CURIOUS ANTIPATHIES.

Evening Post, Volume XLVIII, Issue 66, 15 September 1894, Page 1 (Supplement)

CURIOUS ANTIPATHIES.

Amatus Lesitanus relates the case of a monk who would faint on seeing a rose, and who never quitted his cell at the monastery while that flower was blooming. Orfila, a less questionable authority, tell us of how Vincent, the great painter, would swoon upon going suddenly into - a room in which roses were blooming, even though he did not see them. ■ Valtaid tells of an army officer who was frequently thrown into violent convulsions by coming in contact with the little flower known as the pink. Orfila, our authority on the case of Vincent, the painter, above related, also tells of the case of a lady, forty-six years of age, hale and hearty, who, if present when linseed was being boiled for any purpose, would be seized with violent fits of coughing, swelling of the face, and partial loss of reason for the ensuing twenty-four hours. Writing of these peculiar antipathies and aversions, Montague remarks that he has known men of undoubted

J courage who would much rather face a shower of cannon balls than look at an apple. In Zimmerman's writings there is an account of a lady who could not bear to touch either silk or satin, and would almost faint if by accident she should happen to touch the velvety skin of a peach. Boyle records the case of a man who would faint upon hearing the "swish " of a broom across the floor, and of another with a natural abhorrence of honey. Hippocrates of old tells of one Nicanor who would always swoon at hearing the sound of a fluto. Bacon, the great Englishman, could not bear to see a lunar eclipse, and always completely collapsed upon such occasions ; and Vaughelm, who had killed hundreds of >vild boars, would faint if he but got a glimpse of a roasted pig.