Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 8.djvu/98

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. vm. JULY 27, 1001.


four-and-twenty hours, and eat only salt meat. Then, being very thirsty, he must he with his mouth open over a running stream. If it be a noisy brook so much the better; the newts, too, will have become very thirsty, " and hearing the music of the water, cannot resist the temptation, but come forth to drink," and then the human sufferer will be careful not to let them get back again.

EDWARD PEACOCK.

The following is from the StocJcport Adver- tiser for 1846, though I have no means of ascertaining the exact date :

" On the 7th inst. Joseph Bailey, a youth about sixteen years of age, son of Henry Bailey, of Shadow Moss, in Northern Etchells, vomited a living reptile of the lizard tribe, the body of which was seven inches long. It was the consequence of drinking at a brook in a field in which he was at work as a plough -driver about eighteen months ago. He was aware at the time that whilst hastily drinking he swallowed some object which made him sick, but had no idea that it was anything like what it has ultimately proved to be. From that time his health has gradually retrograded, and he has been subject to fits of vomiting almost constantly, and growing worse and worse. About two months ago he became unable to follow his employment, and was compelled to quit service and return home. He rapidly got worse, upon which his parents called in two surgeons from Wilmslow. While taking the prescribed medicines he appeared daily to get weaker, his sickness increasing, and at this time he was scarcely able to walk across the room. Upon being seized with a fit of vomiting, he threw up three times successively a thick, glutinous matter, and at the fourth time of his straining the reptile made its appearance in his mouth, making a des- perate attempt to return down the throat, but applying his finger he laid hold of it and threw it on the floor, and it then ran into the grid-hole. In the hurry of the moment his sister so much crushed and mangled it that further inspection was almost impossible. Since this he has gradually recovered, and there appears no doubt of his ultimate restora- tion to health."

CHAS. F. FORSHAW, LL.D.

Bradford.

Calderwood, in his * Historic of the Kirk of Scotland,' under date 1612, has the following:

" In the moneth of Marche and Aprile fell furth

prodigious works and rare accidents One of the

Erie of Argyle's servants being sicke, vomited two toades and a serpent, and so convalesced; but vomited after a number of litle toades."

J. G. WALLACE-JAMES, M.B. Haddington.

A most extraordinary work, which does not appear to have met the observation of your correspondents upon this subject, is

" A Natural and Medicinal History of Worms Bred in the Bodies of Men and other Animals; Taken from the Authorities, and Observations of all Authors who have Treated thereof, from Hippo- crates to this Time; Together with an Enquiry


into the Original of Worms and the Remedies which destroy them, with a particular Formula of Medecines adapted to the Use of Families and Illustrated with several Copper Cuts. Done from the Latin of D* n Le Clerc, M.D. By Joseph Browne, L.L. M.D. Compiler of," Ac. London, 1721. This book is most exhaustive and frankly horrible. EDWARD HERON-ALLEN.

A fascinating biography published this year in Paris, 4 Fouche, 1759-1820,' by Louis Madelin, has the following allusion at p. 105 :

"Apres une diatribe furieuse centre les riches, ' reste de limon deja vomi par la Republique,' il arrete que tous les riches proprietaires ou fermiers ayant des bles demeurent personnellement respon- sables du defaut d'approvisionnement du marcheV'

The phrase above quoted by M. Madelin seems to imply the existence of a phrase in French " to vomit a slug "meaning to un- willingly divest oneself of a cherished but pernicious possession.

JOHN HOBSON MATTHEWS. Town Hall, Cardiff.

[Limon surely means " slime."]

CROSIER AND PASTORAL STAFF (9 th S- vii. 387, 495; viii. 50). H. B., in his letter under this head, quotes several authorities since the days of Pugin who use "crosier" in the sense of 'cross, these authorities most of them following one another, and none of them giving any authority before Pugin. I think you may consider it worth while to repro- duce a letter which I wrote to the Guardian eleven years ago, and in which I gathered together all the authorities that I could dis- cover. They do not at all uphold H. B.'s opinion, and do greatly strengthen the con- trary opinion. There may be other autho- rities; and if H. B. will find them, and answer Mr. J. T. Fowler's letter which follows mine in the Guardian, it will be very interesting. Also if he will explain how Du Cange comes to distinguish crocifer from crucifer.

[We reproduce the letter, omitting only a few introductory words.]

Crook is no doubt a different word from crosier, though they are probably referable to the same root. All crooks are not crosiers, but the thing called a crosier is a crook for all that. Nor is this confuted by a mere statement that ' a crosier is a cross mounted on a staff' any more than it would be proved by my unsupported denial of that state- ment. The question is purely historical, and I pro- pose to show that till the days of Pugin, crosier, either in the ancient or modern form of the word, was the accepted term for a pastoral staff. I am old enough to remember the prae-Pugin days, and I am sure that then the words mitre and crosier would have conveyed to most men's minds the idea of the bishop's distinctive head-gear and pastoral staff.

Then Pugin, writing in 1844, alleged in print