booke website
Friday, January 5, 2024
Thursday, January 4, 2024
Vanitas
Tuesday, January 2, 2024
The Sweatyng Sicknesse by John Caius
This is an essay by an English physician about a disease that (according to author) mostly only appeared in England. Ppl who caught it would die within a day. It could be a type of influenza. The essay is around 13,000 words.
"It begins with cold shivers, headaches, and severe diffuse pains leading to exhaustion, and within a few hours to sudden sweating, tachycardia, and delirium. It is clearly not plague since no buboes or eruptions are noted but within hours sleep occurs and then death, usually more rapidly even than with plague."
This is a great example of the type of thing I'm most interested in reading -- most of the essay is not super interesting & a lot of things mentioned go over my head although I can follow most of it. There are parts where the author will talk about something weird like "dampes out of the earth" that "kil ye birdes flieg ouer them" & it fills my head with cool ideas. It feels kind of like looking through $1 records in the hopes of finding something weird & forgotten. I'm really into weird & forgotten things in 2024.
- ...this disease is almoste peculiar vnto vs Englishe men, and not common to all men, folowyng vs, as the shadowe the body, in all countries, albeit not at al times.
- ...that immediatly killed some in opening theire windowes, some in plaieng with children in their strete dores, some in one hour, many in two it destroyed, & at the longest, to thẽ that merilye dined, it gaue a sorowful Supper. As it founde them so it toke them, some in sleape some in wake, some in mirthe some in care, some fasting & some ful, some busy and some idle, and in one house sometyme three sometime fiue, sometyme seuen sometyme eyght, sometyme more some tyme all, of the whyche, if the haulfe in euerye Towne escaped, it was thoughte great fauour.
- ...if nature be strõg & able to thrust out the poisõ by sweat (not otherwise letted) ye persõ escapeth: if not, it dieth.
- ...at the first entring of the euell aire...
- Wherupon also foloweth a marueilous heauinesse, (the fifthe token of this disease,) and a desire to sleape, neuer contented, the senses in al partes beynge as they were bounde or closed vp, the partes therfore left heuy, vnliuishe, and dulle.
- Thẽ by dampes out of the earth, as out of Galenes Barathrũ, or the poetes auernũ, or aornũ, the dampes wherof be such, that thei kil ye birdes fliẽg ouer them. Of like dampes, I heard in the north coũtry in cole pits, wherby the laboring mẽ be streight killed, except before the houre of coming therof (which thei know by ye flame of their cãdle) thei auoid the groũd. Thirdly by putrefactiõ or rot in groũdes aftre great flouddes, in carions, & in dead men. After great fluddes, as happened in ye time of Gallien thẽperor at rome, in Achaia & Libia, wher the seas sodeinly did ouerflow ye cities nigh to yt same.
- In cariõs or dead bodies, as fortuned here in Englande vpon the sea banckes in the tyme of King Alured, or Alfrede; (as some Chroniclers write) but in the time of king Ethelred after Sabellicus, by occasion of drowned Locustes cast vp by the Sea, which by a wynde were driuen oute of Fraunce 15thether. This locust is a flie in bignes of a mãnes thumbe, in colour broune, in shape somewhat like a greshopper, hauing vi. fiete, so many wynges, two tiethe, & an hedde like a horse, and therfore called in Italy Caualleto, where ouer ye city of Padoa, in the yeare m.d.xlij. (as I remembre,) I, with manye more did see a swarme of theim, whose passage ouer the citie, did laste two hours, in breadth inestimable to euery man there.
- ...it stirreth and draweth out of the erthe euill exhalations and mistes, to th infection of the aier...
- Here at large to ronne out vntill my breth wer spent...
- Take awaye the causes we maye, in damnyng diches, auoidynge cariõs, lettyng in open aire, shunning suche euil mistes as before I spake of, not openynge or sturrynge euill brethynge places, landynge muddy and rottẽ groundes, burieng dede bodyes, kepyng canelles cleane, sinkes & easyng places sweat, remouynge dongehilles, boxe and euil sauouryng thynges, enhabitynge high & open places, close towarde the sowthe, shutte toward the winde...
- ...after euacuation or auoiding of humors, the pores of the skinne remaine close, and ye sweating excrement in the fleshe continueth grosse (whiche thinge howe to know, hereafter I will declare) then rubbe you the person meanly at home, & bathe him in faire water sodden with Fenel, Chamemil, Rosemarye, Mallowes, & Lauendre, & last of al, powre water half colde ouer al his body, and so dry him, & clothe him. Al these be to be don a litle before ye end of ye spring, that the humours may be seatled, and at rest, before the time of the sweting, whiche cometh comonly in somer, if it cometh at al.
- alwayes takynge hede not to putte any colde thynge in their mouthe to cole and moiste them with, nor any colde water, rose water, or colde vinegre to their face duryng the sweat and one daie after at the leaste, but alwaies vse warmeth accordynge to nature, neuer contrariyng thesame so nighe as may be. If they raue or be phrenetike, putte to their nose thesame odour of rose water & vinegre, to lette the vapoures from the headde. If they slepe, vse theim as in the case of faintyng I said, with betyng theim and callynge theim, pullyng theim by the eares, nose, or here, suffering them in no wise to slepe vntil suche tyme as they haue no luste to slepe, except to a learned mã in phisicke the case appere to beare the contrary. For otherwise the venime in slepe continually runneth inward to ye hart.
Sunday, December 31, 2023
A Counterblaste to Tobacco by King James
A Counterblaste to Tobacco by King James. 1604. Online. December 15, 2023.
The colony of Jamestown finally became profitable in part because of the discovery of tobacco, introduced to the English by the Native Americans. Sir Walter Raleigh brought it back to England & it became very popular. Even Queen Elizabeth tried it. Soon tons of ppl in England were addicted to it & Virginia couldn’t grow enough of it. King James hated tobacco & wrote this essay to try to convince the English to give it up. However, he was making a lot of money from it — he didn’t make it illegal.
Most of the argument he makes is very racist & boils down to saying that good white Christian Englishmen shouldn’t be like the savage indians, who he basically compares to animals. Any medical information he includes seems to all be about humorism. The essay is around 5,000 words long.
…if a man smoke himselfe to death with it (and many have done) O then some other disease must beare the blame for that fault. So doe olde harlots thanke their harlotrie for their many yeeres, that custome being healthfull (say they) ad purgandos Renes (to cleanse the kidneys), but never have minde how many die of the Pockes in the flower of their youth. And so doe olde drunkards thinke they prolong their dayes, by their swinelike diet, but never remember howe many die drowned in drinke before they be halfe olde.
WHAT DID HE THINK METEORS WERE? - the Meteors, which being bred of nothing else but of the vapours and exhalations sucked up by the Sunne out of the earth, the Sea, and waters yet are the sarne smoakie vapours turned, and transformed into Raynes, Snowes, Deawes, hoare Frostes, and such like waterie Meteors, as by the contrarie the raynie cloudes are often transformed and evaporated in blustering winds.
A custome lothsome to the eye, hatefull to the Nose, harmefull to the braine, dangerous to the Lungs, and in the blacke stinking fume thereof, neerest resembling the horrible Stigian smoke of the pit that is bottomelesse.
Saturday, December 30, 2023
A Trewe Relacyon by George Percy
A Trewe Relacyon of the Pcedeinges and Ocurrentes of Momente wch have hapned in Virginia from the Tyme Sr Thomas GATES was shippwrackte uppon the BERMUDES ano 1609 untill my depture outt of the Country wch was in ano Dñi 1612 by George Percy. 1612. Online. December 14, 2023.
George Percy was one of the original 105 founding members of the Virginia colony. This letter is about his experiences there. A lot of the Vespucci canabalism is probably made up, but I discovered that there is actually way more historical evidence of European colonists resorting to cannibalism to stave off hunger, which is what led me to read this. I wanted to read about Starving Time in Jamestown.The letter is around 8,000 words long.
I couldn’t figure out a few words here & there, but I would usually much rather read Renaissance literature without modernized spelling than a modernized version, it takes something away from it for me.
“If we Trewley Consider the diversety of miseries mutenies & famishmentts wch have Attended upon discoveries & plantacyons in theis our moderne Tymes we shall nott fynde our plantacyon in Virginia to have Suffered Aloane.”
“MAGELANE Suffered also in soe mutche thatt haveinge eaten upp all their horses to susteine themselves wthall, mutenies did Aryse & growe Amongste them for the wch the generall DIEGO MENDOSA cawsed some of them to be executed Extremety of hunger in forceinge other secrettly in the night to cutt downe Their deade fellowes from of the gallowes & bury them in their hungry Bowelles.” – BURY THEM IN THEIR HUNGRY BOWELS
What Native Americans did to a few colonists: “...their Braynes weare cutt & skraped outt of their heades wth mussell shelles…”
Recounting of story about a Spanish governer: “the Indyans inforced him to drincke upp A certeine quantety of melted gowlde useinge theis words unto him: now glutt thy selfe wth gowlde” Drinking the liquid gold killed him, which of course would be boiling hot. I remember hearing about this story before: “Molten gold was poured down his throat until his bowels burst” (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1769869/ This is an article where some scientists determined that the governor’s bowels might have burst from a buildup of steam in the intestines.)
“...digge up dead corpses outt of graves & to eate them & some have Licked upp the Bloode wch hathe fallen from their weake fellowes & amongste the reste this was moste Lamentable Thatt one of our Colline murdered his wyfe Ripped the childe outt of her woambe & threw itt into the River & after chopped the Mother in pieces & salted her for his foode The same not beinge discovered before he had eaten Pte thereof for the wch crewell & inhumane factt I aiudged him to be executed the acknowledgmt of the dede beinge inforced from him by torture haveinge hunge by the Thumbes wth weightes att his feete a quarter of an howere before he wolde confesse the same.”
“Hughe PRYSE being pinched wth extreme famin In A furious distracted moode did come openly into the markett place Blaspheameinge exclameinge & cryeinge owtt thatt there was noe god. Alledgeinge that if there were A god he wolde nott suffer his creatures whom he had made & framed to indure those miseries & to Pishe for wante of foods & sustenance Butt itt appeared the same day that the Almighty was displeased wth him for goeinge thatt afternoone wth A Butcher A corpulentt fatt man into the woods to seke for some Reliefe bothe of them weare slaine by Salvages. & after beinge fownde gods Indignacyon was showed upon PRYSES Corpes wch was Rente in pieces wth wolves or other wylde Beasts & his Bowles Torne outt of his boddy beinge A Leane spare man & the fatt Butcher nott lyeinge Above sixe yardes from him was fownd altogether untouched onely by the Salvages Arrowes whereby he Receiaved his deathe.”
Friday, December 29, 2023
The Letters of Amerigo Vespucci
The Letters of Amerigo Vespucci & other documents illustrative of his career by Amerigo Vespucci. 1500s. Translated from the italian by Clements R Markham. Ebook. December 13, 2023.
America is named after Amerigo Vesupcci, a rich Italian merchant from the 16th century who became an explorer of the New World. He supposedly visited the New World four different times. He wrote letters about each trip, known as “The Four Voyages.” I just read those four letters, which adds up to around 30 pages. Generally Vespucci is credited with being the first person to realize that the Americas were a new continent, & not part of the Indies.
Most historians think that two of the letters might be greatly exaggerated or made up, either by Vespucci or by some other anonymous person. The most interesting letter imo, the first letter, is probably fake. It is the letter with the most sensational details, & the biggest adventures.
I love this sentence: “What a thing it is to seek unknown lands, & how difficult, being ignorant, to narrate briefly what happened.”
There is a lot of talk about the Native Americans being cannibals. After researching more about it, it seems like a lot of early literature about the Americas mention cannibalism as being commonplace among the indigenous people the crew meet. There were definitely instances of ritual cannibalism (the Aztecs for example) & instances of tribes eating part of the bodies of those they killed in war in order to gain power from them, but there is very little evidence that Native Americans ate each other for food, & certainly not on a regular basis.
Didn’t learn much about what type of person Vespucci was. The interesting stories are broken up by long boring factual descriptions of where the ships went on certain dates.
“They eat little flesh, unless it be human flesh… For they eat all their enemies that they kill or take, as well females as males, with so much barbarity that it is a brutal thing to mention…”
“...human flesh is an ordinary article of food among them.”
“I have seen a man eat his children & wife; & I knew a man who was popularly credited to have eaten 300 human bodies.”
“Only four boys remained in the canoe, who were not of their tribe, but prisoners form some other land. They had been castrated, & were all without the virile member, & with the scars fresh, at which we wondered much.”
READING LIST
- The Letters of Amerigo Vespucci & other documents illustrative of his career by Amerigo Vespucci. 1500s. Translated from the Italian by Clements R Markham. Ebook. December 29, 2024.
- A Trewe Relacyon of the Pcedeinges and Ocurrentes of Momente wch have hapned in Virginia from the Tyme Sr Thomas GATES was shippwrackte uppon the BERMUDES ano 1609 untill my depture outt of the Country wch was in ano Dñi 1612 by George Percy. 1612. Online. December 30, 2023. http://www.virtualjamestown.org/exist/cocoon/jamestown/fha/J1063
- A Counterblaste to Tobacco by King James. 1604. Online. December 31, 2023. 2023. https://www.laits.utexas.edu/poltheory/james/blaste/blaste.html
- The Anatomy of Melancholy, What it is: With all the Kinds, Causes, Symptomes, Prognostickes, and Several Cures of it. In Three Maine Partitions with their several Sections, Members, and Subsections. Philosophically, Medicinally, Historically, Opened and Cut Up) by Robert Burton. 1621-1651. Hard cover. January 1-
- The Book of Psalms. King James Version. January 1-
- The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by William Shakespeare. 1599-1601. Paperback. January 1-
- A boke or counseill against the disease commonly called the sweate or sweatyng sicknesse by John Caius. 1552. Online. January 2, 2023. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/33503/33503-h/33503-h.htm
Wednesday, December 27, 2023
The Corpses of the DeWitt Brothers by Jan de Baen. 1672 - 1675.
Tuesday, December 26, 2023
Sunday, December 17, 2023
Saint Victoria's incorruptible body
Borage & Hellebore
Borage & Hellebore fill two scenes
Sovereign plants to purge the veins
Of melancholy, and cheer the heart,
Of those black fumes which make it smart,
To clear the Brain of misty fogs,
Which dull our senses, & Soul clogs.
The best medicine that ere God made
For this malady, if well assayed.
Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy:
“Black hellebore, that most renowned plant, and famous purger of melancholy, which all antiquity so much used and admired, was first found out by Melanpodius a shepherd, as Pliny records, lib. 25. cap. 5 who, seeing it to purge his goats when they raved..."
a common proverb among the Greeks and Latins, to bid a dizzard or a mad man go take hellebore; as in Lucian, Menippus to Tantalus, Tantale desipis, helleboro epoto tibi opus est, eoque sane meraco, thou art out of thy little wit, O Tantalus, and must needs drink hellebore, and that without mixture.
Albrecht Durer's three Meisterstiche "master prints"
Melencolia I is a large 1514 engraving by the German Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer. Its central subject is an enigmatic and gloomy winged female figure thought to be a personification of melancholia – melancholy. Holding her head in her hand, she stares past the busy scene in front of her. The area is strewn with symbols and tools associated with craft and carpentry, including an hourglass, weighing scales, a hand plane, a claw hammer, and a saw. Other objects relate to alchemy, geometry or numerology. Behind the figure is a structure with an embedded magic square, and a ladder leading beyond the frame. The sky contains a rainbow, a comet or planet, and a bat-like creature bearing the text that has become the print's title.
Knight, Death and the Devil is a large 1513 engraving by the German artist Albrecht Dürer. A stolid armoured knight on a proud horse, accompanied by his faithful dog, rides through a wild narrow gorge flanked by a goat-headed devil and the figure of death riding a pale horse. Death's rotting corpse holds an hourglass, a reminder of the shortness of life. The rider moves through the scene looking away from the creatures lurking around him, and appears almost contemptuous of the threats, and is thus often seen as symbol of courage; the knight's armour, the horse which towers in size over the beasts, and the oak leaves are symbolic of the resilience of faith, while the knight's plight may represent Christians' earthly journey towards the Kingdom of Heaven symbolized by the city on the hill.
Saint Jerome in His Study is a copper engraving of 1514 by the German artist Albrecht Dürer. Saint Jerome is shown sitting behind his desk, engrossed in work. The table, on the corner of which is a cross, is typical of the Renaissance. An imaginary line from Jerome's head passing through the cross would arrive at the skull on the window ledge, as if contrasting death and the Resurrection. The lion in the foreground is part of the traditional iconography of St. Jerome, and near it is a sleeping dog, an animal found frequently in Dürer's works, symbolizing loyalty.
Jerome is also often depicted with a lion, in reference to the popular hagiographical belief that Jerome had tamed a lion in the wilderness by healing its paw.
The positioning of the Crucifix on Jerome's desk is such that when he looks at it he can also see the skull by the window. Looking at the crucifix reminds of the resurrection of Jesus, which righted the wrongs of Adam leading to death, represented by the skull. The hourglass represents the finite space of time that is a man's life. Viewing these symbols together leads to the thought of man's mortality, and the method by which to save the immortal soul.
Saturday, December 16, 2023
What the Barbary Corsairs (pirates) would say to their prisoners
God is great.
Do not delude yourself, the world is thus.
If the wheel of fortune turns, you will return home.
The Four Humors
SANGUINE
blood, the spring sanguine. optimistic or positive. air. too much: hot and wet, sweating. produced by liver.
CHOLERIC
yellow bile, the summer choleric. bad tempered or iritable. fire. hot and dry, parched.
PHLEGMATIC
phlegm, the autumnal phlegmatic, an unemotional and stolidly calm disposition. water. too much: cold and wet.
MELANCHOLY
black bile, the winter melancholy. a feeling of pensive sadness, typically with no obvious cause. earth. too much: cold and dry.
The Moretta Mask - void mask
The moretta mask, reserved exclusively for women, was a Venetian mask that was round and covered with black velvet. Also known as the 'muta', it perfectly concealed the features of the wearer's face and was very common in Venice in the 18th century.
Giovanni Grevembroch, who penned wonderful descriptions of Venetian costumes, wrote this in the 18th century:
“The heads of the family and the husbands led the wives and the sons to the Piazza [S. Marco], […] had her face covered by a black moretta, which created such contrast to the whiteness of the flesh that it shone, making it highly visible.”
Covering one's face in order to appear more attractive ('visible') may seem like a contradiction, but it was not so according to the special logic of Venetian women. These women were rather disinhibited in showing their bodies, as evidenced by the fashion called “décolleté alla veneziana”, famous throughout Europe. It featured a very generous, square neckline. The breast was veiled in a light fabric, which covered the chest precariously. It was also common to put makeup on the nipples with carmine red so as to make them more 'visible' behind the transparent fabric.
Polish pulpits shaped like the whale that swallowed Jonah
Anna Morandi
In Morandi’s 18th-century Bologna, it would have been unusual, to say the least, to watch a woman so unflinchingly peel back the skin of a human body. Yet Morandi did just that, even drawing the praise of the Bolognese Pope’s for her efforts to reveal the secrets of vitality and sensation concealed beneath the skin. Working at the delicate intersection of empirical science and the artistic rendering of the human body, Morandi helped elevate her city as a hub of science and culture.
As an anatomist, Morandi went where no woman had gone before, helping to usher in a new understanding of the male body and developing new techniques for examining organs. She also served as the public face of an unusual scientific partnership with her husband, a sculptor and anatomist. Yet in one way, she was no exception to what has become a common narrative of historical women in science: Despite her achievement and acclaim during her lifetime, her role was ultimately written out of history.