The Sanguisuchello.
203
Chap. 4.]
Park found the negroes of Africa cupping with rams’ horns; and theShetlanders continue to use the same Instrument, having derived it fromtheir Scandinavian ancestors. Cupping was practiced by Hippocrates ,and cupping-instruments were the erfiblems of Greek and Roman phy-sicians.
The application of a reed or other natural tube, through which to suckliquids that cannot otherwise be reached, has always been known. Thedevice is one which in every age, boys as well as men acquire a know-ledge of intuitively, or as it were by instinct; nor does it indicate a greaterdegree of ingenuity than numerous contrivances of the lower animals—that of the raven for example, which Pliny has mentioned in the tenthbook of his Natural History . This bird, during a severe drought, seeinga vase near a sepulchre, flew to it to drink, but the small quantity ofwater it contained was too low to be reached. In this dilemma, stimula-ted by waut and thrown upon its own resources for invention, it soon de-vised an effectual mode of accomplishing its object—it picked up smallpebbles and dropped them into the vessel tili the water rose to the brim—an instance of sagacity fully equal to the application of a tube undersimilar circumstances by man.
As sucking tubes are atmospherie pumps in embryo, a notice of someapplications of them will form an appropriate introduction to the latter.They constituted part of the experimental apparatus of the old Greek Ple-nists and Yacuists; and were used by the Egyptians as siphons. Theywere, and still are, employed in Peru for drinking hot liquids, andwere anciently used by the laity in partaking of wine in the Eucharist .“Beatus Rhenanus upon Tertullian in the booke De Corona Militis, re-porteth that among the riches and treasures of the church of Mense, werecertain silver pypes by the which profane men, whom they call the laietie,sucked out of the challice in the holy supper.” 3 The device, if not ofmore distant origin, was perhaps designed in the darkages, as a check to the rüde communicants, who wouldnaturaily 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 tubeshas been retained. At the celebration of high mass at St.Denis, the deacon and sub-deacon suck wine out of thechalice by a chalumeau or tube of gold. [Dict. de Tre-voux. 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 heldby a deacon. The instrument, he remarks, correspondswith “ the ancient pugillaris, or tube mentioned by Car-dinal Bona in his treatise of things belonging to the liturgy,and of the leavened and unleavened bread-” b No. 78 is afigure of the sanguisuchello. It has three pipes, but themiddle or longest one is that by which the liquid is raised.The whole is of gold, highly ornamented, and enrichedwith a large emerald. One reason assigned for its use,is, that it is more seemly to suck the blood [wine] asthrough a vein, than to sup it.
The Peruvians make a tea or decoction of the ‘herb of Paraguay, ’
No. 78.
Sanguisuchello.
La Motraye’s Trav. i.