Cool Magic Tricks: science magic tricks

Science Magic Tricks Biography

There are historical records of people using the names of saints and various religious incantations to try to drive rats out of cities and towns across Europe. Also, there are reports of people “rhyming” them to death or using bagpipes to drive them away. Sometime between the 11th and 14th centuries, the position of “apothecary” arose, and these people specialized in all sorts of medicines and poisons. There is a section in Chaucer’s Pardner’s Tale (1387 A.D.) detailing the purchase of something from an apothecary for “rattons quell,” meaning “rats kill.”

Modern day barbers are also ancestors of pest control personnel. The profession of barber-surgeon was originally a branch of medicine and they were often assigned to armies during wars to perform battle surgeries. Even today, the red and white barber pole represents the blood and bandages originally associated with barber-surgeons. Eventually, during the 14th century, an official Guild of Barber-Surgeons was formed which, through time, enacted increasingly stricter educational and professional standards, eventually leading surgery to a more respectable profession. The barbers were thus left behind to shave men, cut or dye hair, and dispense nostrums and ratsbane, among other activities. During the Middle Ages, the ratsbane seller was a street and market vendor who sold a variety of chemicals and rodent traps. A little later, this developed into a profession called the “rat catcher.” Rat catchers were colorful figures often dressed in fancy clothing who appeared at county fairs and marketplaces performing juggling acts, story-telling and magic tricks. Perhaps the most famous rat catcher story is Robert Browning’s 1842 version of the much older Pied Piper of Hamelin story, in which the rat catcher agrees — for a fee — to drive a plague of rats into the Weser River. When he doesn’t get paid, he entices the children of the town away by the sounds of his pipe.

Magic Mind Tricks

Cool Magic Tricks

Friday 28 December 2012

science magic tricks

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