Chap. 4.]

Impossible to raise Liquids by Suction.

201

The divining cups of the Assyrians and Chaldeans appear, from imperfect accounts of them extant, to have been more artificially contrived. When one was used, it was filled with water, a piece of silver or a jewel having certain characters engraved on it was thrown in; the conjurer then muttered some words of adjuration, when the demon thus addressed, it is said, “whistled the answer from the bottom of the cup." These vessels were probably so contrived, that the water might compress air concealed in some cavity in the base, and force it through the orifice of a minute reed or whistle, as in the musical bottles of Peru. As Julius Cyrenius says such cups were also used by the Egyptians, it is possible that it was one of them by which Joseph divined, or affected through policy to divine. Divination by the cup is still practiced in Japan.

It is well known that the jugglers of Asia have always been unrivalled. Even in modern times, some of their tricks are beautiful applications of science, and are so neatly performed as to baffle the most sagacious of observers. A full account of them would go far to explain all the miracles which ancient authors have mentioned, and would afford some curious information respecting the secrets of ancient temples.

CHAPTER IV.

Suction: Impossible to raise liquids by that which is so called-Action of the muscles of the thorax and abdomen in sucking explained-Two kinds of suction-Why the term is continued-Sucking poison from wounds-Cupping and cupping-horns-Ingenuity of a raven-Sucking tubes original atmospheric pumps-The Sanguisuchello-Peruvian mode of taking tea, by sucking it through tubes-Reflections on it.-New application of such tubes suggested-Explanation of an ambiguous proverbial expression.

AIR is expelled from such vessels as are figured in the last chapter by thrusting them into a liquid, which entering at the bottom, drives out as it rises the lighter fluid at the top. In the apparatus now to be described, it is withdrawn in a different manner. The vessels are not lowered into water, but the latter is forced up into them. The operation by which this is accomplished was formerly named suction, from an erroneous idea that it was effected by some power or faculty of the mouth, independently of any other influence. A simple experiment will convince any one that the smallest particle of liquid cannot be so raised :-fill a common flask or small bottle within a quarter of an inch of the top of the neck, and place it in a perpendicular position; then let a person apply his mouth over the orifice, and he may suck forever without tasting the contents; the veriest lover of ardent spirits would die in despair ere he could thus partake of his favorite liquor; and the exhausted traveler could never moisten his parched throat, although the liquid, as in the case of Tantalus, was at his lips.

As remarked in a previous chapter, the error was not exploded till Torricelli and Pascal's experiments proved that water is not raised in pumps by suction, or any kind of attraction, but by pulsion from aerial pressure. Suction therefore, or that which was so called, merely removes an obstacle [air] to a liquid's ascent-it does not raise it, nor even aid in the act of raising it. In other words, it is simply that action of the muscles of the thorax and abdomen which enlarges the capacity of the lungs

202

Cupping and Cupping Instruments.

[Book II. and chest, so that air within them becomes rarefied and consequently no longer in equilibrium with that without-hence when in this state a communication is opened between them and a liquid, the weight of the atmosphere resting upon the latter necessarily drives it into the mouth; as for example, when a person drinks water from a tumbler or tea from a cup. How singular that the rationale of taking liquids into the stomach was not understood till the 17th century—that so simple an operation and one incessantly occurring, should have remained unexplained through all previous time!

Two kinds of suction have been mentioned by some writers, but the principle of both is the same: one, the action of the chest just mentioned—the other, that of the mouth alone; viz. by lowering the under jaw while the lips are closed, and at the same time contracting and drawing the tongue back towards the throat. There is this difference between them: the former can be performed only in the intervals of respiration, while the latter may be continuous, since breathing can be kept up through the nostrils. One has been named supping, the other sucking. The term 'sucker,' commonly applied to the piston of atmospheric pumps, arose from its acting as a substitute for the mouth. With this explanation of the terms suction, sucking, &c. we shall occasionally use them, in accordance with general custom, for want of substitutes equally popular.

Infants and the young of all maminals not only practice sucking till they quit their mother's breasts for solid food, but most of them continue the practice through life when quenching their thirst: of this man is an example, for it is by sucking that we receive liquids into the stomach, whether we plunge our lips into a running stream, receive wine from a goblet, or soup from a spoon. As the origin of artificial devices for raising liquids by atmospheric pressure may be traced to this natural operation, some other examples may be mentioned. Of these, sucking poison from wounds is one. This has been practiced from unknown antiquity. Job, speaks of sucking the poison of asps-At the siege of Troy, Machaon 'suck'd forth the blood' from the wounds of Menelaus; and the women among the ancient Germans were celebrated for thus healing their wounded sons and husbands. The serious consequences that often attended the custom, led at an early period to the introduction of tubes, by means of which the operation might be performed without danger to the operator; for scrofulous and other diseases were frequently communicated to the latter, by drawing tainted blood and humors into the mouth; whereas, by the interposition of a tube, the offensive matter could be prevented from coming in contact with the lips.

Before the use of the lancet was discovered, these cupping tubes were applied in ordinary blood-letting. Even at the present day such is the only kind of phlebotomy practiced by the oldest of existing nations; for "the name and the use of the lancet are equally unknown among the natives of Hindostan. They scarify the part with the point of a knife and apply to it a copper cupping-dish with a long tube affixed to it, by means of which they suck the blood with the mouth."a It is the same with the Chinese, Malays, and other people of the east. These generally use the same kind of apparatus as the Hindoos, but sometimes natural tubes are employed, as a piece of bamboo. The horns of animals, as those of oxen and goats were also much used; these on account of their conical form being better adapted for the purpose than cylindrical tubes.

a Shoberl's Hindostan, v, 42. and Marsden's Sumatra.

Chinese Repos. iv, 44. See also Le Comte's China,

Chap. 4.]

The Sanguisuchello.

203

Park found the negroes of Africa cupping with rams' horns; and the Shetlanders continue to use the same instrument, having derived it from their Scandinavian ancestors. Cupping was practiced by Hippocrates, and cupping-instruments were the emblems of Greek and Roman phy

sicians.

The application of a reed or other natural tube, through which to suck liquids that cannot otherwise be reached, has always been known. The device is one which in every age, boys as well as men acquire a knowledge of intuitively, or as it were by instinct; nor does it indicate a greater degree of ingenuity than numerous contrivances of the lower animalsthat of the raven for example, which Pliny has mentioned in the tenth book of his Natural History. This bird, during a severe drought, seeing a vase near a sepulchre, flew to it to drink, but the small quantity of water it contained was too low to be reached. In this dilemma, stimulated by want and thrown upon its own resources for invention, it soon devised an effectual mode of accomplishing its object-it picked up small pebbles and dropped them into the vessel till the water rose to the brim— an instance of sagacity fully equal to the application of a tube under similar circumstances by man.

As sucking tubes are atmospheric pumps in embryo, a notice of some applications of them will form an appropriate introduction to the latter. They constituted part of the experimental apparatus of the old Greek Plenists and Vacuists; and were used by the Egyptians as siphons. They were, and still are, employed in Peru for drinking hot liquids, and were anciently used by the laity in partaking of wine in the Eucharist. "Beatus Rhenanus upon Tertullian in the booke De Corona Militis, reporteth that among the riches and treasures of the church of Mense, were certain silver-pypes by the which profane men, whom they call the laietie, sucked out of the challice in the holy supper."a The device, if not of

more distant origin, was perhaps designed in the dark ages, as a check to the rude communicants, who would naturally be inclined to partake too freely of the cup. But since the laity were excluded by the Council of Constance, from sharing the wine, the use of such tubes has been retained. At the celebration of high mass at St. Denis, the deacon and sub-deacon suck wine out of the chalice by a chalumeau or tube of gold. [Dict. de Trévoux. Art. Chalumeau.]

'The sanguisuchello or blood-sucker,' says La Motraye, is a golden tube by which the Pope sucks up the blood [wine] at high mass; the chalice and tube being held by a deacon. The instrument, he remarks, corresponds with "the ancient pugillaris, or tube mentioned by Cardinal Bona in his treatise of things belonging to the liturgy, and of the leavened and unleavened bread." No. 78 is a figure of the sanguisuchello. It has three pipes, but the middle or longest one is that by which the liquid is raised. The whole is of gold, highly ornamented, and enriched with a large emerald. One reason assigned for its use, is, that it is more seemly to suck the blood [wine] as through a vein, than to sup it.

The Peruvians make a tea or decoction of the 'herb of Paraguay,'

Peter Martyr's Com. Places. Lon. 1583. Part 4, p. 37. 29, 31, 427, and Blainville's Trav. ii, 332.

b La Motraye's Trav. i.

204

Peruvian Sucking Tubes.

[Book II.

which is common to all classes. "Instead of drinking the tincture or infusion apart, as we drink tea, they put the herb into a cup or bowl made of a calabash or gourd, tipp'd with silver, which they call mate;

No. 79. Peruvian female taking tea with a sucking-tube.

they add sugar and pour on it the hot water, which they drink immediately without giving it time to infuse, because it turns as black as ink. To avoid drinking the herb which swims at the top, they make use of a silver pipe, at the end whereof is a bowl full of little holes; so that the liquor suck'd in at the other end is clear from the herb."a Frezier has given an engraving of a lady thus employed, from which the annexed cut is copied.

In Frezier's time it was the custom for every one at a party to suck out of the same tube-like Indians in council, each taking a whiff from the same calumet. With the exception of confining a company to the use of one instrument, we should think this mode of 'taking tea' deserving the consideration of the wealthy, since it possesses several advantages over the Chinese plan which we have adopted. In the first place, it is not only a more ingenious and scientific mode of raising the liquid, but also more graceful than the gross mechanical one of lifting the vessel with it. It is more economical as regards the exertion required; for in ordinary cases a person expends an amount of force in carrying a cup of tea backwards and forwards, so many times to his mouth, as would suffice to raise a bucket of water from a moderately deep well. In the use of these tubes there is no chance of verifying the old proverb-many a slip between the cup and the lip'-And then there is no danger of breakage, since the vessel need not be removed from the table. How often has a valuable 'tea-set' been broken, and the heart of the fair owner almost with it, by some awkward visitor dropping a cup and saucer on their way to his mouth, or on their return to the table! Lastly, the introduction of these tubes, would leave the same room as at present for display in tea-table paraphernalia.

There is another application of them which some convivialists may thank us for suggesting. It has been regretted by ancient and modern epicures that nature has given them necks much shorter than those of some other animals; these philosophers supposing that the pleasures of eating and drinking are proportioned to the length of the channel through which food passes to the stomach. Now although a sucking tube will not alter the natural dimensions of a person's neck, it may be so used as to prolong the sensation of deglutition in the shortest one; for by contracting the orifice, each drop of liquid imbibed through it may be brought in contact with the organs of taste, and be detained in its passage until every particle of pleasure is extracted from it;-being the reverse of what takes place, when gentlemen swallow their wine in gulps. The most fastidious disciple of Epicurus could not object to this use of them, since nothing would touch his liquid but the tube; and as every person would

Chap. 5.]

Various forms of Pumps.

205

provide his own, no one would ever think of borrowing his neighbor's, any more than he would ask for the loan of his tooth-pick.

We are not sure that this plan of attenuating agreeable liquids, did not give rise to that mode of drinking adopted by the luxurious Greeks and Romans, to which we have before alluded. Their drinking vessels were generally horns, or were formed in imitation of them. At the small end of each a very minute opening was made, through which a stream of drops, as it were, descended into the mouth. Paintings found in Pompeii, and other ancient monuments, represent individuals in the act of thus using them while others, whose appetite for the beverage, or whose thirst was too keen to relish so slow a mode of allaying it, are drinking, not out of "the little end," but out of the large end "of the horn." We have mentioned this circumstance because it appears to afford a solution of an old, but somewhat ambiguous saying.

seen

CHAPTER V.

On bellows pumps: Great variety in the forms and materials of machines to raise water-Simple bel lows pump-Ancient German pump-French pump-Gosset's frictionless pump: Subsequently re-invented-Martin's pump-Robison's bag pump-Disadvantages of bellows pumps-Natural pumps in men, quadrupeds, insects, birds, &c.—Reflections on them. Ancient vases figured in this chapter.

In the course of time a new feature was given to sucking tubes, by which they were converted into pumps: this was an apparatus for withdrawing the air in place of the mouth and lungs. In what age it was first devised, and by what people, are alike unknown. The circumstance that originally led to it, was probably the extension of the length of sucking tubes, until the strength of the lungs was no longer sufficient to draw water through them. In this way the bellows pump, the oldest of all pumps, we presume took its rise.

It should be borne in mind that an atmospheric pump is merely a contrivance placed at the upper end of a pipe to remove the pressure of the atmosphere there, while it is left free to act on the liquid in which the lower end is immersed; and farther, that it is immaterial what the substance of the machine is, or what figure it is made to assume. Some persons perhaps may suppose that pumps seldom vary, and then but slightly, from the ordinary one in our streets, (the ancient wooden one) but no idea could be more erroneous; for few, if any, machines have undergone a greater number of metamorphoses. The body or working part, which is named the 'barrel' and sometimes the 'chamber,' so far from being always cylindrical, has been made square, triangular, and elliptical;-it is not even always straight, for it has been bent into a portion of a circle, the centre of which formed the fulcrum of the lever and rod, both of which in this case being made of one piece: its materials have not been confined to wood and the metals, for pumps have been made of glass, stoneware, stone, leather, canvas, and caoutchouc. Some have been constructed like

In Shakespeare's time, "every guest carried his own knife, which he occasionally whetted on a stone that hung behind the door. One of these whetstones may be seen in Parkinson's Museum. They were strangers at that period to the use of forks." [Ritsons's Notes on Shakespeare's Timon of Athens. Act i, Scene 2.]