Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 8.djvu/106

 NOTES ' AND QUERIES. [9 th s. vm. AUG. 3, 1901.

Such a motto was well chosen for a periodical undertaking to reply to a rariety of ques- tionsthat it would cultivate the Muses, and that its author was qualified to practise the healing art. There is, indeed, unmistakable evidence that the society whose members answered the queries addressed to the British Apollo must have included one or more mem- bers of the medical faculty.

There were several leading physicians at this period : Radcliffe, Sloane, Mead, Arbuth- not, and Garth. The last is quoted in one of the medical replies. He is best known as the author of 4 The Dispensary,' a poem in six cantos ; and he also published a transla- tion, by himself and others, including Addison, of Ovid's ' Metamorphoses.' Observing the quadruple nature of his accomplishments as a physician, a poet, a classical scholar, and a wit, it is difficult to resist the suspicion that he may have been one of the authors of the British Apollo.

Of the physicians named, Dr. John Arbuthnot is one to attract attention. He was one of the greatest wits of the period, and the most learned man of the galaxy of Queen Anne's reign. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society, physician to Queen Anne and Prince George of Denmark, and one of the members of the Scriblerus Club, which included Pope, Gay, Swift, and others. An earlv work was a translation, with additions, or Huygens's 'Treatise on the Laws of Chance,' which describes a method of calculating the chances in games of hazard. He was also author of ' An Essay on the Usefulness of Mathematical Learning.' In 1704 he read a paper before the Royal Society on the equality in the numbers of the sexes, from which he deduced that the practice of polygamy was contrary to nature. Those details only of his career are quoted that appear to have a bearing on the present subject.

The British Apollo discussed the evils of gaming with a correspondent, and also answered many arithmetical and mathemati- cal questions. As already stated, numerous medical questions are answered according to the scientific knowledge of the times. Perhaps, of those marking a physician's technical knowledge, may be mentioned one recommending " the works of Dr. Sydenham, Monsieur Blegny, the last edition, and Mon- sieur Blankard " (vol. iii. p. 862, 1740), for the special reference of a practitioner inquiring for information on a certain disease. No ordinary bookseller's hack could have given the reply to the query on superfcetation to be found in vol. iii. p. 565, The replies concerning the Hungarian

Twins* are also marked by professional knowledge. These twins, named Helen and Judith, are referred to by Steele in the Tatler of 10 January, 1709. They were born in 1701, and were exhibited at Charing Cross and elsewhere in London when seven years of age, and during the publication of the British Apollo. They resembled the Siamese Twins and the Two-Headed Nightingale of modern times. In the course of their description the British Apollo quotes an extract by Schenkius from Munster's 'Cosmography' of a similar birth at Worms, and also notes that Pareus in his medical works describes many stranger monstrosities than that referred to. Apollo is also called upon to give his opinion whether each has a soul of her own, or there is one common to both. Must they die together? Should one commit a crime worthy of death, how should it be punished 1 Is it lawful for them to marry 1 Could a man marry the twins and not be guilty of bigamy 1 Should they live to be women, is it possible for them to bear children ? and other questions.

Whether suggested by these queries and their answers in the British Apollo, or other- wise, some of the complications likely to arise from the marriage of the twins were worked out in an amusing manner by Dr. Arbuthnot in the * Memoirs of the Extraordinary Life, Works, and Discoveries of Martinus Scri- blerus' (Pope's Works, Dodsley's edition, 1742). This formed part of a scheme for a

twenty-two years, and died in a convent at St. Petersburg. The Scots Twins (both males), who lived in the beginning of the sixteenth century, and are mentioned by Buchanan, Lindsay of Pit- scottie, and James Howell (' Epistolae Ho-Elianse,' 1647), attained twenty-eight years. The Siamese Twins died at the ripe age of sixty-three years. Chang and Eng were married to an American clergyman's two daughters, but family jars being of too frequent occurrence, the wives were accom- modated with separate houses, in which the hus- bands spent a w r eek alternately. This curious com- bination of something suspiciously like polygamy and polyandry would no doubt have provoked the satirical wit of Dr. Arbuthnot. The Sardinian Twins, Rita-Christina, born in 1829, lived only about eight months. William Lithgow, the famous Scots traveller, when visiting the Isle of Lesina in the Adriatic in 1609, was shown a child with one pair of legs, but two bodies above the thighs, the one being behind the other. They lived for only a little more than a month. The Turkish Spy (1684- 1693) describes twins of similar anatomy born at Weerteed, near Ardenburg, in the Low Countries. Chrissy-Milly, the negress twins, or Two-Headed Nightingale, were bridesmaids at the marriage of the gigantic couple Capt. Bates and Miss Swan in London in 1871, arid are still alive. The latest specimens of such curiosities are the Chinese Twins lately appearing among Barnum & Bailey's freaks.
 * The Hungarian Twins attained the age of