[274] Some also may with equal propriety have called it _sandyx_;
and I am of opinion that under this name we are to understand our
madder, at least in a passage of Virgil, Eclogue iv. 45, where he
says, “Sponte sua sandyx pascentes vestiet agnos.” As the wool of the
sheep became red by eating the madder which grew in the fields, it
could be immediately manufactured, without dyeing it artificially. We
manufacture the wool of our brown sheep in its natural colour, and this
was done also by the ancients. Cloths of this kind were the _panni
nativi coloris_, as they are called by Pliny, xxxvi. 7; and the words
of Martial, xiv. 133, allude to a dress made of such cloth:
Non est lana mihi mendax, nec mutor aëno,
... me mea tinxit ovis.
I shall here take occasion to remark, that the word _lutum_, in
the line preceding the above passage of Virgil, must be translated
_yellow-weed_, and not _woad_. The former, _Reseda luteola_, dyes
yellow; but the latter, _Isatis_, dyes blue. _Lutum_, however, in
Cæsar De bello Gallico, v. 14, seems to have been _woad_: “Omnes
se Britanni luteo inficiunt, quod et cæruleum efficit colorem.” It
appears, therefore, that both names were liable to be confounded in the
Latin, as they are in the German; unless Davis be right, who, instead
of _luteo_, reads _vitro_. That _sandyx_, in Virgil, signifies a plant
rather than a mineral, is to me far more probable. The author speaks of
plants which the sheep ate while feeding (_pascentes_); and both the
above-mentioned dye-plants, yellow-weed and woad, grow wild in Italy.
The opinion of Pliny, who understood the passage so, is not to be
despised; and therefore the poetical account, that the pasture dyed the
wool, is not altogether without foundation; especially as not only the
roots, but also the leaves of madder, communicate a colour to the solid
parts of animal bodies. I will however allow that most people readily
fall into the error of being led away by imagination; and often suppose
that they find in passages of ancient authors more than others can
discover, or perhaps even than they contain.
[275] Lib. xxiv. 9, p. 341.
[276] The first account of this circumstance may be found in the
Philosophical Transactions, vol. xxxix. n. 442, p. 287; n. 443, p. 299.
Among the principal experiments made on this subject, are those of
the Italian Matth. Bazanus, in Comment. Bononiens. and of J. H. Benj.
Böhmer, in a dissertation entitled Radicis Rubiæ tinctorum effectus in
Corpore Animali, Lips. 1751. Other works and observations relative to
this singularity are mentioned in Haller’s Elementa Physiologiæ, v. p.
327.
[277] That the _Rubia_ colours the milk has been denied by many, who
are mentioned in Haller’s Physiol. viii. p. 328. Young, in his Treatise
De Lacte, says only that it has no effect on carnivorous animals.
Being once engaged in making experiments on the madder dye, I gave
the plant to a cow for several days, and I found that the milk became
reddish and streaked with veins which were of a darker colour than the
other parts. That well-known farmer, Gugenmus, gave the madder-plant,
formed into hay, to his cows, who ate it readily. Their milk was
somewhat reddish, and the butter and cheese acquired by these means
in winter an agreeable colour. Perhaps the effects do not take place
when the animals get other food at the same time. Or may not the state
of their health occasion some difference? This much is certain, that
_Chelidonium_ (swallow-wort) makes the milk of cows that are weak
appear bloody, while the same effect does not follow, or at least
immediately, in those that are strong. Ruellius, De Natura Stirpium,
Basiliæ, 1543, fol. p. 572, says of the Rubia, “Folia capillum
tingunt.” If he meant that the hair became red by eating the leaves, he
committed a mistake.
[278] Dissertatio de Vita Nuptiisque Plantarum. Lipsiæ, 1741, p. 11.
[279] I do not know that any one ever remarked human bones to have been
dyed by madder, though the proposal for using the roots of it against
the rachitis might have given occasion to make observations on that
subject. See G. L. Hansen, Diss. de Rachitide. Gottingæ, 1762, p. 36.
Professor Arnemann, who has a very numerous and valuable collection of
skeletons, and who carefully examined many of the like kind during his
travels, assured me that he never saw any bones that had been dyed by
madder in the human body.
[280] On Vegetable Substances, by the Society for the Diffusion of
Useful Knowledge.