Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 29.djvu/259

Rh their ends or edges were set in a line. This artistic trifle seemed, to me made for some special purpose. A whisper from a friend enlightened my wonderment—"A back-scratch." I caught at once. Now, I have read of a toy formerly common in England, which at fairs or upon occasions of a crowd, would be passed over the back of a rustic, when it made a noise like the tearing of cloth, and suggestive of a rent behind, to the poor man's dismay. This, too, was called a "back-scratch." But that was simply the vehicle of a bit of mischief. My lady's back-scratch was for use in that very much out-of-the-way place between the shoulder-blades. This handy implement, though an article of virtu, was in the line of luxury, although the amenities would hardly approve the indulgence before eyes polite.

The above reminds how gingerly and faulty the treatment of the word is by the lexicographers. One would think it only meant to abrade, lacerate, excoriate, whereas how common the usage by which it signifies to titillate with mild friction! The Latin expresses the action nicely, scabere cutem leviter ungue, which in good English is simply—to rub the skin lightly with one's nails. Pliny has aures pedibus, scratching the ears with the feet, which suggests the experience of that tourist in Italy who rode a mangy mare. The beast had a bad habit of stopping to scratch her ears, and, the hind-feet being used for that purpose, the thighs of the rider received all the benefit of the operation, which, like tickling with a brickbat, was too crude for real comfort. But the ungulates generally are bunglers at this trick, though not insensible to opportunity, as witness when our neighbor's cow got into the lawn, and, wild with delight, went tearing through the soft evergreens, our pretty arbor-vitæ trees, which was so much nicer than rubbing against a fence.

It behooves to confess that Nature has been a niggard in this matter unto man, having done less for him in this line than she has for the beasts that perish. "The paragon of animals" is the victim of irritation from eczema in a hundred forms and degrees. Though having already thrown a stone at the lexicographers, here goes another, for we must cite from memory that churlish dictionary-maker, Dr. Johnson, who wrote in the first edition of his dictionary, "—a grain used in England to feed horses; in Scotland, men." This was very unbecoming. But the food has much to do with the condition of the cuticle. Hence we put together the Scotsman's "oaten cakes" and the legend of the benevolent nobleman who set up scratching-posts in the streets of Edinburgh, and the canny benediction of each user of them, "God bless the Duke of Argyll!"

On the physical or rather physiological side of the question, a good deal might be said for this mild friction of the skin. Near the surface—that is, just under the scarf, or epidermis—the capillaries, almost microscopic blood-veins, abound in well-nigh infinite numbers. Each of these minute carriers or distributors of the crimson