SOME HISTORICAL ANTIPATHIES.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume IX, Issue 19, 7 May 1892, Page 480

SOME HISTORICAL ANTIPATHIES.

‘ I like to see cats about; but if one rubs against my flesh it almost sends me into fits, and nothing could make me touch one voluntarily,’ remarked a young lady recently. • Stuff and nonsense !' said one of her listeners, ‘ I’ve no patience with such antipathies.’ Many people take the same view of these peculiar dislikes, but history records some strange instances, of pet aversions which seem to have a foundation in more than ‘ stuff and nonsense.’

The celebrated Erasmus, although a native of Rotterdam, had such an aversion to fish that the smell of it threw him into a fever. Ambrose Pare had a patient who could never see an eel without faintfng ; and another who would fall into convulsions at the sight of a carp. Joseph Scaliger and others could never drink milk. Gardan was disgusted at the sight of eggs. A king of Poland and a secretary of France bled at the nose when they looked at apples. Henry 111 of France and many others had a great aversion to cats, mice and spiders. A great huntsman in Hanover, who would valiantly attack a wild boar, always fainted away at the sight of a roasted pig. Amatus Lusitanus knew a person who fainted whenever he saw a rose, and hence always kept his house when they were in bloom. Scaliger mentions a similar case in regard to lilies, and Bayle about honey. Bayle himself turned pale at seeing water cresses. Tycho-Brahe fainted at the sight of a fox, and Marshal d’Albret at the sight of .a pig. A lady, wonderful enough, could not endure the feel of silk or satin. A man, not so strangely, was known to faint whenever he heard a servant sweeping, Vicanor swooned whenever he heard a bagpipe, Bayle fainted at the sound of splashing water.