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Article MR. TASKER'S LETTERS ← Page 2 of 3 →
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Mr. Tasker's Letters
Impressit dentes H-emorrhois aspera Tullo Magnanimo juveni , admiratorique Catonis . Next the rough Htemorrhois impressed her teeth on Ttillus , a magnanimous youth , an admirer of Cato and of his virtues ; and Cato % favourite bled from' every pore : —the poison of this huge serpent ( characterised in a former part of the poem by the title of ' ¦ ingens" )
evidently acted by dissolving the crasis of the blood : and therefore the effects may be accounted for ; since something similar ( though in a less degres ) generally occurs in mostpurrid and malignant fevers . There is one remarkable expression in the ori g inal , " Sudor rubet . " The sweat was red . . whichI thinkin some measure accounts for the operation of that
, , fatal disease called , by way of eminence , " the sweat ; " and which some hundred years ago was so peculiarly destructive to the constitutions of Englishmen : and . in my humble opinion , the case was simply thus—the blood , in a dissolved state , transuded through the usual outlets of perspiration . There is no end to these venemous animals ; for , in the words of
the poet , the next misfortune fell upon " thee , O Leevus ! " but thy death was comparatively happy ; for the poison of the cold asp seemed to be of a deleterious nature , and to suspend the nervous influence without pain or inflammation : " nulloque dolore . " And this circumstance justifies the conduct of queen Cleopatra , in choosing to die of the bite of the little sleepy serpent of her own Nile . —
But to proceed in the horrid catalogue ; a cruel serpent , called by the Romans Jacuium from its resemblance to a javelin , darted at a distance from an . old trunk of a tree , and fixed on the temples of Paulus . Lucan adds . Nil ibi virus agit ; rapuit cum vulnere fatum . " Not poison , but a wound the warrior slew * . " ROWE .
I can nowise understand , either by the orig inal or the translation , in what maimer this wound was mortal : if it had not been specified as a wound , 1 should suppose the soldier was killed from the blow , as the animal darted so swiftly and violently . Pray , do you not think it possible , that the darting animal might somehow divide the temporal artery , and so cause death 1 ) 3 * the consequent effusion of blood ? —More miracles ! In the name of wonderwhat have we here in the
, next case of Murrus ? Take the poet ' s own words—This warrior having stabbed a Basilisk with the point of his spear , velox currit per tela venenum , Invaditque manum : >¦ " The active poison runs along the spear , and invades the hand . "I have heard the same effect attributed to the bite of the American
rattle-snake : both facts transcend my belief : but this said Murrus ( whom 1 suspect to be a surgeon as well as a soldier ) stopped all further mischief , we are told , by chopping off his hand at once : but I think such an operation , unless performed in the very instant , would have been ineffectual . For if the venom ran so rapidly along
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Mr. Tasker's Letters
Impressit dentes H-emorrhois aspera Tullo Magnanimo juveni , admiratorique Catonis . Next the rough Htemorrhois impressed her teeth on Ttillus , a magnanimous youth , an admirer of Cato and of his virtues ; and Cato % favourite bled from' every pore : —the poison of this huge serpent ( characterised in a former part of the poem by the title of ' ¦ ingens" )
evidently acted by dissolving the crasis of the blood : and therefore the effects may be accounted for ; since something similar ( though in a less degres ) generally occurs in mostpurrid and malignant fevers . There is one remarkable expression in the ori g inal , " Sudor rubet . " The sweat was red . . whichI thinkin some measure accounts for the operation of that
, , fatal disease called , by way of eminence , " the sweat ; " and which some hundred years ago was so peculiarly destructive to the constitutions of Englishmen : and . in my humble opinion , the case was simply thus—the blood , in a dissolved state , transuded through the usual outlets of perspiration . There is no end to these venemous animals ; for , in the words of
the poet , the next misfortune fell upon " thee , O Leevus ! " but thy death was comparatively happy ; for the poison of the cold asp seemed to be of a deleterious nature , and to suspend the nervous influence without pain or inflammation : " nulloque dolore . " And this circumstance justifies the conduct of queen Cleopatra , in choosing to die of the bite of the little sleepy serpent of her own Nile . —
But to proceed in the horrid catalogue ; a cruel serpent , called by the Romans Jacuium from its resemblance to a javelin , darted at a distance from an . old trunk of a tree , and fixed on the temples of Paulus . Lucan adds . Nil ibi virus agit ; rapuit cum vulnere fatum . " Not poison , but a wound the warrior slew * . " ROWE .
I can nowise understand , either by the orig inal or the translation , in what maimer this wound was mortal : if it had not been specified as a wound , 1 should suppose the soldier was killed from the blow , as the animal darted so swiftly and violently . Pray , do you not think it possible , that the darting animal might somehow divide the temporal artery , and so cause death 1 ) 3 * the consequent effusion of blood ? —More miracles ! In the name of wonderwhat have we here in the
, next case of Murrus ? Take the poet ' s own words—This warrior having stabbed a Basilisk with the point of his spear , velox currit per tela venenum , Invaditque manum : >¦ " The active poison runs along the spear , and invades the hand . "I have heard the same effect attributed to the bite of the American
rattle-snake : both facts transcend my belief : but this said Murrus ( whom 1 suspect to be a surgeon as well as a soldier ) stopped all further mischief , we are told , by chopping off his hand at once : but I think such an operation , unless performed in the very instant , would have been ineffectual . For if the venom ran so rapidly along