Wednesday 26 February 2014

Pangolin, Part 2

Here is the second of two translations of  texts about the pangolin (you can find the first one here).  This one is by Jacobus Bontius.  Thanks to Natalie Lawrence for the following introduction to him:

Jacob de Bondt (Jacobus Bontius) was a Dutch East India Company official, living in Java in the early seventeenth century. He produced a great deal of material on the medicines and nature of the region, collected himself and from native informants. The Historia naturalis et medica Indiae orientalis was published posthumously by Willem Piso from de Bondt's previous publications and manuscripts.

The pangolin here is obviously an animal that de Bondt encountered himself, because he relies very little on Clusius's description (see Part I), but produces an entirely new one from a specimen he may have possessed. The very strange and boundary-crossing nature of the animal seems to have made it difficult to place in relation to other creatures, it is both a lizard and an anteater, insect and mammal, inscrutably armoured.

As always, we present the Latin first, followed by our translation.  Please let us have any comments, suggestions or alternative translations via the comments box below!
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Historia naturalis et medica Indiae orientalis
Jacob de Bondt, 1658
(In Willem Piso's De Indiae utriusque re naturali et medica libri Quatuordecim), p.60-61

CAPUT VIII
Appendix. De Lacerto Indico, Squamoso

Admirabilis hujus exenterati Lacerti iconem, quam exhibeo, ejusdem speciei, sed non ejusdem magnitudinis, est, cujus Carol. Clusius exuvium in exoticis dedit. In Insulae Tajoán silvis frequens est. Nomen ejus vernaculum hactenus nobis incognitum; verum ne quid pubi nauticae nostrae innominatum esset, placuit quibusdam


Porcum, aliis vero Diabolum de Tajoán, appellare, fortassis ob miram et horridam squamarum conformationem, quas irritata erigit. Animal est duorum pedum longitudine, Vulpis magnitudine. Totum corpus ab oris ad caudae et pedum usque extremitates, perpetuis squamis nigricantibus, rigidis, et mucronatis, coopertus, except gutture, ventrisque, et crurum infima parte, quae durioribus pilis leporinis vestiuntur. Iidemque pili hinc inde erumpunt in dorso ex ipsis squamis. Magnitudo squamarum pro diversitate partium corporis discrepant; omnes ad exortum striatae, et ad finem quasi laevigatae. Cauda est valida, fere pedem longa, prae caeteris membris mira squamarum textura ornatur: earum enim, quae ejus latera utrimque claudunt, forma prorsus à reliquis dissimiles, nam planae non sunt, aliarum instar, sed cavae quasi incurvatae, quia pronam et supinam laterum partem tegunt. pedes breviusculi palmam circiter longi, posteriores quinque unguibus brevioribus, anteriores tribus oblongis, crassis, sed imbelle curvis, armantur, sicut in Brasiliensi Tamandoá, quibus, aeque ac illa, Formacarum et Vermium latebras detegit, praedamque qualemcumque mordicus tenet. Capite et promuscide non est porcino, ut Armadilho, sed tenuiori et actiori, more Talparum, quo terram commodius evertat. pastum iturus, Lacertis, aliisque Insectis, insidiatur, quibus pinguescit. Unde caro ejus vesca non solum, sed sicut magnae illae Lacertae Brasilienses Leguánae et Tatu, inter epulas ab omnibus passim incolis expetita.
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Now here's our translation:

Jacob de Bondt, Historia naturalis et medica Indiae orientalis, 1658
 (In Willem Piso's De Indiae utriusque re naturali et medica libri Quatuordecim)

CAPUT VIII, p.60
Appendix. De Lacerto Indico, Squamoso

The image of the disemboweled Lizard that I show here is of the same species, but not of the same size, as that which produced the pelt that Carolus Cluisus presents in his work on exotics. It is frequent in the woods of the Island of Taiwan [Insulae Tajoán]. Its vernacular name is unknown to us at present, but, lest anything should be unnamed for our ships’ boys, some like to call it the 'Pig' or the 'Devil of Taiwan,' perhaps on account of the wonderful and horrible form of its skin, which it raises when aggravated. The animal is two feet long, of the size of a Fox.

Caption: LACERTUS SQUAMOSUS (Scaly Lizard)

The whole body, from the mouth to the extremities of the tail and feet, is wholly covered with continuous, blackish, rigid, and pointed scales; except the throat, stomach and the lower part of the legs, which are clothed with stiffer hairs like a hare. Here and there on the back these hairs grow from the scales themselves. The magnitude of the scales differs on different parts of the body. Near where each scale emerges it is grooved, and near the end almost smooth.

The tail is very strong, robust and about a foot long, furnished with a more wonderful arrangement of scales than found on the other parts: the form of those which line its flanks is completely unlike that of the rest [of the scales], because they are not flat like the others, they are hollow or concave and turned upwards to cover the flanks of the tail region.

The feet are quite short, roughly the length of a palm. The rear [feet] have five short nails, the front ones have three, which are thick and of a pretty good length, and gently curved, just like [those of] the Brazilian Tamandua [Tamandoá], with which it uncovers the nests of ants and worms and sharply bites whatever prey it finds. 

The head and the snout is not swinish, as it is in the Armadillo [Armadilho], but narrower and pointier in the manner of a mole, more suited to overturning soil. When it wants to eat lizards and other insects it lies in wait for them, by which it grows fat. Hence its flesh is not only delicious, but, like those great lizards of Brazil, the Iguana [Leguánae] and Armadillo [Tatu], they are highly prized amongst dishes everywhere by all the natives. 

Pangolin, Part 1

Here we present the first of two translations of natural history texts provided by Natalie Lawrence (the second is here).  They both concern that strange and marvellous beast, the pangolin.  The first is by Carolus Clusius.

Natalie writes: This is one of the very first descriptions of a pangolin (an mammal essentially like a scaly Old World anteater) in Europe. The animal was described and classified as a lizard, despite its similarity to the anteater and armadillo of South America, primarily because of its striking scaly appearance. 

In this volume, Clusius includes the animal amongst other reptiles such as the iguana. Specimens do not seem to have been difficult to access, due to Dutch East India Company activities in the Far East, where several species of pangolin are still found, though little information about the living animal seems to have been brought back to Europe with the skins. Despite this fact, the animal remained without a strong identity in natural history well into the eighteenth century.

As always, we present the original Latin, followed by our translation.  Any comments or suggestions welcome!
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Carolus Clusius, Exoticorum Libri Decem (1605), p.374

cap. XXI. lib.V: LACERTUS PEREGRINUS SQUAMOSUS

Admirabile erat peregrini Lacerti exuvium, quod anno Christi millesimo sexcentesimo quarto apud honestissimum virum Christianum Porretum pharmacopoeum Leydensem diligentissimum conspiciebam cuiquùm similem ab aliquo descriptum non arbitrer, non inutilem operam me navaturum confidebam, si illius qualemcumque historiolam cum icone ad exuvii formam expresà hic subiicerem.

Breve autem fuisse ejus lacerti corpus videbatur: nam à collo sive illius parte cui anteriora crura jungebantur, usque ad caudae initium, undecim uncias dumtaxat erat longum: corporis autem ambitus circiter novem unciarum aut dodrantis fuerat, quantum conjecturâ assequi licebat: collum ab anterioribus cruribus cum capitis quae restabat parte (illud enim integrum non erat, nec qualis fuerit ejus forma pronunciare queo) tres uncias erat longum, valde tamen exiguum fuisse videbatur: caudam verò à posterioribus pedibus ad extimum ejus mucronem usque longissimam habebat, ut quae duorum pedum cum semisse mensuram expleret. Totum corpus, excepto gutture, et ventris infimâ parte, atque anterioribus etiam cruribus, squamis latis, magnis, rigidis, striatis et mucronatis munitum erat: illae verò quae collum et capitis supremam partem tegebant, semiunciam non erant longae: at quae mediam corporis partem inter crura comprehensam muniebant, binas uncias longae et sescunciam latae: quae deinde per caudae longitudinem spargebantur, adeò amplae non erant, sed sensim versus ejus extremum procedendo minuebantur, ut extremam caudam occupantes, iis quae collum regebant vix ampliores essent: earum autem quae caudae latera utrimque claudebant forma, prorsus reliquis dissimilis, nam planae non erant aliarum instar, sed cavae et veluti geminatae, quia pronam et supinam laterum partem tegebant: praeter illas, totius caudae prona tamen minoribus nec adeò amplis, quibus deinde conjunctae laterales illae geminatae: anteriora crura paullo breviora erant posterioribus, eaque supremâ dumtaxat parte quibusdam squamis tecta, horum deinde reliqua pars cum pedibus, nigris villis obsita; pedes  autem quatuor unguibus praediti, quorum secundus aliis multo major, unciam videlicet longus, crassus, uncus, et niger, alii verò candicabant: at posteriora crura pedum tenus squamis erant obsita, et supinam dumtaxat illorum partem pili vestiebant, horum similiter pedes quatuor unguibus praediti, sed minoribus quàm anteriores, parvum insuper calcar interiore parte adjunctum habebant: animalis guttur, et ventris ima pars, nigris villis obsita.

Unde porrò allatum esset illud Lacerti exuvium, ignorabat qui id redemerat, et porpter raritatem inter alia exotica retinebat.

Similem etiam habuisse Jacobum Plateau, conjecturam faciebam ex una aut altera squama quam ad me mittebat: cujus verò magnitudinis fuerit, mihi ignotum. Alium praeterae illi non dissimilem, sed longè minorem, antea videbam Amstelredami apud quendam, qui rerum peregrinarum mercimonia exercebat.
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Now here's our translation:

The foreign lizard hide which I saw in the year of Christ 1604, at the shop of the very honourable Christian Porrett, the very hardworking apothecary of Leiden, was amazing; I don’t think a similar one has been described by anyone, [so] I was confident that I was not performing a useless task by adding here some little description of the hide with a picture made in its likeness.

Caption: Lacertus Peregrinus Squamosus [scaly foreign lizard]

It seemed that the body of this lizard had been short: it was no more than eleven inches from the neck, or that part where the forelegs were attached, to the start of the tail; the body, moreover, in circumference was around nine inches or ¾ of a foot, inasmuch as it was possible to conjecture; the neck indeed seemed to have been meagre, being three inches long from the front legs to what remained of the head (for this was incomplete, nor can I tell you what its shape might have been). It had a tail that was very long, measuring two and a half feet from the back legs to its furthest tip. 

The whole body, except the throat, the under-belly, and also the front legs, was armed with large, broad, rigid, furrowed and pointy scales. Those scales which protecting the neck and the upper part of the head were less than half an inch long, but those which covered the middle of the body, between the [two sets of] legs, were two inches long and an inch and a half wide. Those which then spread along the length of the tail were less broad, but got gradually smaller as one moved towards the tip, so that the ones that covered the tip were hardly bigger than those which protected the neck. However, the form of those that covered the sides of the tail on both sides were altogether unlike the other scales, for they were not flat like the others shown in the image, but doubled over, concave and hollow, one side covering the prone, the other the supine parts. Apart from these scales at the sides, the prone part of the tail [is covered with] smaller and narrower scales, with which the folded side ones were then paired. 

The forelegs were a little shorter than the rear legs, and their upper parts at least were covered with scales, while the remaining part [of the forelegs], with the feet, was covered with black hairs. The feet were provided with four claws, of which the second was much bigger than the others: that is to say, an inch long, hooked and black, while the others were whitish. The hind legs were covered with scales down to the feet, while hairs clothed their upper parts; their feet [were] similarly endowed with four claws, but smaller than the ones [on the fore-legs]. In addition, they had a small spur joined to the inner part [of the limb]. The animal's throat and the innermost part of its belly were covered with black hairs. 

From whence the skin of the lizard was originally brought was not known to he who purchased it, but because of its rarity he kept it among his miscellaneous exotica. 

Jacob Plateau also had [a skin] like this, or so I suspected from a couple of scales which he sent to me.  Of what size it may have been, however, I did not know. In addition, before this, I saw another [skin] not dissimilar but far smaller, in Amsterdam, at the premises of a man who traded in foreign goods.


Friday 14 February 2014

Poison or plague in St Petersburg?

This week's rather grisly translation comes courtesy of Dr Clare Griffin.  She writes:

Seventeenth-century Russian court medicine was imported: before 1654 all official medical practitioners were from Western Europe, and even after this date Westerners dominated court medicine.

Beautifully be-hatted boyars
One of the duties of these men was to produce reports on a variety of topics of interest to the court, including examinations of purchased medicines, injured service-persons, proposed treatment regimes for the royal family, and autopsies.

As none of the physicians spoke Russian, and few Russians knew Western languages, physicians composed reports in Latin and they were then translated into Russian for use by Russian bureaucrats.

Below is our translation of one such report, an autopsy of a Russian noble, prince Ivan Alekseevich Vorotynskii, who had died soon after being in council with the tsar. Autopsies were commonly conducted when the individual in question was themselves important, when they had been in close contact with the tsar before their death and may have infected him, or when plague was suspected. As Vorotynskii's skin discoloured after death, then thought to indicate a plague death, all three points here contributed to the decision to conduct an autopsy.
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Here's the original Latin:

                       Actum d. 24 Julii 1679.
          Illustrissimus Knesius ac Dominus, Dn. Johann Alexewitz Waratinsky, Consilii intimioris Regii Senator, in consessu preconum male sese incipit habere et de summa cordis angustia conqueri: unde monitus domum transvehitur, malo subinde aucto, et succedente vomitu pauculae materiae phlegmaticae subito concidit et violenta morte exstinguitur, citra stertorem statim succedente colore faciei et unguium livido, totiusque corporis frigore.
          Quaesiti de genere atfectus, ex quo Illustiss, hic princeps tam subito fuit exstinctus?
          Respondemos, malum hoc aliud non fuisse, quarn Syncopen Cardiacam ex subita interceptione venarum et arteriarum ad cor pertingentium, unde calor nativus et spiritus vitalis subito fuit suffocatus et exstinctus, malo procul dubio exorto ab insigni cruditate circa hypochondria haerente, quae cruditas frequens est hodiernae Suffocationis Hypochondriacae.
          De caetero aullam hic neque veneni accepti neque maligni et contagiosi esse suspicionem ex Artis fundamentis certi sumus, ad hanc visitationem reduisiti.
                     Laurentius Blumentrost D. mp.
                     Sigmund Sommer. Mpp.

Source: Mamonov, N. E., Materialy dlia istorii medistiny v Rossii [Materials for the History of Medicine in Russia], 4 vols (St Petersburg: M. M. Stasiulevich, 1881), 1304.
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And here's our translation.  The italicised text above and below the report is taken from the Russian translation.

          24th July 1679. According to the order of the Great Lord Tsar and Grand Prince Fedor Alekseevich, autocrat of all the Russias, the physicians Lavrentii Blumentrost and Simon Sommer were sent to examine boyar Prince Ivan Alekseevich Vorotynskii.           And on the 25th of July Doctors Lavrentii and Simon presented a report in Latin about their examination of boyar prince Ivan Alekseevich Vorotynskii, signed by their own hands.
And according to the translation of that report by the Diplomatic Chancery translator Stakhei Gadzalov, it was written:

          Most illustrious Prince and Lord Ivan Alekseevich Vorotynskii, member of the privy council of the Tsar, during a session of advisors began to feel ill and to complain of extreme tightness of the heart: thus warned, he was carried home, with the illness getting worse, and having vomited a little phlegmatic material, he suddenly collapsed and died a violent death, and the death rattle was immediately followed by a blue colour of the face and nails and a coldness of the whole body.
          [We were] asked concerning the type of illness which so suddenly carried off this most illustrious prince. 
          We respond, that this illness was none other than Cardiac Syncopy from sudden blockage of the veins and arteries leading to the heart, whence the natural heat and vital spirits were suddenly stifled and extinguished. The illness no doubt arose from remarkable undigested matter sticking to the abdomen, which matter these days often causes stifling of the abdomen.
          Concerning the other question put to us about this examination, on the basis of our expertise we have formed no suspicion of poison taken nor of malice nor contagion.

          Doctor Lavrentii Blumentrost (signature)
          Doctor Simon Sommer (signature)

25th July 1679 the Great Lord was made aware of this report by kravchii Prince Vasilii Fedorovich Odoevskii.

We hope all that undigested matter hasn't put you off your lunch!  As always, any comments welcome.

Tuesday 4 February 2014

Cannabis cures coughs

This week we finished translating John Ray’s entry for Cannabis sativa in Catalogus plantarum Angliae (1670, pp. 52–53).  Many thanks to Dr Chris Preston for providing and introducing this text, and for editing the translation.

C.  Cannabis sativa C.B.  mas & fœmina J.B.  sativa mas & fœmina Park.  1, seu mas & 2, seu fœmina Ger. emac.  Hemp the male and Female, or Winter and Summer Hemp.  It is sown in fields.

Woodcut of John Ray, 1693
N. 1.  The seed, if consumed rather copiously, inhibits conception. Boiled with milk, it relieves a cough. The emulsion of its seed is beneficial for jaundice, but it fills the head with vapours and it causes delirium if it is eaten excessively.

2.  The juice of the plant, dropped in, is said to cure earaches produced by obstruction.  This juice is also certain bane to cut-open innards and the sources of rotten wounds.  Meanwhile, besides what we have gathered about Cannabis, look in the Cambridge Catalogue*, lest we should be compelled to repeat the same things here. 

3. The medics claim all too confidently that the seed of the plant suppresses conception, when rather it is an aphrodisiac. The Persians certainly roast not only the seed of cannabis for this purpose, and eat it mixed with salt, for a second course, but are also accustomed to eat the herb when it is not fully ripe, the leaves dried in the shade and ground into powder then made with honey into little balls the size of a pigeon’s egg, as Olearius reports. This observation I owe to Master Lister.

* Ray’s Catalogus plantarum circa Cantabigiam nascentium (1660) includes four notes on Cannabis dealing with the difference between the male and female plants, the use of Cannabis as bird food (“small birds …. are so fattened by it that it either kills them or takes away their eagerness to sing”) and a reference to a group of eminent people killed by drinking water polluted by hemp-retting which had made its way “thorough hidden windings and subterranean passages” into a “limpid fountain”.

Adam Olearius, by Jürgen Ovens
Adam Ölschläger (1599–1671), who latinised his surname to Olearius, was a scholar in the service of Frederick III, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp. He was appointed Secretary to ambassadors sent by the Duke to Moscow and Isfahan, Persia, between 1633 and 1639. His account of his travels, first published in German, was translated into English as The voyages and travels of the ambassadors sent by Frederick, Duke of Holstein, to the Great Duke of Muscovy, and the King of Persia (London, 1662). Olearius (p. 320) describes how the Persians “use all imaginable inventions to stir themselves up to lust” including “the seed and leaves of Hemp, to revive languishing Nature … To prepare this Drugg, they gather the leaves before they come to Seed, dry them in the shade, beat them to powder, which they mix with Honey, and make pills thereof, about the bigness of a Pidgeons Egg. They take two or three of them at a time, to fortifie Nature. As to the Seed, they fry it, put a little salt thereto, and eat it by way of Desert.”