Scribal Terror

The funeral cart of St. Arigius

This wall painting from the Chapel Saint-Erige, located in the south of France, depicts the saint (also known as Arigius) being borne in procession by an ox yoked with a bear. The paintings in Saint-Erige are dated October 1451. Saint Arigius himself lived in the sixth century. He was a bishop who was acquainted with Gregory the Great. According to the chapel website:

As bishop of Gap, Erige was coming back from Rome where he had met pope Gregory the Great, when he was attacked by bandits in a place called "Colla Longa" on the other side of the Tinée.

The legend says his horse miraculously cleared the five hundred metres deep valley at one bound and found itself on the plateau of Auron, at the very spot where the chapel has been built.

Bored in church, 1667

"More Peepees!" just for you MC:

[August 18, 1667] . . . but being weary, turned into St Dunstan's church, where I hear an able sermon of the minister of the place. And stood by a pretty, modest maid, whom I did labour to take by the hand and the body; but she would not, but got further and further from me, and at last I could perceive her to take pins out of her pocket to prick me if I should touch her again, which seeing, I did forbear, and was glad I did espy her design. And then I fell to gaze upon another pretty maid in a pew close to me, and she on me; and I did go about to take her by the hand, which she suffered a little and then withdrew.

--From the Diary of Samuel Pepys [pronounced "peeps"], a man with some serious issues

The only true Lesbians?

Ananova reports:

Residents of the Greek island of Lesbos have launched a legal action to demand the exclusive right to call themselves Lesbians.

The inhabitants of the island are attempting to ban the Greek Gay and Lesbian Union from bearing the name "lesbian".

Residents of Lesbos now suffer "psychological and moral rape" from the "seizure" of their island's name by gays, according to the complaint by Dimitris Lambrou, a local activist.

Next up: Carefree people file amicus brief.

On the cause and prevention of the plague

ORB: The Online Reference Book for Medieval Studies offers an interesting insight into the supposed etiology and preventative measures suggested at the time of the Great Mortality (The Black Death):

The pope sent to Paris to obtain the opinions of the medical faculty there in 1348. They studied the problem for a time and returned a report.  The good professors opined that the disaster was caused by a particularly unfortunate conjunction of Saturn, Jupiter and Mars in the sign of Aquarius that had occurred in 1345.  This conjunction cause hot, moist conditions, which cause the earth to exhale poisonous vapors.

The report went on to recommend steps to keep safe from the disease.  This, in part, was their prescription:

No poultry should be eaten, no waterfowl, no pig, no old beef, altogether no fat meat. . . .  It is injurious to sleep during the daytime. . . .  Fish should not be eaten, too much exercise may be injurious . . . and nothing should be cooked in rainwater. Olive oil with food is deadly. . . .  Bathing is dangerous. . . .

In time, other writings appeared from the pens of educated men on the best ways to avoid the plague.  From Italy came this advice:

  In the first instance, no man should think of death. . . .  Nothing should distress him, but all his thoughts should be directed to pleasing, agreeable and delicious things. . . .  Beautiful landscapes, fine gardens should be visited, particularly when aromatic plants are flowering. . . .  Listening to beautiful, melodious songs is wholesome. . . .  The contemplating of gold and silver and other precious stones is comforting to the heart.

Ancient relations

The Globe and Mail reports:

Scientists have found a direct link between the frozen remains of a man found in a glacier in northern B.C. and 17 people living in B.C., Yukon and Alaska.

The news came at a symposium in Victoria this past weekend, focusing on Kwaday Dan Ts'inchi', an aboriginal man whose remains were found in 1999 by hunters in Tatshenshini-Alsek Park, which is in the traditional territory of the Champagne and Aishihik First Nations.

"The connection to the people," said Al Mackie, an archaeologist on the project, "how they know his clan, how they know who his relatives are, that's amazing. You just don't get that in archaeology. It never happens."

Kwaday Dan Ts'inchi' means Long Ago Person Found, and he's believed to have died some time between the years 1670 and 1850. His remains were revealed after a glacier started to recede.

The thing I find most astonishing about this is that the DNA testing managed to confirm the man's clan -- he was a Wolf, like his modern relatives --  proof that clan structure has survived intact for centuries and probably milennia.

John Deere walking tractor

Via Accelerating Future

It works

Olivier Vietti-Teppa has tried out a parachute based on Leonardo Da Vinci's 500-year-old design, and  by golly it works. He safely chuted 2000 feet -- although he had a backup chute just in case Da Vinci was wrong. Video at the BBC. Via Geeks Are Sexy

Perfect chocolate chip cookies every time

If you read between the lines . . . Check out The Pragmatic Chef for hints at the most fabulous secret chocolate chip recipe! (It involves "tweaking" the standard recipe.) I have personal knowledge of its yumminess. They also puff up nicely, which is de rigueur for a good chocolate chip cookie, and not easily obtainable through your ordinary recipe.

Don't skimp with this one. Use parchment even if you have to go out and buy some.

Dinner

Orange roughy sauteed in butter and Survival Spice till it falls into little pieces. Rice pilaf. Broccoli. Fresh mango slices. What did you have?

Autumn crocus in ancient and medieval chemotherapy

The autumn crocus is principally known as a very pretty flower that looks a lot like a true crocus, but blooms in autumn rather than spring and contains a deadly poison called colchicine, similar to arsenic in its effect. Since autumn crocus can be mistaken for wild garlic (ramsons), we are wisely warned away from it. Ancient and medieval herbologists were well aware of its toxicity, and many physicians were reluctant to use it for that very reason. However, some eminent physicians, including Dioscorides and Avicenna, prescribed it as a "chemotherapy" treatment for cancers. The results were not by any means miraculous, but these early experimenters had the right idea. According to John Riddle in "Ancient and Medieval Chemotherapy for Cancer," Isis 73 (3): 313-330:

Autumn crocus contains a sufficient concentration of colchicines for pharmaceutical efficacy, but on the basis of modern studies, we conclude that the drug would arrest tumor mitoses in man but would not produce a complete regression in a malignant tumor. An ancient or medieval physician, treating a malignant growth topically and possibly internally, would probably observe a beneficial response but not a “cure.”

Riddle's article is fascinating and goes far beyond the single example of autumn crocus to illustrate the remarkable sophistication of these often undervalued early researchers and practitioners:

A search through the leading pharmaceutical and medical authorities of the Greco-Roman, classical Islamic, and medieval periods reveals that they recommended many of the same natural sources as those for the compounds discovered in the 1960s and 1970s and currently utilized in cancer treatments.

But here is just a little more on the history of autumn crocus "chemotherapy" to show the level of scientific awareness with which ancient and medieval physicians approached its use:

In the first century Dioscorides (fl. ca. A.D. 50-79) employed a drug made from autumn crocus (Colchicum autumnale L.), the very plant investigated by A/ P. Dustin in 1938 as an antitumor agent. Dioscorides recommended that the plant (kolchikon) be “soaked in wine and administered to dissolve tumors (oidemata) and growths (phumata) not yet making pus.”
. . .
Mattaeus Platearius (d. 1161?) and Avicenna employed the plant in ways that suggest antitumoral activity. . . . Abu Mansur (fl. 968-977) said that the drug concocted from it is poisonous but dries up old sores. In light of this evidence one can conclude that prior to the thirteenth century autumn crocus was employed as an anticancer agent, but that its use was not widespread. The reluctance may have been due to the belief expressed by Hildegard [von Bingen], who said that it was more of a poison than a medicine.

Which of course it was, but all medicine is a balancing act between killing and curing, and the ancient and medieval doctors who used autumn crocus apparently knew what they were doing and got results that were promising enough for them to recommend its use to others.