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BOLOGNA STONE
The Bologna stone, in consequence of its property of shining in the dark, which was observed by accident, has given rise to many laborious researches and experiments, and to writings almost without number, which have not so much enlarged our knowledge of light, as proved that all the hypotheses hitherto offered by philosophers for explaining it, if not entirely false, are at least insufficient and uncertain. The history of this stone, therefore, though not unknown, deserves to be here repeated, especially as many parts of it require to be rectified.
As a complete description of it would be superfluous to mineralogists, it may be sufficient to remark, that this kind of stone is found in plates or single pieces, which in general are more or less of a conical form, have a dirty white or semi-transparent water-colour, and a foliaceous structure, which is observed on its being broken, though the stone, considered in another direction, appears to be fibrous. The surface of single pieces is uneven. But what distinguishes this species from the gypseous spars, to which it bears the greatest resemblance, is its extraordinary weight; and this it has in common with all the varieties of heavy spar, to which, according to its component parts, it belongs.
This stone is found on different eminences around Bologna, and particularly on the hill of Paderno, which is situated at the distance of about a German mile from the city, loose, and scattered about between gypseous stones, in a marly earth, some of which is still seen adhering to pieces in my possession. It is found most readily after heavy rains, particularly in the streams which run down the sides of the hill; and it is there collected by persons who sell it at Bologna. In the year 1730, when Keysler was there, a pound of it could be purchased for a paolo1042.
I shall take this opportunity of remarking, that the Bologna stone, according to its external characteristics, heaviness and hardness excepted, has a great similarity to those gypseous spars or selenites which were first described by Lehman1043, and at the time perhaps by him alone; according to whose account, it is mentioned also by Vogel1044 and by Wallerius1045, under the name of Selenites globosus: on the other hand, it has not been mentioned by modern mineralogists under any particular appellation. In the county of Mansfeld it is found in detached masses or single pieces, more or less conical; and, to judge from the earth purposely left on the specimens in my possession, which were picked up in the neighbourhood of Sangershausen, in a yellowish-red sandy clay. The pieces, many of which are round balls, two or three inches in diameter, and others longish rolls, have, externally as well as internally, a grayish colour, appear foliated on the fracture, or seem to consist of cuneiform radii, which meet in the centre of the ball. Many are hollow in the inside; and in this case the ends of the cunei or needles, which have between them a granulated gypsum mixed with a little clay, project into the cavity. Lehman says that the leaves, when placed in a heated stove, emit a hesperus, that is, shine; and this circumstance made Wallerius doubtful whether this selenite did not belong to the fluor-spars; but it is undoubtedly a sulphate of baryta. When the crude stone is put into acids, a very faint effervescence is sometimes observed, arising from foreign matters; but when burnt pieces are employed, this effect is much stronger. It does not crack or break in the fire; but if exposed only a short time to a red heat, it becomes totally opake, whiter, and void of all lustre; it is also more friable, and crumbles to dust in water, exactly in the same manner as bastard lapis specularis. The luminous appearance in a warm stove I did not observe in the few pieces which I subjected to experiment. I was desirous to make this remark, because the mineralogists before-mentioned place globular selenite along with the Bologna stone, to which however it does not belong.
To render it capable of shining in the dark, a piece particularly heavy, foliaceous and pure, must be selected1046. After being made red-hot, it is pounded and reduced to a fine powder, which, by means of a solution of gum-tragacanth, is converted into a kind of paste, and formed into small cakes. When these are dried, they are brought to a state of ignition between coals, and then suffered to cool; after which they are preserved from the air and moisture in a close vessel. If one of these cakes be exposed a few minutes to the light, and then carried into a dark place, it will shine like a burning coal. It appears therefore to attract the light, or to be as it were a light-magnet. This power of emitting light becomes lost in the course of time; but it may be restored at first by heating, and afterwards by exposure again to ignition. I shall pass over the rules necessary to be observed in the numerous experiments made with this stone, as well as the consequences deduced from them. The former may be found in works on chemistry, and the latter in those on natural philosophy.
All the Italian writers who first describe this remarkable phænomenon give the following account of the discovery. At the beginning of the seventeenth century there was at Bologna a shoemaker, who, having quitted his trade, applied himself to chemical labours, and particularly to the art of gold-making. I do not know whether those who have made the very just remark, that many shoemakers go beyond their last into the province of other arts or sciences, have mentioned among the already numerous instances this shoemaker of Bologna, whose name was Vincentius Casciorolus; but he certainly deserves a niche in the temple of fame, because it may with truth be said of him, that he kindled up a light to the learned; whereas the shoemaker of Görlitz, Jacob Behmen, darkened or extinguished the existing light to the learned as well as the unlearned, so that the minds of many are still left in obscurity.
In the year 1602 Casciorolus came to Scipio Begatello of Bologna, who at that time was particularly well known by his attachment to the art of gold-making, and showed him this stone, under the mystical name of lapis solaris, which, on account of its weight and the sulphur it contained, as well as of its attracting the golden light of the sun, seemed to be fit for converting the more ignoble metals into gold, the sol of the alchemists. He showed it also to J. A. Maginus, the professor of mathematics; and the latter, who in all probability was no adept, sent both the natural and prepared stones to princes and learned men, and perhaps contributed more than any other person to make known this singular discovery1047.
It however appears as if the Italian chemists concealed the preparation of this stone, or were not all acquainted with it. It was always said to be a secret known only to a few individuals in Bologna. Misson, who was there in the year 1690, asserts that Bartholomew Zanichelli was the only person at that time in possession of it. In 1666 it was announced in the Philosophical Transactions1048, that a clergyman, who exclusively possessed the art, had died, without communicating it to any one. Niceron1049, Lemery1050, and many others say, that Homberg, during his residence at Bologna, had again discovered it, after many experiments; and that Lemery learned it from him and made it publicly known.
This however cannot be altogether true; for in the year 1622, P. Potier, or Poterius, a French chemist, who lived at Bologna, taught the preparation of it in his work already quoted, as did Kircher1051 in 1641, and the jesuit Casati1052 in 1686; though the process then employed was indeed not the best or most convenient; the proper method being first found out, after many accurate experiments, by the German chemist Marggraf, who showed also how similar light-magnets or luminous stones can be prepared from most of the heavy spars and fluor-spars1053.
But even at present, those who prepare this stone for sale at Bologna talk in such a manner as if the secret were known to them alone. This was the case, in 1771, with the director of the institute in that city1054. Keysler purchased a piece, as large as a dried fig pressed flat, for about two or three paoli.
I shall embrace this opportunity of bringing to recollection, from De Thou’s history of his own times, a relation which indeed contains many things incredible, and in all probability exaggerated, yet seems to be too well confirmed to be altogether rejected as false. If this be admitted, it may then be conjectured that, about the year 1550, either the Bologna stone, or what at present is called phosphorus and pyrophorus, was known to a few individuals. In the above year, when Henry II. king of France made his solemn entrance into the town of Boulogne, on its restoration by the English, a stone from India, which was not hard, which had a luminous appearance like fire, and which could not be touched without danger, was presented to him by a stranger. For the truth of this account De Thou refers to the testimony of J. Pipin, in a letter to Ant. Mizaud, who asserts that he himself saw the stone. Morhof, who seems inclined to consider this stone as that of the philosophers1055, remarks that this passage is found in the first Paris edition in octavo, and in the Frankfort re-impressions, both in folio and octavo; but not in the other editions. He quotes also the words from the letter to Mizaud, which must be printed somewhere, but in what work I do not know. It appears that the historian inserted it almost without any change.
[We may take this opportunity of describing one or two other pyrophori: thus Canton’s pyrophorus is prepared by heating a mixture of three parts of sifted calcined oyster-shells with one part of flowers of sulphur to an intense heat for one hour; Homberg’s, by mixing equal weights of alum and brown sugar, and stirring the mixture over the fire in an iron ladle until quite dry; it is then put into an earthenware or coated glass bottle and heated red-hot as long as a flame appears at the mouth; it is then removed, carefully stopped and suffered to cool. The black powder which it contains becomes glowing hot when exposed for a few minutes to the air.]
FOUNDLING HOSPITALS
Child-murder is so unnatural a crime, that mankind can be brought to the commission of it only by the greatest desperation, for which unfortunately there is too much cause. To parents who are just able by incessant labour to procure those things indispensably necessary to support life, the birth of every child increases the fear of starving or of being reduced to beggary. Those who have secured to them a scanty subsistence, but who live amidst the torments of slavery, wish to the new-born child, which at any rate is doomed to death, a speedy dissolution, before it can know that it has had the misfortune to be brought into the world, in order that they may not bequeath to it their poverty. A young female who has acquired by education the most delicate sense of honour and shame, finds herself, on the birth of an illegitimate child, exposed at once to the utmost disgrace and contempt. Her misfortune, though viewed with an eye of pity by the compassionate, excites the hatred of the greater part of her relations and friends, by whom she was before loved and respected, and who endeavoured to render her happy; and often amidst the most poignant feelings, and an agitation bordering on madness, she sees no other means of saving her honour than the total concealment of her error by destroying the child: a resolution which, notwithstanding the vigilance of the laws, is too often attended with success. A young woman who at this moment finds herself suddenly despised and neglected by her admirer, who gained her affections by the most powerful of all means, love and confidence, and obtained from her what she can never recover, is often induced, in a fit of despair, to vent her fury on the consequences of her seduction – the child of her seducer.
These misfortunes of mankind are among the disadvantages attending civilised society, which always render marriage more difficult as well as burthensome, and thereby make it impossible to gratify one of the most powerful impulses of nature. In the savage state, parents require no more for themselves and their children than what they can easily obtain. The inhabitants of Terra del Fuego, who live at the greatest distance from all culture, find shell-fish and esculent plants sufficient to appease their hunger; never are their thoughts disturbed by care for the maintenance of a child. The black slaves in St. Domingo say, that “it is only the white man who begs;” and indeed in this they are right1056. Beggars exist only where they are established by religion and governments which command them to be fed. But the transition from living by one’s own industry to beggary is, in consequence of the shame attending it, most painful and insupportable to those who with the greatest exertion and waste of strength, amidst the privation of every comfort, are exposed with their children to the horrors of famine. On the other hand, to those who, in our states, are obliged to eat the bread of mendicity, children are a blessing; because as long as they are incapable of running alone, they increase their alms by exciting greater compassion, and afterwards by begging in the streets1057.
It is not therefore poverty already reduced to the state of beggary, but the dread of being at length overwhelmed notwithstanding every exertion to swim against the stream, that occasions child-murder. The same is the effect of slavery, which excludes the possibility of even hoping for a change to a better condition. The serfs of a hard-hearted land-proprietor, who however acted according to the established laws, entered into a resolution to get no children, that they might not be under the necessity of putting any of them to death1058. The sense of honour becomes stronger the more the manners approach towards a certain degree of refinement; and it is proved that it is this cause which, in most instances, gives rise to child-murder. In vain have legislators endeavoured to prevent this crime by capital punishment, more cruel than the crime itself. But indeed it is difficult, or rather impossible, to proportion punishment to delinquency or the just degree of guilt.
It needs excite no wonder that many states where the Christian religion was not introduced, and even the Jewish, made no law against child-murder, though the atrocity of it was never denied1059. To render this crime less frequent, men fell upon the way of exposing children, in the hope that they might be found by benevolent persons, who would educate and maintain them. Parents imagined that in this manner less violence was offered to humanity, and they could more easily be induced to resign their children to chance than to become their murderers. They consoled themselves with the possibility, proved by various examples, that the exposed children might be saved, and be more fortunate than their parents1060. To promote this, they deposited them in places where a great many people might be expected soon to pass, and where the child would consequently be found before it should perish by cold and hunger or be devoured by ravenous animals.
With this view they made choice of the market-places, temples, places where two or more highways met, wells, the banks of rivers or the sea-shore, from which water was brought or which were the usual places of bathing; and even, when the children were placed in the water, means were contrived that they should at any rate float some time without being injured. For this purpose they were placed in small chests, trays, or close baskets, or wrapped up in waterproof bandages1061. At Athens children were commonly exposed in that place called cynosarges, which was one of the gymnasia. At Rome the most usual place was that pillar called columna lactaria, which stood in the market where kitchen vegetables were sold1062.
When the exposure of children in civilised states began to be condemned as unlawful, it was however suffered to pass unpunished, even under the first Christian emperors. Legislators only endeavoured by regulations of every kind to render it less common, and to provide for the maintenance of children; until at last, through horror at the cruelty of it, but without thinking of the causes or attempting to remove them, they conceived the unfortunate idea, in order to guard against this crime, of declaring it to be murder, and punishing it as such. It became then much safer for parents to bury children, or to throw them into the sea, than to run the chance of exposing themselves to the utmost shame and punishment, when they were searched out and discovered. In Greece, but not at Thebes in Bœotia1063, the exposure of children was permitted and common, and therefore many of the Greek historians mention the contrary as a foreign but meritorious custom. Strabo1064, on this account, praises the Egyptians, and Ælian1065 extols the laws of the Thebans against the killing and exposing of children. This cruel practice was equally common at Rome. Romulus however, who was himself a foundling, endeavoured to restrain it, and his order was confirmed in the twelve tables; but as population, luxury, scarcity, and dissipation increased, it became customary for those who had more children than they wished, to expose some of them. Many deposited with them rings and other costly ornaments; and those who were poorer, trinkets of little value, partly to entice people to receive the children, and partly that, by describing these appendages, when the children were grown up, or their own circumstances had become better, they might be able to recover them.
Even at present, in many places, the children carried to foundling hospitals are accompanied by tokens, which are carefully preserved, as is the case in the Spedale degl’ Innocenti at Florence, where a piece of lead imprinted with a number is hung round the neck of each babe, in such a manner that it cannot be easily removed, and occasions no inconvenience in the wearing. By these means one can obtain information there, even at a late period, in regard to each child1066.
It is mentioned by Tacitus1067, as a circumstance deviating from the Roman manners, that the old Germans considered child-murder as a crime; and where he speaks of the peculiarities of the Jews, he does not fail to relate the same thing of them1068. Dionysius of Halicarnassus bestows the like praise on the Aborigines1069.
When the morals of mankind began to be improved under the influence of Christianity, its followers endeavoured by every means in their power to banish from among them this cruelty, on account of which they so bitterly reproached the Romans1070. The first Christian emperors, however, did not venture to forbid it as a crime; though Constantine called exposure a kind of murder, and wisely exerted himself to remove the causes of it. By an order issued in the year 331, he endeavoured to deter parents from it, as he there deprived them of all hope of being able to claim or recover exposed children, even if they should make good the expenses incurred by those who had maintained them1071. This cruel practice was nevertheless continued for a long time after. Lactantius1072, who lived under the reign of Constantine, describes it as a still prevailing remnant of barbarity; and Julius Firmicus, who wrote about the year 336, considered it worth his while to give particular instructions for casting the nativity of foundlings1073. The exposure of children was not completely prohibited till the time of Valentinian, Valens and Gratian, in the last half of the fourth century1074.
One cannot, without reluctance, believe that this barbarous practice was so long permitted, or remained unpunished, in civilised states; but it must be mentioned, to the honour of antiquity, that in many countries the care of government was directed at an early period to exposed children. Not only were means pursued in Greece and Rome to encourage the reception and educating of foundlings, by assigning them as property to those who took them under their protection; but it was also made a law, that foundlings who were not received by private persons should be educated at the public expense. At Thebes, where, as already observed, child-murder and the exposure of children were forbidden, parents in needy circumstances were desired to carry their new-born children to the government, and the latter committed them into the hands of those who engaged to take the best care of them for the least money. In the like manner, at present, foundlings are placed with nurses to be maintained at the cheapest rate; but with this difference, that at Thebes the children became slaves for life to those by whom they were educated, whereas in our times, when they grow up they are free people and learn to gain a livelihood for themselves.
The humane decrees of the emperor Constantine the Great, both for Italy and Africa, the first in the year 315, and the second in 322, deserve here to be mentioned. The governments in those countries were enjoined to prevent the murder, sale, giving in pawn, or the exposure of children, by taking care that parents who were too poor to educate their offspring, should receive from the public treasury or magazines, or from the emperor’s privy purse, as we say at present, food, clothing and other necessaries; and as new-born children required immediate attention, that this should be done without any delay1075.
The conjecture of Gothofredus, that the emperor was induced to adopt these measures by the urgent representation of Lactantius, appears to me highly probable. This writer, from the year 317, had been tutor to prince Crispus, and had before dedicated or transmitted to the emperor his book, wherein he painted, in glowing colours, the detestable practice of parents then prevalent, which gave rise to the greatest disorders; and on that account he offered them the specious advice not to beget more children than they were able to maintain. I am inclined to think that this advice did not much please the emperor, who was obliged to keep on foot a numerous army; and as it could not be very agreeable to many married persons, he comprehended this recommendation of prudence or moderation among those calamities from which he was desirous to preserve parents by the above decrees.
After these imperial orders, children remained with their parents, and were educated by them; but it appears that the cities of Athens and Rome had, at an early period, public orphan-houses, in which children were educated at the public expense. What has been already said of the gymnasium called cynosarges may serve as a proof; and Festus and Victor make it still more certain that there was an institution of this kind at the columna lactaria. At any rate there can be no doubt that, in the sixth century, there were houses at Rome for the reception of deserted children.
The emperor Justinian, who by a particular law, in the year 529, declared foundlings to be free, and forbade those by whom they were received and educated to treat them and detain them as slaves1076, often introduces these establishments, under the appellation of brephotrophium, in his laws respecting donations to churches and other beneficent institutions1077. This word, composed of the Greek term brephos a child, and trepho to educate, seems to show that houses of this kind were established at an earlier period in the cities of Greece, and were only imitated at Rome; though of this I have as yet found no proof. Du Cange and Stephen have both introduced the word in their Greek dictionaries, but refer only to the Justinian code. Gesner, in Stephen’s lexicon, makes a distinction between brephotrophium and curotrophium; the latter, it is said, means a house in which grown-up and not new-born children are educated, and the same thing is repeated in the same words in Calvini Lexicon Juridicum. Both assert that this word, formed from κοῦρος or κόρος, puer, is used by Justinian, but does not occur in the book of laws, nor is used by Brisson. It is not to be found in the dictionary of Basle nor in Stephen’s Greek Lexicon, but both these have the word κουροτρόφος, which indeed occurs in Homer and in Hesiod. As Calvin and Gesner refer to Hottoman, I am inclined to think that the word was coined by him, especially as Gesner in the Thesaurus of Faber says, “Curotrophium potest dici domus alendis parvulis destinata.”
It is rather astonishing that no mention of the oldest institutions of this kind, or of their establishment, is to be found in the works of the ancients. There is reason however to conjecture, that as long as the sale of children and the slavery of foundlings were permitted, the number of those maintained at the public expense could not be very great. But respecting the brephotrophia, even under the later Christian emperors, nothing is said to be found that can give us any idea of the manner in which they were regulated; nothing in regard to the place from which the nurses were procured, or how food and clothing were provided for the children, and as little in regard to the number of children reared in these benevolent institutions who lived to become old.
It might be satisfactory to know, whether the oldest institutions of this kind were more fortunate in answering the object of their establishment than our expensive orphan-houses are at present.
The great difficulties which attend institutions of this kind are, no doubt, the chief cause why mention of them so seldom occurs during the later centuries, in which the foundation of hospitals, and donations to these and other pious establishments, were so numerous; they are however found so often, that it is impossible to consider them as an invention of modern times. I shall here point out those instances which have hitherto occurred to me; but must first observe, that many more will be found in perusing the lives of saints, and the history of convents, religious orders, churches and towns. Wherever they are mentioned, they are always under the inspection of the clergy.
The oldest establishment for orphans in Germany, which I can mention at present, is that at Triers, in the eighth, or seventh, or even sixth century; the account of it is to be found in the life of St. Goar, who lived at Triers under Childebert, consequently in the last half of the sixth century. His historians or panegyrists relate that, being accused before archbishop Rusticus of many misdemeanours, as a proof of his innocence he hung up his hood upon one of the sun’s rays, which entered his cell, as if upon a nail, and that his enemies were still so incredulous as to consider him guilty. The archbishop then, continue they, to whom a new-born child, which had been deposited in the marble conch before the church-door, had been brought, asked him, as a proof of his sanctity, whether he could tell the father of it; upon which Goar, after a most fervent prayer, commanded the child, in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, to declare who were its parents. The child, with a clear voice, immediately named its mother, and also its father, the archbishop himself, who in consequence was deprived of his dignity1078.
The small portion of truth contained in this ridiculous story is, that, at the time when the author wrote, there was an establishment for foundlings at the church of Triers; that the children were deposited in a marble conch placed before the church; that they were received by poor people maintained in order to watch the church, and who were called matricarii, because they were matriculated in it, and by them carried immediately to the bishop, and that the child under his sanction was given to some person in the community who agreed to take care of it. These foster-parents were named nutricarii. It may be thence easily perceived, that there were then no orphan-houses properly so called, in which children are educated; but that the children, as is the case in our institutions for the poor, were given to others to be nursed, and in all probability the clergy paid to the nutricarii a certain sum from the alms destined for that purpose.
One of the lives which relates to the silly tale already mentioned was written by an author who, according to the opinion of Mabillon, lived at a period not much later than St. Goar. The other is by Wandelbart, who lived in the ninth century, and who refers for his authorities to old manuscripts and other documents, vetusta et perantiqua exemplaria. It may therefore with safety be asserted, that this establishment for foundlings existed at Triers in the eighth century. The annalists of Triers, indeed, do not mention any bishop named Rusticus who lived about that period; but no doubt needs be excited on that account, as this difficulty may be solved in more ways than one1079.
In the seventh century there were similar establishments at Anjou, or Angers, in France. St. Magnebodus, who was bishop of that place, where he died, and was buried in the church called at present Saint Mainbeuf, is praised in a very old life of him, never yet printed, for having caused several houses for the rearing of children to be erected1080.
In the following century, that is about the year 787, an arch-priest named Datheus, established at Milan, at his own expense, a foundling hospital, in order to put a stop to the crime of child-murder, which had been introduced, and of which he gives a very affecting account in the letter of foundation. With this view he purchased a house near the church, and issued an order that the foundlings (jactati) should be suckled in it by hired nurses, and educated for seven years. They were to be taught some handicraft; to be supplied in the establishment with food, clothing and shoes, and at the age of seven to be discharged as free-born1081. It deserves to be remarked, that the mothers of children carried to such establishments strewed salt between the swaddling-clothes, when they wished to announce that the child had not been baptized. This perhaps had a reference to the circumstance of new-born children being washed in salt water; but I conjecture that the salt thus interspersed was meant to denote that the child had not been washed, and much less baptized.
