divers things made many more Experiments then he mentions he hath made upon this subject as appears by what he writeth p. 17 18. of his first Letter I find therefore that he hath no great cause to complain of me as he doth under the name of those Illustrious Authors to whom he ascribes my Book in his Letter for not having vouchsafed to make Experiments enow to confirm the truth of the Observations about Vipers contain'd in his first Letter of 1664. He had not I say great cause to speak of it after such a manner since I did do so but in imitation of him and because he had in the same Letter advanced and assured particulars which required not I should make more tryals then those I have described in my Book Although I can assure to have made more then I have recited He knows very well that about the end of pag. 23. of his first Letter he used these words Equel veleno shizza tutto fuora se non al primo almeno al secondo morso si che il terzo epiù volte l'ho esperimentato non è velenoso That is And that poison issues all out if not at the first at least at the second biting so that the third which I have often experimented is not venomous And if because of the respect I bear to the writings of a person of so high a reputation I thought among divers other Experiments that having made one and the same Viper every time vexed to bite five several Pigeons which all died and even the last of them sooner then the rest I might stop there I think Signor Redi hath nothing to reproach me with He had assured in his first Letter and assures the same in his latter That all the poison did lodge in the yellow liquor and that this poison was all exhausted if not at the first yet at least at the second biting and that he had often experimented that the third was no more venomous So that if I was perswaded that all the yellow Liquor must be come out by the second biting made upon the second Pigeon and if after that I have seen dye three other Pigeons by the fresh bitings of the same Viper that had bitten the two first I do not think that Sign Redi hath right to accuse me for not having done enough He might rather have done me that justice as to acknowledge that I had done more then enough to maintain my Reflexions and that I was obliged from that time to seek the poison elsewhere then in the yellow liquor in regard it did no longer intervene according to him in the three last bitings and that the three last Pigeons were as soon yea sooner dead then the two first of the death of which he could charge the yellow liquor If I could not find no more then Sign Redi in all the body of the Viper any other visible or palpable part that was venomous and that might justly be declared to be the seat of the poison and the true cause of the death which ensued upon the three last bitings he must not wonder if I have sought and found it in the vexed Spirits and if I have grounded my self upon the best evidence I could get from Experiments and Reason But since the chief motive of my tryals hath been the desire of exactly knowing the Truth concerning those matters having seen that Sign Redi pag. 31. of his last Letter hath desired I would make new experiments after his Objections against me To be the more assured of all I have been willing to give him that satisfaction in giving it to my self For in the moneth of May last in the Chymical Laboratory of the Royal Garden in the presence of two or three hundred by standers both Physitians and others capable to judge of it and worthy to be credited from amongst many live Vipers sent me out of Dauphine and divers parts of Poitou I chose a great Femal-Viper that was lusty enough notwithstanding the great way she came and having open'd her jawes I very carefully cleared and squeezed out of them at several repetitions all the yellow liquor contained in the bags of her gums and that also which might be diffused about the neighbouring parts with a fine piece of linnen cloth wound about the handle of a pen knife Which done I took the same Viper with Pincers about hér neck and angred her in making her to fasten her teeth into the end of her tail and in pressing from time to time her neck with those Pincers and immediately after I presented to her five Pigeons and two Pullets one after another to bite them in the most fleshy part of their Chest having irritated her every time of her biting I purposely wounded also six Pigeons and Pullets in divers places in the presence of all the company and let into the wounds some drops of the yellow liquor drawn from the Vesicles of newly enraged Vipers I laid both sorts a part and the company parted about an hour after before which time five of the Pigeons and Pullets that had been bitten were dead and the two remaining died about an hour after but the Pigeons and Pullets which I had wounded and in whose wounds I had put in some of the said juyce ailed nothing but that there appeared some lividness at the place wounded and such an one as might have been there from the sole wounding them and without any concurrence of that liquor Two days after I shew'd the company the same wounded Pullets and the same Pigeons which were very well and had their wounds almost perfectly healed up only there remain'd a little blewness about the wounded parts I would then have wounded the same animals again in other places and intromitted fresh yellow liquor some also of the by-standers proposed to let into one of these creatures some of this yellow liquor by that way of Transfusion that hath lately been made in divers parts of Europe of some stranger blood into the veins of men that so this juyce being mingled with the blood by the ordinary circulation it might be able to discover what ever it could do I readily complied with their motion whereupon the intromission of this liquor was attempted upon one of the same Pigeons that had been wounded two days before One Physitian and two Chirurgions did the work one after onother in making both the incision and the ligature of the most discernable vessels of the right wing But they let the Pigeon loose so much blood that it dyed soon after Seeing this I said that the Pigeon dyed only from the loss of its blood and not from the letting in of the yellow liquor and that it would be necessary one only Chirurgion of the Company shou'd make a new operation upon another of the same Animals that had been wounded 2 days before and upon whom that yellow Juyce had also been tryed The Operation was made accordingly at the same time
year and the whole interval of his Paroxysines without any inclination to dance He was naturally melancholick in appearance of no great parts neither had he learn'd to dance He hath been seen thus dancing every year by thousands of people and particularly in the Camp Royal Anno 1670. where the King himself and the whole Court saw him And this hath been so beneficial to him that the ordinary time is past this year without any assault of this evil which he had great apprehensions of finding himself at that time engaged in a march and fearing he should want Violins at the time that the sit should take him Now since the pricking of this Animal though very small and in a manner like that of a small fly being made even thorough stockings or cloaths is able to act equally upon the body and the mind of the person stung as leaving behind such long and strong impressions and causing such irksome returns To what can we adscribe all those different effects if it be not to the idea or imagination of the animal stinging or of the person stung 'T is needless to alledge here the effects of the idea or imagination of Women with Child nor of that of Jacob's Sheep I think I have said enough to justifie the possibility of the idea or imagination of a Vipers revengefulness for the forming of angry spirits sufficient to impute unto them all the venom and to exclude from it the yellow liquor After this Sign Redi must not wonder if I who make profession of Chymistry of which I have the honour to read publick Lectures in the Garden Royal who doe every day exercise my self in separating the spirituous parts from the gross ones in mixt inanimat bodies and who have not been able to find in any corporeal and sensible matter the true cause of the strange and suddain productions observed in the biting of a live Viper If I after all this I say have thought my self obliged to seek for it in the Spirits if having found it there I have abandon'd his party and communicated to the publick the discovery I have made Yet I am not over-much surprised that Sign Redi being in this matter prepossess'd by corporeal gross things still persists in his sentiment since in the preparations that do altogether depend of my profession and which I ought to know well he rejects spirituous substances which he relishes not sticking only to the more material which are the least and in very small quantity which doth not keep him from believing them to be the best You may see what he writeth of it about the end of pag. 76. and at the beginning of pag. 77 of his first Letter of Observations in these words In queste nuè naturali Osservationi ho consuinato gran quantitá c. That is In these my natural Observations I have spent a great quantity of Vipers making of them daily a very great slaughter and to extract the subtile from the subtil if I may so speak I always laid aside and kept all their flesh and bones which being dryed in a Furnace and afterwards by a quick fire with long and great labour burnt and reduced to ashes I thence drew the Salt with Fountain-water and purified it and reduced it into a kind of Chrystal c. Those that know all the parts of which the body of a Viper is composed will certainly wonder that a person so judicious and knowing hath not found that the chief and best part of a Viper consists in its volatil Salt and that that Salt would not fail to avolate and to be wasted by that preparation or rather destruction which Sign Redi hath used to extract the Salt of Vipers They will quickly see that when he would draw the subtil from the subtil as he speaks he did quite the contrary and expelled and dissipated the volatil and better parts returning only the gross the fixed and the least They will soon judg that he should not have given himself all that labour and pain which he saith he hath taken to succeed so ill in his work and that he had done much better with silence to pass over his process then to publish it The way by him taken will be found I think received from the Antients who knew not that all Animals abound in Volatil and have little of Fixed Salt And his preparation which is very easie would have pleased better in those times especially in Italy then that great and laborious Preparation of the Salt of Vipers which was made with so great an Apparatus and of which I have already given my thoughts when I discoursed of the Remedies drawn from Vipers I also foresee that Sign Redi will not receive any greater advantage by striving to attribute to himself the first discovery of the Salival glanduls which I found on both the Temples of both Male and Female Vipers and which I have described and delineated in my Anatomy of Vipers For he will not be able to perswade it to those who shall see pag. 44. of his first Letter of Observations the discourse following Se non stimassi vergogna scriver senza altra riprova c. That is If I did not think it a shame to write without other proof what came into my phancy I might say perhaps that that yellow liquor is by no other way intromitted into the above said gums of the teeth but by those Salival Conduits found out by the famousThomas Wharton and shewn in this Court by Lorenzo Billini a learned young man and of great expectation in other Animals besides Man and particularly in Staggs and Wood-peckers Moreover that under those Gums there are two small Glanduls found by me in all Vipers Yet I would not have you rely upon this thought of mine because it may prove a Chimera as I believe it to be one c. I cannot comprehend how Sign Redi after he hath spoken of the Salival Conduits as of a thing that came into his phancy and by a perhaps that is to say not knowing it and who declareth that he was asham'd to write of a thing without verifying it who exhorts his friend to whom he writes not to relye on his thoughts and who adds that it may prove a Chimera I know not I say how after he hath written all this he can pretend to be the inventor of the Salival Glanduls and their Pipes For pag. 55 and 56. of his first Letter speaking of the yellow liquor he adds E questo veleno altro non è c. That is This venom is nothing else but that liquor which humects the Palat and stagnates in those gums that invest the teeth not transmitted thither from the Bladder of Gall but bred in the whole head and conveyed perhaps to the gums by some Salival conduits which perhaps are there inserted Where the word perhaps yet twice again repeated doth sufficiently shew that Sign Redi did speak of the Salival conduits no otherwise
Experiment therewith But he saith that he hath made many tryals with the Heads and Necks of Vipers and found first That having made two great Doggs aforehand to swallow each the head and neck of a Viper and afterwards caused both of them to be bitten by other Vipers those Doggs dyed not And that having caused to be bitten two other Doggs of the same bigness that had eaten neither head nor neck of a Viper they dyed neither He saith further that having made a Pullet to swallow one head of a Viper and a Capon two and caused them to be bitten they both dyed soon after He adds that having the next day made ready some heads of Vipers he caused them to be forc'd down the throat of two little Doggs of which he caused the least to be bitten in the legg near the anus and the other in the tongue and that they both dyed That he made the same Experiment upon eight Pullets two Kitlings two small Rabbets and six Pigeons even with rubbing the place bitten with the blood of the Viper That also the six Pigeons were bitten by the heads of Vipers dead several dayes before and that all these animals dyed That lastly he had fed two Pigeons for there dayes with the flesh and broath of Vipers and being bitten thereupon they dyed likewise this aid notwithstanding For Answer to all these Experiments I make use of the same Generals that Sign Redi hath done against mine which are to be found pag. 16. of his last Letter where he saith That a Viper more easily kills lesser Animals by his biting than great ones that according to the bigness of the Animal bitten and according as the place wounded is more or less provided with veins or arteries that if from the wound of a Viper much blood issueth the Animal not only dyeth not but does not so much as feel any great inconvenience that it also falls out sometimes that the Animal bitten escapeth after it hath endured many mortal symptoms and that this may come to pass by the sole assistance of Nature As to the two other Generals which he alledgeth in reference to the letting in of the yellow liquor I did not think fit to alledge them here both because I agree not as to the possibility of the fact and that I have elsewhere declared my self sufficiently about it as also that they make not to this purpose But I think it more material to add here two other Generals to those of Sign Redi and to say That the biting is more or less noxious not only according to the place bitten but according to the degree of the Vipers being vexed when she is to bite and according as her teeth have more or less penetrated And reasoning particularly upon these experiments I say that the dogs which I had caused to be bitten every one thrice were cured by making each of them swallow the head and neck of a Viper were of a very midling size that it is very difficult to found a certainjudgment upon the great ones which Sign Redi hath used as 't is also to pass it upon them that had swallow'd the head and neck of a Viper and those that had not done so that all the other little animals which he employed as well the Pullet and the Capon as the Pigeons Catlings Puppies and little Rabbets had not of themselves strength enough to resist for a time the enraged spirits nor to find the effect of the remedy especially that which was bitten in the tongue For I firmly believe that there is no animal great or smal which being fiercely bit in the tongue by a Viper well vexed can avoid death what aid soever you minister to it because of the nerves veins arteries disseminated through the tongue and because that the angred spirits finding a free entrance produce there all the effect they are capable of with so much violence and nimbleness that nothing is able to stop them But in all curable bites I shall not easily be induced to renounce the help which may be given by the head neck heart liver and divers other parts of a Viper especially of her that made the bite for the cure of the animals that have sufficient strength to resist a while and to expect the benefit of this kind of remedy I believe also to have great cause not to exclude from it man himself as also to prefer the parts of the same Viper that hath bitten to those of others because they must needs have greater cognation and more consent with the vexed spirits that issued from her Concerning which I think it not amiss to impart to the publick an accident that hapn'd in the Royal Laboratory of this City whilst my last experiments were making A young man that had made a good progress in his studies desirous to perfect himself in both ways of Pharmacy and chiefly addicted to my course of Chymistry was near me in the midst of a great Assembly on the 2 d day of my experiments After I had made some whilst I was entertaining the company the fancy took him in imitation of me yet without my knowledge to take a Viper with his hand and to seize on her head which he did not with that caution that is necessary as not holding her so fast but that the Viper took her opportunity and struck one of her great teeth very deep into the middle of the upper part of his left fore-finger Having been made acquainted therewith I remov'd as much as I could all fear from his spirit and advised him to betake himself to the necessary remedies The credit he gave to the truths contain'd in my book often read by him induced him to say that if I thought well of it he would eat the head and neck of the Viper that had bit him Commending his courage I seconded his good inclinations for I caused slightly to be broiled on coals the head and neck of the said viper and made him eat and swallow it hot in the midst of the company adding to it the heart and liver broiled likewise After which I said I doubted not but what he had done would be sufficient to cure him yet to be the surer I would give him some volatil salt of vipers especially he being a person whom I did much esteem and for whose health I had and ever should haue a great concern I thereupon immediately gave him a dose a fifty grains of this volatil salt dissolved in four ounces of water and assured him there was not any danger after this The young man remained in the midst of the company stirr'd not from the place till the meeting ended and then he took a little fresh air He was afterwards a couple of hours in the Royal Garden and the Laboratory during which time he now then found some little sickness about his heart but being come to his own lodging he was ready to sup as he was used to do and
through their Pores if any would have them pass that way I say further that although the teeth of a Viper should be all over imbued with that Juyce at the time of her biting the skin of the Animal bitten and the flesh it self if need were would keep it out of the bitten place and hinder it from entring there That though it should be able to enter it must have a fit place to receive it a great passage to go through and a long time to arrive to the parts remote I say also that though it were arrived there if that were possible it could never act beyond the forces which nature hath restrained it to Besides if this yellow liquor were capable of any considerable operation it would not fail to discover it either in whole or in part when 't is swallow'd and got into the stomach where the place the heat and all things would seem to concur either to make it ferment if its matter were disposed for it or to reduce its power into action For by passing out of the stomach into the intestins it would infect the Chyle and make of it a poison which would be carried jointly with it through the milky vessels and through the Thoracique Ductus ' s so happily discover'd by the illustrious M. Pecquet to descend into the Heart with the blood the which is the matter on which the poison of Vipers does so particularly exert its dominion And this way is much more easie and large than that of the opening made by the teeth by which this juyce cannot so much as enter I say this further that if it were such as Sign Redi makes it to be it would being taken at the mouth and let down into the stomach impress upon the places of its passage and those of its stay some mark or other of its power especially if it did contain any Arsenical Salts which would not fail soon to manifest themselves either by their taste or by some other effects And yet all those that shall taste or swallow this yellow liquor shall never perceive any malignity whether great or small neither in the mouth nor in the stomach nor elsewhere I conclude therefore from all these considerations that this juyce contains in it no part at all that is able to dissolve or coagulate or discompose any part of our body that it hath not any quality manifest or occult to shew that 't is capable of doing so I add moreover that this juyce as flat and salivous as it is is always found so yellow in all parts of France that it can hardly be less colour'd than 't is in Italy and that they both must have altogether alike qualities or at least very near such And it would be to no purpose to alledge in favour of Sign Redi that the diversity of places and climate or that of aliments might be able to change the nature of Vipers and cause that manifest difference there is between his Experiments and mine For although some diversity may be observed in other things there can be found none in this and if there could be some difference it cannot be that the nature of the yellow juyce and that of the Spirits should be quite changed since we find in France the same marks in that liquor which Sign Redi hath found and described in that of Italy and since our Vipers without any intervention of that juyce do kill as nimbly as his can do But I think it would be much if in the yellow liquor or in the enraged spirits there could be observ'd any small degree of quality stronger or weaker in Italy than in France For I have by a great number of experiments made it out that all the Vipers of France though taken in very different places and often such as are six score Leagues distant from one another have their poison altogether alike and do kill equally Whence I inferr that the difference of the Vipers of Italy and France cannot be considerable since Dauphiné which is a Province in France that furnisheth us with many of them and is very mountainous as well as Italy borders upon Picmont which is the beginning of Italy and that the same Dauphiné abounds in Vipers in its utmost extremity and since also all Vipers we get from thence have their yellow liquor always very innocent though high colour'd And I can truly say that those Vipers that have serv'd me most both in my first and last experiments were most of them sent me out of Dauphiné and that I was willing to make use of such as being commonly bigger than most of those that were sent me out of Poictou that at least which serv'd me to bite the five first Pigeons which I spake of in my first Experiments and that which bit the seaven last Pullets and Pigeons were of those of Dauphiné and even of the bigger sort that could be procured And it would have been to no purpose to have used any tooth of a Viper sever'd from the head and much less to wipe it dry with some bread crums in hopes it should kill any Animal by pricking it therewith seeing the teeth that had of the yellow liquor upon them without being separated from the dead heads were not able to do any harm no not those of live ones without the concurrence of the enraged spirits And if sometimes I have made use of bread-crums sometimes of a sine linnen ragg to wipe away all the yellow liquor of the vesicles that was never but in live Vipers to shew that it was not that liquor which did kill but the vexed Spirits only entring by means of the biting We are not to imagine neither that a Viper teareth by biting unless having made her to thrust her teeth into the flesh of some animal you do immediately after draw her away by the rest of her body We are not I say to pretend that a Viper doth by biting of her own accord make any great opening at which the yellow liquor is able to enter For she doth no more but thrust in her teeth far enough and presently draw them out again with as much ease as a Cat draws out his claws when he will Besides you cannot perceive but two very little holes which do also seem as 't were closed again by the flesh and which would hardly be discern'd if the pain of the bite or the accidents ensuing did not oblige us to look very narrowly to it We also never see that the poison fastens it self to the part bitten nor that the evil begins by a mortification or by a gangrene there For if that were so and if the venom did lodge at the entry it would be much more easie to master it I know also by many Experiments that the poison never stays at the place where it enters but insinuates it self very nimbly into the Veines to mingle with the blood especially if the bite hath open'd for it a passage free enough to
shall we say of the imagination of Fright and Constraint that a Toad also impresses in a Wecsel which having seen and been seen by that ugly animal at a certain season of the year and always in summer can not avoyd to run a pretty while round about it making a continual shrill noyse as if she cried for help whilst the Toad remains moveless with his throat open and which after a long troublesome motion is constrain'd to come and render her self into that throat The thing is too well known in divers places of France to doubt of it and I can assure to have heretofore seen it my self and that after I had well observ'd and withal wondred at the force of those Idea's appearing in the agitation of the Weesel and in her being constrained to fall into the mouth of the Toad I had the satisfaction to kill the Toad in that moment and so to save the Weesel which quickly run away finding her self deliver'd by the death of the animal which was followed by the extinction of those Ideas that before had had so much power over her This effect cannot be adscribed to the foam nor to any material part of the Toad since the Weesel flyes from him naturally and falls not into his mouth but in spight of her teeth Besides that the foam of the Toad which the Weesel failed not to meet with in his throat can work nothing seeing the Weesel saved her self immediately after the death of the animal We therefore must needs seek for the cause of all these effects in the Spirits More-over what will Sign Redi say of a mad dog which in the pervertion of all his senses and of all the ordinary functions of his body breaths after nothing but mischief and makes it his business to reduce into the same miserable condition all men he sees and even his own master as well as all animals he can come near and bite If then the mad Dog hath the power to make pass the same Idea's and the same imagination which have seized on him into all the creatures that he can come to bite and into man himself though of a very different soul and nature from his by doing no more than with the edge of his teeth to touch the superfice of the skin and that through his coaths that may retain and wipe off all the foam adhering to the teeth and lyable to be accused of having a hand in the mischief as is very well observ'd by Van Helmont in the same Chapter If I say this dog hath the power of communicating his evil to all sorts of animals from one to another without a limit and without excepting any kind Why should he think it incredible that a Viper is able by her biting to carry her enraged spirits into the bodies of such men and other animals as she can light upon That these spirits are capable to kill the animal bitten and that they effect this by the perturbation and corruption they introduce into the whole mass of blood forasmuch as they do manifestly hinder its circulation and the communication of the natural spirits that were wont to be conveyed into all the parts Considering withal that they do not extend themselves as far as those of the bite of a mad Dog seeing none of the Animals bitten by a Viper have any venom diffusible either by their biting or otherwise as long as they live and that they may be safely handled and even without danger eaten after their death I say besides that if it be true that a man who hath at all times the same spitle and the same teeth who hath them not pointed nor shaped like those of a Viper is capable to introduce the Gangrene and to cause death it self by a bite made by him in a rage whereas another and longer bite made by the same man not enraged is not accompanied with any ill accident and is healed like a simple wound This being true I say we ought to think it neither strange nor impossible that a Viper which hath long and piercing teeth and which shews the force of her being vexed by the nimbleness of her biting should be able by biting when enraged to make animals feel the mortal effects of her vexed spirits What shall we say of the pricking of a Tarantula how slight soever shall we declare it to be exempt from the idea and imagination of this little animal since it impresses it so strongly and differently upon persons that have been pricked therewith insomuch that it perverts in part the senses and spirits conforms them to his stirring and skipping nature and constrains them at certain and set times to continual dancing for several days and which having left a contumacious leaven of the same idea's faileth not to produce the same effects every year and if you may believe Authors as long as the Tarantula liveth and until the same idea's be extinct by its death And though I doubt not but that Sign Redi hath seen very many examples of persons pricked by Tarantula's there being store of them in Italy yet I shall not forbear here to recite that of a Neapolitan Souldier who hath been these four years among the French infantry This Souldier whom his Camarads call'd Tarante because he had been pricked by a Tarantula is still to this very day in the Royal Regiment of Roussillon He never failed to feel every year at a determinate time viz. about the 24 th of July the effects of that sting which he had receiv'd before he came into France He was always sure of the time about two or three days near it And when the ideas of the sting were found exalted to a degree capable to produce their effects he began to dance and desired to hear without interruption the Violins which the Officers of that Regiment caused to be play'd for him out of charity to which he answer'd continually keeping time very well without being tired for three days eating and drinking without interruption of his dance and being very impatient of any discontinuance of the play of the Violins and that the more if the intermission was any thing long for then he became altogether livid and fell into grievous swoundings He pleased himself whilst he danced to have in his hands several naked swords one after another to see about him many Looking-glasses to behold himself in them dancing to be environed with much people and that he might hinder them from going away to take from them their Gloves Ribbons and such other things being very careful to keep all he had taken from them unto the fourth day which being come his eagerness to dance abated and at length quite ceased he remembring all he had done and knowing all that were about him to every one of whom he rendred very exactly and without any mistake all he had taken from them though he had to do with a thousand people After which time he pass'd the remainder of that