ANIMAL " MATERIA MEDICA."
[TO 27111 EDITOR Or THE " SPECTATOR.") SIE,""It may perhaps interest you to know that the belief— probably well founded—that animals know instinctively the proper remedies for their diseases, is ingeniously used by Giovan Batista Gelli in his " Circe," written in the middle of the sixteenth century. Ulysses, with Circe's permission, endeavours to persuade several of those whom the enchantress has transformed into beasts, to consent to resume their human shape, without much success. Among them, he has a long conversation with a serpent, who, when he was a man, was a physician. The serpent prefers the condition of the lower animals, because they (he says) are guided by nature to take such food as is suitable for them, and in not more than sufficient quantity, and also to seek the proper remedy when they are sick. Ulysses urges that physicians have many remedies for every disease; to which the serpent retorts that they try many remedies because they do not know the true one. If the right remedy were known, there would be only one for each disease.—I am, Sir, &c., Rochester, July 23rd. S. CHEE THIN.
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