i. p. 23.
155
Sacrarum Cæremoniarum Romanæ Ecclesiæ Libri tres, auctore J. Catalano. Romæ, 1750, 2 vols. fol. i. p. 131.
156
See Cæremoniæ Episcoporum, lib. i. c. 11.
157
Ludewig’s Erläuter. der Güldenen Bulle. Franc. 1719, vol. i. p. 569.
158
Ludolf, Electa Juris Publici, v. p. 417.
159
Ludolf,
160
Sattler, Historische Beschreibung des Herzogthums Würtemberg.
161
Suite des Mémoires pour servir à l’Hist. de Brandenburg, p. 63, where the royal author adds, “The common use of carriages is not older than the time of John Sigismund.”
162
Annal. Ferdin. V. p. 2199; and vii. p. 375.
163
In Suite des Mém. pour serv. à l’Hist. de Brandenburg, p. 63, it is remarked that they were coarse coaches, composed of four boards put together in a clumsy manner.
164
Rink, Leben K. Leopold, p. 607.
165
Lünig’s Theatr. Cer. i. p. 289.
166
Ludolf, v. p. 416. Von Moser’s Hofrecht, ii. p. 337.
167
Lunig. Corp. Jur. Feud. Germ. ii. p. 1447.
168
An attempt was made also to prevent the use of coaches by a law in Hungary in 1523.
169
Histoire des Antiquités de Paris, par Sauval, i. p. 187.
170
Sauval; also Mezeray, Abregé Chron. de l’Histoire de France. Amsterdam, 1696, iii. p. 167.
171
This ordinance is to be found also in Traité de la Police, par De la Mare, i. p. 418.
172
Valesiana. Paris, 1695, 12mo, p. 35.
173
Variétés Historiques, p. 96.
174
Sauval says, “I shall here remark, that this was the first time coaches were used for that ceremony (the entrance of ambassadors), and that it was only at this period they were invented, and began to be used.”
175
L’Art du Menuisier-carossier, p. 457, planche 171.
176
Stow’s Survey of London, 1633, fol. p. 70.
177
Anderson’s Hist. of Commerce, iv. p. 180.
178
Arnot’s Hist. of Edinburgh, p. 596.
179
Twiss’s Travels through Spain and Portugal.
180
Dalin, Geschichte des Reichs Schweden, iii. 1, p. 390 and 402.
181
Bacmeister, Essai sur la Bibliothèque de l’Académie de S. Pétersburg, 1776, 8vo, p. 38.
182
Joh. Ihre, Glossarium Sueogothic. i. col. 1178.