[PW] A curious dye

[Peter Macinnis]

The context was a report of a dye, derived by "a Melbourne chemist" from "those
nocturnal tormentors which infest bedding in many localities, having but one use,
'to teach mankind humility'." 

That sounds like bedbugs or perhaps fleas, but I suspect that mosquitoes were
intended, going on a couple of obscrure references.  On chemical instinct, I
favour the bedbugs.  I suspect that only a close reading of several months worth
of Melbourne papers would answer it, and as they would inevitably be on
headache-inducing microfilm, I passed the question by.

Peter Macinnis
Supplier of budgerigar drumsticks and prosthetic legs




On Thu May 29  3:32 , 'John P. Dyson' <dyson at indiana.edu> sent:

>Quoting Brian Whatcott betwys1 at sbcglobal.net>:
>
>> At 07:46 AM 5/12/2008, Peter MacInnis, you wrote:
>>> John P. Dyson wrote:
>>> > Quoting Peter Macinnis petermacinnis at ozemail.com.au>:
>>> >
>>> >> My source is 'Scientific American, 16 March, 1859, page 240.
>>> ///
>>> >> cheers
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > Peter, check out Aristophanes' speech in Plato's _Symposium_.
>>>
>>> Thanks, John.  I did that, and got no further ahead.
>>
>> ///
>>
>> Me too. Apart from the lofty moral sentiments, I saw no
>> actual reference to (ferinstance) flea blood etc.,
>> the which now names a fetching fashion shade...
>
>
>I thought the query was about teaching mankind humility, not fleas as 
>the lesson:
>
>Zeus "bade Apollo give the face and the half of the neck a turn in 
>order that man might contemplate the section of himself: he would thus 
>learn a lesson of humilty."
>
>I guess not.
>
>John Dyson
>
>_______________________________________________
>Project Wombat
>list at project-wombat.org
>http://www.project-wombat.org/