Scatalogic [!] rites of all nations : A dissertation upon the employment of excrementitious remedial agents in religion, therapeutics, divination, witchcraft, love-philters, etc., in all parts of the globe / Based upon original notes and personal observation, and upon compilation from one thousand authorities. By Captain John G. Bourke.

  • Bourke, John Gregory, 1846-1896.
Date:
1891
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Scatalogic [!] rites of all nations : A dissertation upon the employment of excrementitious remedial agents in religion, therapeutics, divination, witchcraft, love-philters, etc., in all parts of the globe / Based upon original notes and personal observation, and upon compilation from one thousand authorities. By Captain John G. Bourke. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    40) ; Mich. Bern. Valentin. (Novell, med. log. as. II.). Nous croyons nous rappeler qu'il existe des exemples du meme genre dans l'ouvrage de J. B. Cardan, intitule : ' De Abstinentis ab usu ciborum fetido- rurn,' libellus imprime a la suite du traite 'De Utilitate ex adversis capienda' de son pere. On a conuu a Paris un ricbe bourgeois, nomine Paperal, qui, par une Strange depravation de gout, avalait des excre- ments de petits enfants. (Virey, Nouv. Diet, d'hist. nat. Deterville, torn. X.) La traduction meme rapporte qu'ils les mangeait avec une cuiller d'or. Ce n'est pas le seul exemple d'un gout aussi bizarre. Bouillon portait toujours une boite d'or remplie non de tabac, mais des excrements humains. (Voy. Dulaure, Hist, de Paris, edit, de 1825, t. VII. p. 262.)—(Bibliotheca Scatalogica, pages 03 to 90.) La fiente de becasse, dont les fines gourmets, veritablement scato- phages, sont, comme on sait, tres friands.— (Bibliotheca Scatalogica, p. 133.) In this curious book, full of learning and research, there are cita- tions from more than three hundred authorities, some of them, of course, merely obscene and not coming within the purview of these notes, but others, as may be readily understood from reading the ex- tracts taken from them, of the highest value in a scientific sense. Schurig gives an instance of voracity in which a certain glutton, after consuming all other food in sight, was wont to satisfy himself with urine and excrement: Et si panes deerant, sua ipse excrementa comedebat et lotium bibebat. (Schurig, Chylologia, Dresden, 1725, p. 52.) A case is given of a patient who having once expe- rienced the beneficial effects of mouse-dung in some complaint, be- came a confirmed mouse-dung eater, and was in the habit of picking it up from the floor of his house before the servants could sweep it away. — (See Schurig, Chylologia, Dresden, 1725, p. 823 et seq.) The enceinte wife of a farmer in the town of Hassfort, on the Main, ate the excrements of her husband, warm and smoking. — (See Chris- tian Franz Paullini, Dreck Apothek, edition of Frankfort, 1696, page 8. See also quotation from Ephemeridum Physico-Medico- rum, Leipsig. 1694, on page 212 of this volume.) Chacun en fait, en voit, en sent, en touche, en parle, sonvent en ecrit, quelquefois en lit, et si chacun n'en mange pas, e'est que nous ne sommes pas encore au temps ou les becasses tomberont toutes roties; mais de celui-la en voudrait manger.—(Bibliotheca Scata- logica, p. 21, Oratio pro Guano Humano.) An extract is here given from a letter sent to Charlotte Elizabeth of