Paul Summers Young

  Between 1908 and 1912, Henrietta Swan Leavitt published a simple idea which settled the debate about the scale of the visible universe. The intrinsic luminosity of a variable star - a star which waxes and wanes - is related to the period of its fluctuation; which is to say, the interval between its maximum and minimum apparent luminosity tells you its actual temperature. Knowing that then allows you to calculate its distance. This clever, elegant observation allowed astronomers at Harvard to establish that some of the nebulae observable in the night sky were beyond the bounds of our own galaxy, galaxies in their own right. It established beyond doubt that our galaxy is not alone, one among many. Ptolemy finally died.  These variable stars are known as Cepheid Standard Candles. *  My father bought a copy of Gould and Cornell's 'Poltergeists' within a year or so of its publication in 1979, and I am grateful that he did. Admittedly, I read it far too young, and it terrified

This is the introduction I wrote to my transcription and edit of Joseph Glanvill's Saducismus Triumphatus; it will not be appearing in the printed edition, so I reproduce it here.  The book itself will be published by Holythorn Press at the end of March.  Introduction  This actually happened: a friend from the southern reaches of the Appalachia was telling me about her experiences with Hoodoo and the tent revival scene, and how she's seen people with her own eyes regurgitate nails and pins during an exorcism. This captured what I want to say about Joseph Glanvill's work and the persistence of the seventeenth-century so well; if you at all doubt what Glanvill and , and their various gentleman correspondents recount in Saducismus Triumphatus , you have only to join the Pentecostalist circuit in North Carolina. What happened then, happens now; context and interpretation vary, of course, but the heart of the thing, the phenomenon, is what it is. Glanvill never saw Saducismus Tr

  Confectio de Hiacyntho. Take of Jacinth, Red Coral, Bole Armenick, Earth of Lemnos*, of each half an ounce;  * Terra sigillata.  the berries of Kermes, the roots of Tormentil and Dictamni, Citron seeds husked, the seeds of Sorrel, Purslane, Saffron, Myrrh, Red Roses, all sorts of Sanders, Bone of a Stag's Heart, Hart's Horn, Ivory, of each four scruples; Sapphire, Emerald, Topaz, Pearls, Raw Silk, the leaves of Gold and Silver, of each two scruples; Camphire, Musk, Ambergris, of each five grains. With Syrup of Lemons, make them into a confection according to art.  It is a great cordial and cool, exceeding good in acute fevers and pestilencies; it mightily strengthens and cherishes the heart.  Never above half a dram is given at a time, very seldom so much; not because of its offensiveness, I suppose its chargableness.  Confectio Humain - Mesue. Take of Eyebright, two ounces; Fennel seeds, five drachms; Cloves, Cinnamon, Cubebs, Long Pepper, Mace, of each one drachm. Beat them

  Diacorallion - Coloniens. Take of Coral both White and Red, Bole Armenick, Dragon's Blood, of each one drachm; Pearls, half a drachm; wood of Aloes, Red Roses, Gum Tragacanth, Cinnamon, of each two scruples; White and Red Sanders, of each one scruple. Beat them all into powder, and when you have so done, you may make them into an electuary according to art with a sufficient quantity of White Sugar dissolved in small Cinnamon water.  It comforts and strengthens the heart exceedingly, and restores such as are in consumptions; it is cooling, therefore good in hectic fevers, very binding, and therefore stop fluxes. Neither do I know a better medicine in all the Dispensatory for such as have a consumption accompanied with a looseness. It stops the terms and whites in women, if administered by one whose wits are not a-wool gathering. Take but a dram at a time every morning, because of its binding quality, except you have a looseness, for then may you take so much two or three times a d

  Athanasia Mithridatis - Galen. Take of Cinnamon, Cassia, Schoenanth, of each an ounce and a half; Saffron, Myrrh, of each one ounce; Costus, Spignel*, Acotus**, Agrick, Scordium, Carrots, Parsley, of each half an ounce; White Pepper, eleven grains; Honey, so much as is sufficient to make it up into an electuary according to art.  * Meum. ** Water Flag perhaps they mean. See the root in the Catalogue of Simples. It prevails against poison and the bitings of venomous beasts, and helps such whose meat putrifies in their stomach, stays vomiting of blood, helps old coughs and cold diseases in the liver, spleen, bladder and matrix.  The College has made some pretty alteration in the quantities of the Simples, but not worth the speaking of. The dose is half a drachm. Diacapparis - Gilbert of England. Take of Capers four ounces; the roots of Agrimony, Nigella seeds, Squils, Asarabacca, Centaury, Pellitory of Spain, Black Pepper, Smallage, Thyme, of each one ounce; Honey, so much as is suffic

  ELECTUARIES Antidotus Analeptica, or, Elecuarium Resumptivum - Fernelius . Take of Red Roses and Liquoris of each two drams and five grains; Gum Arabic and Tragacanth, of each two drachms and two scruples; Sanders White and Red, of each four scruples; juice of Liquoris, White Starch; the seeds of White Poppies, Purslain, Lettuce, Endive, of each three drachms; of the Four Greater Cold Seeds, the seeds of Quinces, Mallows, Cotton, Violets, Pine Nuts, fresh Fistick Nuts*, Sweet Almonds, pulp of Sebestens, of each two drachms; Cloves, Spodium, Cinnamon, of each one drachm; Saffron five grains; Penidies, half an ounce. * Pistacia. Let all of them, being beaten into powder, be made into a soft electuary with three times their weight in Syrup of Violets. Besides the inverting of the order, which is a matter of nothing, here is Zedoary, Ginger and Styrax Calamitis, of each two drachms, left quite out by the College or, as I am of opinion, rather by the transcriber, which is an easy thing -