Kentucky Gazette And General Advertiser

From a late Magazine.

SPANISH SALAMANDER.

Paris has for some days rung with a relation of the wonderful exploits of a Spaniard in that city, who is endowed with qualities by which he resists the action of very high degrees of heat, as well as the influence of strong chemical re-agents. Many histories of the trials to which he has submitted before a commission of the Institute & Medical school, have appeared in the public papers; but the public wait with impatience for the report to be made in the name of the commission, by Professor Pinel. Until this report, which will contain a variety of details on the mode of conducting the experiments, be made known, your correspondent sends some of the more remarkable circumstances, of which he has been himself a witness.

The subject of these trials, is a young man, a native of Toledo in Spain, 23 years of age, and free of any apparent peculiarities which can announce any thing remarkable in the organization of the skin : after examination, one would be rather disposed to conclude a peculiar softness than any hardness or thickness of the cuticle existed, either naturally or from mechanical causes. Nor was there any circumstance to indicate that the person had been previously rubbed with any matter capable of resisting the operation of the agent with which he was brought in contact.

This man bathed for the space of six minutes, and without any injury either to his sensibility or the surface of the skin, his legs in oil, heated to 97 of Reaumur, (*250 1-4 degrees of Fahrenheit.) and with the same oil, at the same degree of heat, he washed his face and superior extremities. He held for the same space of time, and with as little inconvenience, his legs in a solution of muriate of soda, heated to 102 of the same scale: (261 1/2 Fahr.) He stood on, and rubbed the soles of his feet with a bar of iron heated to a white heat--in this state he held the iron in his hands, and rubbed the surface of his tongue. He gargled his mouth with concentrated sulphuric and nitric acids, without the smallest injury or discoloration; the nitrous acid changed the cuticle to a yellow colour ; with the acids in this state he rubbed his hands and arms. All these experiments were continued long enough to prove their inefficiency to produce any impression. It is said on unquestionable authority, that he remained a considerable time in an oven heated to 65 or 70 degrees, (178-189 Fahr.) and from which he was with difficulty induced to retire, so comfortable did he feel in that high temperature.

It may be proper to remark, that this man seems totally uninfluenced by any motive to mislead, and, it is said, he has refused flattering offers from some religious sectaries of turning to emolument his singular qualities. Yet on the whole it seems to be the opinion of most philosophical men, that this person must possess some matter which counteracts the operation of these agents. To suppose that nature has organized him differently, would be unphilosophic ; by habit he might have blunted his sensibility against those impressions that create pain under ordinary circumstances; but how to explain the power by which he resists the action of those agents which are known to have the strongest affinity for animal matter, is a circumstance difficult to comprehend. It has not failed however to excite the wonder of the ignorant, and the enquiry of the learned at Paris.