Crab s eye

LAPIS EX CANCRO — is the Stone called Crab s Eye, which is white and round. It is said to be found in the stomach and intestines of hares, and is supposed to break up stone in the bladder. Some say that it is of a frigid and humid nature, others that it is dry. 

Synonyms Abrus precatorius Deadly crab s eye Indian bean Love bean Lucky bean Mienie mienie Prayer bean Rosary bean Rosary pea Seminole bead... 

Common Names Crab s Eye, Licorice Vine, Love Pea, Precatory Pea, Red-Bead Vine, Rosary Pea... 

A core assumption of ultra-Darwinism is that if not all, then most observed characters must be adaptive, so as to provide the phenotypic material upon which natural selection can act. However, what constitutes a character - and what constitutes an adaptation - is as much in the eye of the beholder as in the organism that is beheld, as Gould and Lewontin pointed out in their famous paper on spandrels (Gould and Lewontin, 1979). Natural selection s continual scrutiny does not give it an a la carte freedom to accept or reject genotypic or phenotypic variation. Structural constraints insist that evolutionary, genetic mechanisms are not infinitely flexible but must work within the limits of what is physically or chemically possible (for instance, the limits to the size of a single cell occasioned by the physics of diffusion processes, the size of a crustacean like a lobster or crab by the constraints... 

Lemery [1713] p. 21. Taking the contemporary English translation as evidence, such a broad understanding of alkalis can be found back in the first edition of Lemeiy s discourse and is put forward there as an established and familiar notion. Many stony matters, such as Coralls, Perles, Crabs-eyes, are called Alkalis, by reason of the effervescency that always happens, when you pour Acids upon them. Lastly, all things which do absorbe or sweeten Acids by ebullition are called Alkalis in Chemistry [...]. Lemery [1677] p. 9. 

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