Athothis : a satire on modern medicine / by Thomas C. Minor.

" Many species of birds and animals were served in my time," answered Athothis ; " for instance, the hawk, heron, lapwing, swallow, crane, etc. Yet we Nile dwell- ers were passionately fond of eggs; and the first artificial incubators were the sun-heated hatching-ovens of Egypt. We learned this wisdom from the ostrich, which deposits its eggs in the warm sand. As articles of diet we avoided, like modern Hindoos and Jews, the flesh of all carnivorous and insectivorous birds. You have probably noted the similarity in the hygienic precepts, formulated in the book of Leviticus and the Code of Menu. Moses declared that the eagle, osprey, vulture, kite, raven, owl, nighthawk, swan, pelican, stork, heron, lapwing, bat, etc., were entirely unfit for human food ; and you must admit that even the Christian masses share in this belief and prejudice at the present day. As for animals, my people avoided eating the canidce andfelidce. With us the dog was typical of Sirius, the barker, whose appearance in the heavens was an unfailing omen that the annual over- flow of the Nile had commenced. The cat was sacred to the moon, and during the first dynasty, as now, repeated its midnight prayers to the lunar deities. The weasel was also affected by moonlight, and its liver was said to contract and expand at certain lunar periods. As for rats, they were a pest in Egypt, and were hated by every good Nile dweller, for they were enemies of the Sun- god Ra. The prejudices derived by Moses from the Egyptians are the same as those noted among the Hin- doos, for the ' rules of Menu' assert: 'Let any twice born man avoid carnivorous birds, and such as live in towns, and animals with uncloven hoofs, except those allowed by the Yedas. The sparrow and the plover, the Brah- 11