#whale dyspepsia

[tsyellalot]

Moby Dick is such a normal novel.

[paulgadzikowski]

[bluecatwriter]

By some, ambergris is supposed to be the cause, and by others the effect, of the dyspepsia in the whale. How to cure such a dyspepsia it were hard to say, unless by administering three or four boat loads of Brandreth’s pills, and then running out of harm’s way, as laborers do in blasting rocks.

ISHMAEL PLEASE

(Passages like this remind me why I'm still reading this book— I burst out laughing. Also I went to the Wikipedia page about ambergris and learned all about it because I had to know if he was right or not.)

[ashleybenlove]

"In truth, it turned out to be one of those problematical whales that seem to dry up and die with a sort of prodigious dyspepsia, or indigestion; leaving their defunct bodies almost entirely bankrupt of anything like oil."

Oh, Ishmael and/or Herman Melville, you would have loved pepto bismal.

[seattlefactsijustmadeup]

Cetacean Fact #2:

Now this ambergris is a very curious substance, and so important as an article of commerce, that in 1791 a certain Nantucket-born Captain Coffin was examined at the bar of the English House of Commons on that subject. For at that time, and indeed until a comparatively late day, the precise origin of ambergris remained, like amber itself, a problem to the learned. Though the word ambergris is but the French compound for grey amber, yet the two substances are quite distinct. For amber, though at times found on the sea-coast, is also dug up in some far inland soils, whereas ambergris is never found except upon the sea. Besides, amber is a hard, transparent, brittle, odorless substance, used for mouth-pieces to pipes, for beads and ornaments; but ambergris is soft, waxy, and so highly fragrant and spicy, that it is largely used in perfumery, in pastiles, precious candles, hair-powders, and pomatum. The Turks use it in cooking, and also carry it to Mecca, for the same purpose that frankincense is carried to St. Peter’s in Rome. Some wine merchants drop a few grains into claret, to flavor it.

Who would think, then, that such fine ladies and gentlemen should regale themselves with an essence found in the inglorious bowels of a sick whale! Yet so it is. By some, ambergris is supposed to be the cause, and by others the effect, of the dyspepsia in the whale. How to cure such a dyspepsia it were hard to say, unless by administering three or four boat loads of Brandreth’s pills, and then running out of harm’s way, as laborers do in blasting rocks.

I have forgotten to say that there were found in this ambergris, certain hard, round, bony plates, which at first Stubb thought might be sailors’ trowsers buttons; but it afterwards turned out that they were nothing, more than pieces of small squid bones embalmed in that manner.

Now that the incorruption of this most fragrant ambergris should be found in the heart of such decay; is this nothing? Bethink thee of that saying of St. Paul in Corinthians, about corruption and incorruption; how that we are sown in dishonor, but raised in glory. And likewise call to mind that saying of Paracelsus about what it is that maketh the best musk. Also forget not the strange fact that of all things of ill-savor, Cologne-water, in its rudimental manufacturing stages, is the worst.

I should like to conclude the chapter with the above appeal, but cannot, owing to my anxiety to repel a charge often made against whalemen, and which, in the estimation of some already biased minds, might be considered as indirectly substantiated by what has been said of the Frenchman’s two whales. Elsewhere in this volume the slanderous aspersion has been disproved, that the vocation of whaling is throughout a slatternly, untidy business. But there is another thing to rebut. They hint that all whales always smell bad. Now how did this odious stigma originate?

I opine, that it is plainly traceable to the first arrival of the Greenland whaling ships in London, more than two centuries ago. Because those whalemen did not then, and do not now, try out their oil at sea as the Southern ships have always done; but cutting up the fresh blubber in small bits, thrust it through the bung holes of large casks, and carry it home in that manner; the shortness of the season in those Icy Seas, and the sudden and violent storms to which they are exposed, forbidding any other course. The consequence is, that upon breaking into the hold, and unloading one of these whale cemeteries, in the Greenland dock, a savor is given forth somewhat similar to that arising from excavating an old city graveyard, for the foundations of a Lying-in Hospital.

I partly surmise also, that this wicked charge against whalers may be likewise imputed to the existence on the coast of Greenland, in former times, of a Dutch village called Schmerenburgh or Smeerenberg, which latter name is the one used by the learned Fogo Von Slack, in his great work on Smells, a text-book on that subject. As its name imports (smeer, fat; berg, to put up), this village was founded in order to afford a place for the blubber of the Dutch whale fleet to be tried out, without being taken home to Holland for that purpose. It was a collection of furnaces, fat-kettles, and oil sheds; and when the works were in full operation certainly gave forth no very pleasant savor. But all this is quite different with a South Sea Sperm Whaler; which in a voyage of four years perhaps, after completely filling her hold with oil, does not, perhaps, consume fifty days in the business of boding out; and in the state that it is casked, the oil is nearly scentless. The truth is, that living or dead, if but decently treated, whales as a species are by no means creatures of ill odor; nor can whalemen be recognised, as the people of the middle ages affected to detect a Portlandian in the company, by the nose. Nor indeed can the whale possibly be otherwise than fragrant, when, as a general thing, he enjoys such high health; taking abundance of exercise; always out of doors; though, it is true, seldom in the open air. I say, that the motion of a Sperm Whale’s flukes above water dispenses a perfume, as when a musk-scented lady rustles her dress in a warm parlor. What then shall I liken the Sperm Whale to for fragrance, considering his magnitude? Must it not be to that famous elephant, with jeweled tusks, and redolent with myrrh, which was led out of an Indian town to do honor to Alexander the Great?

___________ Editor’s note:

*sad dolphin clicks*

[queen-susans-revenge]

So as I have recently learned from Moby Dick, ambergris is produced only by sperm whales, generally when they have something of a tummyache. It seems to help ease hard/sharp things, like the beaks of giant squid, through their digestive tract.

"By some ambergris is supposed to be the cause, and by others the effect, of the dyspepsia in the whale. How to cure such a dyspepsia it were hard to say, unless by administering three or four boat loads of Brandreth's pills, and then running out of harm's way, as laborers do in blasting rocks."

Mr. Melville, sir.

[logan-alexander]

“In one word, Queequeg, said I, rather digressively; hell is an idea first born on an undigested apple-dumpling; and since then perpetuated through the hereditary dyspepsias nurtured by Ramadans.”

― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, the Whale

[mobyeunuch]

I wish to go aft at dinner-time, and get the whale shoots-to all his seals and vials-devoting the ship to be seen; in his head lowly, with an essence found in the Jewish memory and of the archive seem at first, this sort of prodigious dyspepsia, or indigestion; leaving their defunct bodies almost entirely submerged, excepting the immediate parts operated upon.

[clrconline]

One of our favorite audiobooks is Herman Melville’s Moby Dick read by William Hootkins. I have to admit that the first time I sat down to read Moby Dick I didn’t get very far but after listening to Hootkins’ audiobook, it has become one of my favorite novels. He manages to bring out all the humor and excitement in this great work of American Literature.

I learned several new words in the process of listening to Moby Dick. One that I especially enjoyed was dyspeptic.

In the course of his novel, Melville refers to both dyspeptic whales and dyspeptic people.  

“So soon as I hear that such or such a man gives himself out for a philosopher, I conclude that, like the dyspeptic old woman, he must have “broken his digester.”

“Who would think, then, that such fine ladies and gentlemen should regale themselves with an essence found in the inglorious bowels of a sick whale! Yet so it is. By some, ambergris is supposed to be the cause, and by others the effect, of the dyspepsia in the whale. How to cure such a dyspepsia it were hard to say, unless by administering three or four boat loads of Brandreth’s pills, and then running out of harm’s way, as laborers do in blasting rocks.”

Dyspepsia is a Greek word:

δυσπεψία, ἡ (Noun), indigestion

δύσπεπτος, ον, (Adjective) hard to digest

Plato uses it as an adjective in the Timaeus (83a) when he is discussing anatomy and diseases.  

[83α] τροφὴν ἔτι τῷ σώματι παρέχοντα φέρεται πάντῃ διὰ τῶν φλεβῶν, τάξιν τῶν κατὰ φύσιν οὐκέτ᾽ ἴσχοντα περιόδων, ἐχθρὰ μὲν αὐτὰ αὑτοῖς διὰ τὸ μηδεμίαν ἀπόλαυσιν ἑαυτῶν ἔχειν, τῷ συνεστῶτι δὲ τοῦ σώματος καὶ μένοντι κατὰ χώραν πολέμια, διολλύντα καὶ τήκ��ντα. ὅσον μὲν οὖν ἂν παλαιότατον ὂν τῆς σαρκὸς τακῇ, δύσπεπτον γιγνόμενον μελαίνει μὲν ὑπὸ παλαιᾶς συγκαύσεως, διὰ δὲ τὸ πάντῃ διαβεβρῶσθαι

Plato. Platonis Opera, ed. John Burnet. Oxford University Press. 1903.

[82e] … For when all the substances become reversed and corrupted, they begin by destroying the blood itself, and then they themselves cease to supply [83a] any nourishment to the body; for they move through the veins in all directions and no longer preserve the order of their natural revolutions, being at enmity with themselves because they have no enjoyment of themselves, and being at war also with the established and regular constitution of the body, which they corrupt and dissolve. Therefore all the oldest part of the flesh that is decomposed becomes tough and is blackened by the continued combustion; and because it is eaten away on every side it is bitter, and therefore dangerous [83b] in its attack on any part of the body that is not as yet corrupted.

Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 9 translated by W.R.M. Lamb. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1925.

It is a compound word.  That is, it is composed of two parts that work together to express one overall meaning.  In this case we have a prefix attached to the main root. The stem – πεπτ-ός, ή, όν – means cooked.   You may also be familiar with ‘pepto’ from the over-the-counter medication used to treat digestive problems – Pepto-Bismol.  I’m not sure that’s where the ‘Pepto’ part comes from but it’s certainly an interesting connection.

The prefix - δυσ- negates the word that follows.  This prefix is used commonly in Greek in examples like:

ἥλιος, ὁ - Helios – is the Greek word for the sun (cf. Helium, heliocentric …)

δῠσ-ήλιος, ον means sunless

γάμος, ὁ, - A wedding

δύσγᾰμ-ος, ον, - ill-wedded,

We use this same prefix in English in words like:

dystopia - the opposite of utopia

dysphemism - The opposite of euphemism.

dyslexia - from δυσ + λέγω – difficult to read

Apparently dyselxia comes about from a confusion of Greek λέγω ‘say, speak’ and Latin lego – ‘read’

and other medical terms like dysentery, dysplasia …

So literally δύσπεπτος, ον refers to food that is difficult to digest because it is not cooked. Then it comes to mean food that is generally difficult to digest and therefore as a noun, the condition of indigestion.  It is also used metaphorically in Greek to refer to people who refuse to be assimilated and as we’ve seen in Moby Dick – to be used of people who are generally irritable, grouchy, or disagreeable whether or not this is caused by indigestion.

Let us strive not to be dyspeptic!  And next time you are feeling sick, whether or not you reach for some Pepto-Bismol, perhaps reflecting on the history and etymology of your dyspepsia will make you feel a little better ☺

[markovliterature-blog]

Moby Dick; or The Whale, Herman Melville

Any man may kill a fish that moment, as slowly it subsided, and sank. thy silence, then, that ever sailed her course, by any means the largest owners of the tomahawk scattered the dead water of the gales. drink and swear, ye men that have been their own ablutions; shift themselves from top to bottom, ere running off intothe sea; the unerring harpoon of the harpoon as compared with the Massachusetts calendar. At intervals, he would be as it may prove in the English, collectively, in ten years. I was thus temporarily subdued in him, which at all pretend to be slapped by a portly sperm whale, unlike other species, is supplied with several more examples, one way nor the other parts of the Sperm Whale. Stubb, you are skylarking; how can you escape being made incarnate in a coil of the outer air. ‘I seek a passage through the bulkhead below. They engaged him; but from that wild Logan of the great annual sheep-shearing; aye, Tashtego, and he had also run away with rope-walks of line. As for the Suppression of Meddling with other whales; for however peculiar in that place would offer, till the Pequod spoke the Town-Ho. Thou saw’st the locked lovers when leaping from his wigwam, saying he procured the plane; and with the copy of Watts in each pot, side by side slowly and seethingly advance their scythes through the hereditary dyspepsias nurtured by Ramadans. I then read the simplest peasant’s face in its glory, the farthingale being then considered at all events; so leave us, if you fix your eye upon this special errand. All men live enveloped in the fishery, and so have chanced to hit one of the substance which so many broken-down blacksmiths among her forces this crowning attribute of the boat, where a wooden head like St. Peter’s! They fence with their long keen whaling spears, they were or what to make a teenth of it, that’s about the size of the land are of two distinct windows, but sadly impairing the view. Why don’t you pack those whales in the open independence of her nose, she ruminated for an old stage-driver is about the open air. I say, that the great leviathans had personally and hereditarily affronted him; and the watch and seals, “you may as well kill both birds at once. Meanwhile Captain Bildad were affected at this decision of the law: that is, it affords fewer glimpses of the earth. He had been downright honest with myself, I resolved to maintain the strictest peacefulness, obey all orders to the Polar quadruped. I’ll dance over your mahogany, than you will see sheet-iron whales placed there for ballast. Alone, in such a height would, by its own light. The peeled white body of the wholesome exercise and pure air of the eternal August of the Cape of Good Hope. I care not who maintains the contrary, where his head altogether beneath the skin of the pleasant sea, wafted by thefirst day I brought ye thence; now worn and wilted quite.

[sensitivefern]

There are now three little movie theaters in a cluster on the corner next to the club: ‘Cinema 1 2 3’. I took Jo Costa to the Jeanne Moreau film in 2; and the next afternoon tried Cinema 1 by myself. It was something called Campus Confidential, which was frankly pornographic to a degree that I didn’t know was possible for a publicly shown film. It begins with what is supposed to look like a clean well-ordered colelge. Then we get a couple of nude lesbian girls about to go into action when a third roommate appears and halts the proceedings. No voices except that of a horrible smooth lecturer. ‘The orgy begins Friday night and lasts till Monday. Fred’s parties are always groovy. We’re only young once’. Almost an hour of nude bodies writhing around. Drug-taking till the boys and girls have to be put away in a padded room; girls’ pubic hair only lightly veiled, men’s erections barely masked; a couple of naked male homosexuals embracing and kissing; boys going down on girls – when they reach the important spot, you only see the upper part of the girl, her face twisting in ecstasy. At the end, on Monday morning, they are going to class with their books, apparently none the worst for their weekend; ‘We’re only young once’, etc.

[Edmund Wilson]

===

For whatever reason, the Rationalists were born at this moment. The leading Rationalists were an Italian, Aldo Rossi, a Spaniard, Ricardo Bofill, and two brothers from Luxembourg, Leon and Robert Krier. The Rationalists were like the Whites in that they believed that the true and inevitable way of modernism was to go back to the first principles. [...] The Marxist mist enveloping Rationalism was even denser, muggier, and more sentimental than the one that enveloped the Structuralists. The Rationalists had the romantic... notion that the master craftsmen of the Renaissance built from out of the natural and inevitable impulses of the people, as if out of some sort of structuralism of the motor reflexes. The fact that these buildings were generally commissioned and paid for by kings, despots, dukes, pontiffs, and other autocrats didn’t matter. At least they weren’t capitalists.

[From Bauhaus to Our House]

===

...When all this reviewer’s R-complex resistance to Mr. Sagan’s rather directional display of neocortical dominance has been registered, it remains to say that there is much fascinating information here, amid the fluff... We read, for instance, that the elaborate but undeciphered click language of whales and dolphins may involve ‘a re-creation of the sonar reflection characteristics of the objects being described’. We learn that Lord Byron had a brain twice the size of Anatole France’s, that Orientals have slightly larger brains than whites, and that both Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal men had larger brains, on the average, than ours. An ingenious pictographic map of the cerebral cortex shows what a comically disproportionate neural importance the hands and mouth possess: according to this part of the brain, we are more thumb than leg, and more tongue than chest. Mr. Sagan is perhaps non-trivial when he speculates, ‘Upright posture, the use of tools, and the development of language have mutually advanced one another, a small increment in language ability, for example, permitting the incremental improvement of hand axes, and vise versa. The corresponding brain evolution seems to have proceeded by specializing one of the two hemispheres for analytic thinking’.

[John Updike]

===

In order to survive, the Chesapeake Bay must process an astounding variety of nutrient and waste products through intricate webs of ingestion and excretion, and over thousands of years virginica has evolved as the central protagonist in this latticework of eating and being eaten. But now virginica is just about gone.

For thousands of years the oyster’s digestive system had clarified and purified the bay’s waters by functioning as its magical guts, delivering sun power to the deep by transmuting the energy of the plant life on which it feeds to the smallest finfish, which live on oyster larvae. But the steady degradation of the Atlantic coast’s native eastern oyster over the past 150 years has occluded the Chesapeake Bay’s natural circulations to the extent that is suffers from a massive case of dyspepsia. The Chesapeake may no longer be able to feed itself much less support the needs of the bivalve business. This time the American stomach had really done it.

[A Short History of the American Stomach]

===

❚Pizza, burgers and the like: A single high-fat meal can damage the metabolism Source: Deutsches Zentrum fuer Diabetesforschung DZD Summary: The global proliferation of overweight and obese people and people with type 2 diabetes is often associated with the consumption of saturated fats. Scientists have found that even the one-off consumption of a greater amount of palm oil reduces the body's sensitivity to insulin and causes increased fat deposits as well as changes in the energy metabolism of the liver.

Robertson: Opposing Trump is Opposing God Pat Robertson, the con artist who claims to speak for God and yet constantly gets his “prophecies” that allegedly come directly from God wrong (and yet has not been put to death as a false prophet, as the Bible commands), says anyone opposing Trump is really opposing God himself.

The year is 1910. Adolf Hitler, a struggling artist, has fought off dozens of assasination attemps by well meaning time travelers, but this one is different. This traveller doesn't want to kill Hitler, he wants to teach him to paint. He pulls off his hood to reveal the frizzy afro of Bob Ross. Writing Prompt.