Enthusiasm, from its derivation, might in strictness be called afixity of idea in divinity; but Locke has given a better definition of this morbid state of our intellectual faculties in considering it as a heated state of the imagination, “founded neither on reason nor divine revelation, but arising from the conceits of a warmed or overweening brain.” I shall not venture to take the field of controversy to support this doctrine against that of some metaphysicians, who most probably would consider this mental aberration as an original and natural judgment inspired by the Almighty, founded not on reason or reflection, but an instinctive impulse of the powers of the mind.
The Hebrews named this impulseNabiנבוא, (pluralNebiim,) “to approach or enter,” on the surmise that the spirit pervaded the prophets, who were calledRoehהרואה, orSeeing, henceSeers.
Plato divided enthusiasm into four classes. I.The Poetical, inspired by the Muses. II.The Mystic, under the influence of Bacchus. III.The Prophetic, a gift of Apollo; and IV.The Enthusiasm of love, a blessing from Venus Urania. Thisimmortal philosopher was not the visionary speculatist which some writers have represented him; his logic did not consist of frivolous investigations, but embraced the more useful subject of correct definition and division, as he sought to reconcile practical doctrines of morality with the mysticism of theology by the study of Divine attributes. Whatever some of the Eclectic philosophers might have asserted, Plato considered that our ideas were derived from external objects, and never contemplated the extravagant doctrine of imbodying metaphysical abstractions, or personifying intellectual ideas.
To this day, the attentive observer will find Plato’s classification of enthusiasm to be correct. The ecstatic exaltation of religion and of love are not dissimilar; only the latter can be cured, the former seldom or never admits of mitigation: the fantastic visions of the lover may be dispelled by infidelity in the object of his misplaced affection; the phantasies of fanaticism can only yield to an improbable state of infidelity. Shaftesbury has justly observed, “There is a melancholy which accompanies all enthusiasm, be it of love or religion; nothing can put a stop to the growing mischief of either, till the melancholy be removed, and the mind be at liberty to hear what can be said against the ridiculousness of an extreme in either way.”
Our poet Rowe has beautifully pointed out the facility with which a noble and martial soul can free itself from love’s ignoble trammels.
Rouse to the combat,And thou art sure to conquer; war shall restore thee:The sound of arms shall wake thy martial ardour,And cure this amorous sickness of thy soul,Begot by sloth, and nurs’d by too much ease.The idle God of Love supinely dreamsAmidst inglorious shades and purling streams;In rosy fetters and fantastic chainsHe binds deluded maids and simple swains;With soft enjoyment woos them to forgetThe hardy toils and labours of the great:But if the warlike trumpet’s loud alarmsTo virtuous acts excite, and manly arms,The coward Boy avows his abject fear,On silken wings sublime he cuts the air,Scar’d at the noble horse and thunder of the war.
The only trumpet that can arouse the religious enthusiast from his ascetic meditations is the war-whoop that calls himto destroy all those who impugn his doctrines in a battle-field, where each champion seeks pre-eminence in cruelty, and rancorous persecution.
When we contemplate the miseries that have arisen from fanaticism, or fervid enthusiasm, although it is but a sad consolation, yet it affords some gratification in our charitable view of mankind, to think, nay to know, that this fearful state of mind is a disease, a variety of madness, which may in many instances be referred to a primary physical predisposition, and a natural idiosyncrasy. It is as much a malady as melancholy and hypochondriacism. In peculiar constitutions it grows imperceptibly. Lord Shaftesbury has made the following true observation: “Men are wonderfully happy in a faculty of deceiving themselves whenever they set heartily about it. A very small foundation of any passion will serve us not only to act it well, but even to work ourselves in it beyond our own reach; a man of tolerable goodnature, who happens to be a little piqued, may, by improving his resentment, become a very fury for revenge.”
Thus it is with enthusiasm, a malady which in its dreadful progress has been known to become contagious, one might even say epidemic. Vain terrors have seized whole populations in cities and in provinces; when every accident that happened to a neighbour was deemed a just punishment of his sins, and every calamity that befel the fanatic was considered the hostile act of others. Jealousy and dark revenge were the natural results of such a state of mind, when the furious fire of bigotry was fanned by ambition until monomania became dæmonomania of the most hideous nature, and every maniac bore in his pale and emaciated visage the characteristic of that temperament which predisposes to the disease. Seldom do we observe it in thesanguineous temperament, remarkable for mental tranquillity, yet determined courage when roused to action. Thecholericandbilious, impetuous, violent, ambitious, ever ready to carry their point by great virtues or great crimes, may no doubt rush into a destructive career; but then they lead to the onset the atrabilious, men saturated with black bile, and constituting themelancholy temperament. Here we behold the countenance sallow and sad; the visage pale and emaciated, of an unearthly hue; gloom, suspicion, hate, depicted in every lineament; the mirror of a soul unfitted for any kind sentiment of affection, pity, or forgiveness. Detesting mankind, and detested, they seek solitude, to brood upon their wretchedness,or to derive from it the means to make others as miserable as themselves. Such do we usually find the enthusiastic monomaniac. His ideas are concentrated into a burning focus, which consumes him like an ardent mirror. His life of relation is nearly extinguished. His external senses are rendered so obtuse and callous that he becomes insensible to hunger and thirst, to heat and cold however intense; and bodily injuries, which would occasion excruciating agonies in others, he bears without any apparent feeling. On this subject of religious enthusiasm the remarks of Evagrius are worthy of notice. “Contrarieties,” he says, “are in themselves so tempered, and the grace of God maketh in them such an union of discordant things, that life and death, which are in essence so opposite to each other, seem to join hands and dwell together in them. Happy are they while they live, and happier still when they depart.” It has been known amongst these rigid ascetics that when a stranger visited them, they mortified themselves by entertaining him and partaking of the good cheer. Thus inventing a novel kind of fasting—eating and drinking against their will.
It is related of St. Macarius, that one day having killed a gnat that had stung him, he was struck with such compunction at the sight of blood, that by way of atonement, he threw off his clothes, and remained in a state of nudity for six months in a marsh exposed to the bites of every noxious insect. Sozomen in praising this mortification, assures us that this exposure to the inclemency of the weather, did so harden and tan him that his beard could not make its way through the skin.
It has been erroneously supposed that such individuals, being hostile to mankind, are prone to do evil,—this is not generally the case; they seem satisfied with their own sufferings, and only seek to inflict them upon others when roused from their concentration by fanaticism.
A late ingenious writer, in his work entitled “The Natural History of Enthusiasm,” has somewhat overdrawn the portrait of these unfortunate but dangerous beings when labouring under the disease, which he thus defines: “It will be found that the elementary idea attached to the term in its manifold applications, is that of fictitious fervour in religion, rendered turbulent, morose, or rancorous by junction with some one or more of the unsocial emotions; or, if a definition as brief as possible were demanded, we should say that fanaticism is enthusiasm inflamed by hatred. Fanaticismsupposes three elements of belief: the supposition of malignity on the part of the object of our worship; a consequent detestation of mankind at large, as the subjects of malignant power; and then, a credulous conceit of the favour of Heaven shown to the few, in contempt of the rules of virtue.”
Shaftesbury had already said, that “nothing besides ill-humour, either natural or forced, can bring a man to think seriously that the world is governed by any devilish or malicious power.” Such a fearful conviction constitutes a clear case of dæmonomania. Patients labouring under that malady are ever prone to injure themselves and others, prompted, as they constantly avow, by an evil spirit; but enthusiasts, who live in solitary mortification until a paroxysm of fanaticism draws them from their retreat, seldom or never meditate mischief to others, or indeed that hatred to mankind which our author considers a feature of their condition. Society may become irksome, and may be shunned for ever, without a sentiment of hate. The gayest of the gay may be impelled by feelings more or less morbid to seek a voluntary endurance, to expiate real or imaginary offences, without experiencing a desire of a uselessly vindictive sentiment towards the former companions of their vices or follies. Extremes of depravity and contrition do not infrequently meet; and it has been remarked in Eastern countries, where asceticism arose, that the gates of the most splendid and luxurious cities open upon desert wilds or mountainous solitudes, to which the penitent may flee from his former scenes of ambition and enjoyment.
Such enthusiasts, excepting when enjoying the beatitude of ecstatic exaltation, are more to be pitied than feared. Persecution would most probably drive them to a dangerous state of fanatic rage; and the noble philosopher whom I have already quoted, very justly observes, “They are certainly ill physicians in the body politic who would needs be tampering with these mental eruptions, and, under the specious pretence of healing the itch of superstition, and saving souls from the contagion of enthusiasm, should set all nature in an uproar, and turn a few innocent carbuncles into an inflammation and a mortal gangrene.”
Enthusiasts are supposed by their followers to be gifted with the faculty of prophecy; and it is somewhat strange that the ancients considered certain temperaments as best fitted for this inspiration. The atrabilious temperament tookthe lead; and this melancholy state was to be increased by abstinence, mortification, and more especially rigid continence. The latter privation, indeed, was deemed indispensable for prophets; and the Jewish Rabbins inform us that Moses abandoned his wife Zipporah the very moment that he was prophetically inspired. A physical reason has been adduced to prove the necessity of a chaste life, which I here must be allowed to pass over; but upon the same principle, emasculation was considered as rendering man totally unfit for prophetic revelation, or indeed any holy inspiration; and we find in the first of Deuteronomy that such subjects were not admissible to the service of the Temple.
Jesaias, and some other Jewish writers, have affirmed that Daniel belonged to that class of beings; but it has been shown that the name ofSpado, which he bore, merely gave him the high rank that eunuchs held at the Assyrian court. Potiphar bore the same title among the Pharaohs. Baruch Spinosa maintained that temperaments should vary according to the nature of the prophecy; thus, a gay prophet would predict victory and happiness, a gloomy one misery and wars; peace and concord, if he is human; destruction and merciless events, if he were sanguinary: and, in support of his doctrine, he quotes the passage in Kings, where Elisha, when brought before Jehosophat, called for a minstrel ere he predicted that victory should crown the arms of Judah.
Various artificial means have been resorted to at all periods to prepare the intellects for inspirations, by creating a heated imagination. Pliny informs us that, in his days, the root of theHalicacabum, supposed to be a species of hyoscyamus, was chewed by soothsayers. Christopher D’Acosta relates that the Indians employ a kind of hemp calledBanguefor the same purpose: and in St. Domingo their supposed prophets masticate a plant calledCohaba. The priestesses of Delphi were also in the habit of chewing laurel-leaves before they ascended the tripod, which it is stated was originally formed of a laurel-tree root with three branches. Sophocles calls the Sibyls δαφνηφαγος, laurel-eaters; and thus Tibullus,
Vera cano, sic usque sacras innoxia laurosVescar, et æternùm sit mihi virginitas.
Auguries were drawn from the burning of the laurel-leaf. If it crackled and sparkled during combustion, the inference wasfavourable; the reverse, if it was consumed in silence. Propertius alludes to this belief:
Et tacet extincto laurus adusta foco.
Yet so far from possessing exhilarating qualities, laurel-leaves were supposed to diminish the excitement produced by wine; and Martial affirms that the Roman ladies made use of them to drink large potations with impunity:
Fœtere multo Myrtale solet vino;Sed fallat ut nos, folia devorat lauri,Merumque, cautâ fronde, non aquâ miscet.
May it not be inferred that the leaves given to the Pythia might have been those of theLauro-cerasus, the effects of which are similar to those of prussic acid, producing vertigo, dizziness, and various convulsive symptoms? This tree was first observed by Bélon, who discovered it in his eastern voyages in 1546; but it might have been well known to the ancients. We may thus account for the violent convulsions in which the priestesses of Apollo were thrown on these mystic occasions, and which were said to arise from the gas over which they were seated. Although the tree from which the leaves were gathered grew near the temple, and was the commonLauros nobilis, yet the leaves of theLauro-cerasusmight have easily been substituted on the occasion; since, always green and shining, they are not very unlike each other, and the flowers of both trees are pedunculate; and, no doubt, the priests well knew to what extent they could carry the dose to serve their purposes; possibly the modern preparation ofnoyaumight have been a Pythian dram.
The effects of enthusiasm in rendering its victims insensible to all external agents is truly surprising, and cannot be better illustrated than by a relation of the horrors which the famous Convulsionists of Paris and other parts of France underwent, not only voluntarily, but at their most earnest prayer and solicitation.
This work of miracles, as it was called, was first performed by a priest of the name of Paris, in 1724, and strange to say, the aberration continued for upwards of twelve years. Paris having departed this life in the odour of sanctity, (at least according to the conviction of the Jansenists, who had opposed with no little violence the famous bullUnigenitus), the Appellants, for such they thought proper to denominate theirsect, appealed to the remains of their beatified companion to operate miracles in support of their common cause. The Appellants were absurdly persecuted, therefore miracles became manifestations easy to obtain. Having succeeded in finding credulous dupes, the next step was to work their credulity into a useful state of enthusiasm. They therefore summoned all the sick, lame, and halt of their sectarians to repair to the tomb of St. Paris for radical relief. Crowds were soon collected round his blessed sepulchre. It is now generally supposed that animal magnetism was resorted to in these curative operations, or rather religious ceremonies. Had not the means thus employed for the purpose been recorded and authenticated by the most irrefragable authorities, the sceptic might long pause before he would yield them credence.
The patient (a female) was stretched on the ground, and the stoutest men that could be found were directed to trample with all their might and main upon her body; kicking the chest and stomach, and attempting to tread down the ribs with their heels. So violent were these exertions, that it is related a hunchbacked girl was thus kicked and trampled into a goodly shape.
The next exercise was what they called the plank, and consisted in laying a deal board upon the patient while extended on the back, and then getting as many athletic men as could stand upon it, to press the body down; and in this endeavour they seldom showed sufficient energy to satisfy the supposed sufferer, who was constantly calling for more pressure.
Next came the experiment of the pebble, a diminutive name they were pleased to give to a paving-stone weighing two-and-twenty pounds, which was discharged by the operator upon the patient’s stomach and bosom, from as great a height as he could well raise the weighty body. This terrific blow was frequently inflicted upwards of a hundred times, and with such violence, that the house, and the furniture of the room, vibrated under the concussion, while the astonished bystanders were terrified by the hollow sound re-echoed by the enthusiast at every blow.
Carré de Montgeron affirms that thepebblewas not found sufficiently powerful, and the operator was obliged in one case to procure an iron fire-dog (chenet), weighing about thirty pounds, which was discharged as violently as possible on the pit of the patient’s stomach at least a hundred times. This instrument having for the sake of curiosity been hurled against a wall, brought part of it down at the twenty-fifthblow. The operator further states, that he had commenced according to the usual practice, by inflicting moderate blows, until he was induced by her lamentable entreaties to redouble his vigour, but all to no purpose; his strength was unavailing and he was obliged to employ a more athletic surgeon, who fell to work with such energy that he shook the whole house. The convulsionist, who was of the gentle sex, would not allow sixty blows she had received from her first doctor to be included in the calculation of the dose, but insisted upon having her whole hundred as prescribed. It further appears, that at each stroke the delighted enthusiast would exclaim in ecstacy, “Oh, how nice!” “Oh, what good it does me!” “Oh, dear brother, hit away—again—again!” For be it known, these operators were called by the affectionate name of brothers, whose claims to fraternal affection were in the ratio of the weight of their kindness towards the sisterhood.
One of these young ladies, who was not easily satisfied, wanted to try her own skill, and jumped with impunity into the fire, an exploit which obtained her the glorious epithet of Sister Salamander. The names that these amiable devotees gave to each other were somewhat curious. They all strove to imitate the whining and wheedling of spoiled children, or petted infants; one was calledL’Imbécile, anotherL’Aboyeuse, a thirdLa Nisette, and they used to beg and cry for barley-sugar and cakes; barley-sugar signified a stick big enough to fell an ox, and cakes meant paving-stones. The excesses of these maniacs were at last carried to so fearful an extent, and their religious ceremonies were so debased by obscenities that the police was obliged to interfere, and forbid these detestable practices; hence it was affirmed that the following somewhat impious notice was suspended over the church-door:
De par le Roi, défense à Dieu,De faire miracle en ce lieu.
These lunatics, for such they must be considered, were not impostors. They had been worked to this degraded state by the plastic power of superstition, and implicit reliance was placed in their assertions; for, as Pascal said, “we must believe people who are ready to have their throats cut.” Whether the Jansenist priests belonged to the same class, I leave to the reader to decide.
Cabanis, in his interesting work, “Rapports du Physiqueet du Moral de l’Homme,” offers the following remarks on this most curious subject: “Sensibility may be considered in the light of a fluid the quality of which is determined, and which, when carried to certain channels in greater proportion than to others, must of course be diminished in the latter ones. This is evident in all violent affections, but more especially in those ecstasies where the brain and other sympathetic organs are possessed of the highest degree of energetic action, while the faculty of feeling and of motion—in short, the vital powers—seem to have fled from the other parts of the system. In this violent state, fanatics have received with impunity severe wounds, which, if inflicted in a healthy condition, would have proved fatal or most dangerous; for the danger that results from the violent action of external agents on our organs depends on their sensibility, and we daily see poisons, which would be deleterious to a healthy man, innocuous in a state of illness. It was by availing themselves of this physical disposition that impostors of every description, and of every country operated most of their miracles; and it was by these means that the Convulsionists of St. Medard amazed weak imaginations with the blows they received from swords and hatchets, and which in their ascetic language they calledconsolations. This was the magic wand with which Mesmer overcame habitual sufferings, by giving a fresh direction to the attention, and establishing in constitutions possessed of great mobility a sense of action to which they had been unaccustomed. It was thus also that theIlluminatiof France and Germany succeeded in destroying external sensations amongst their adepts, depriving them in fact of their relative existence.”
In these phenomena we do not witness miracles or supernatural agency. Enthusiasts are simply maniacs. Like maniacs, their vital endowments are deranged; they lose the faculty of feeling, of reasoning, of comparing, of associating their ideas; their volition, their memory have fled, and all the functions of organic life are more or less disturbed. Rousseau never proved more clearly that his own intellectual faculties were occasionally impaired, than when he stated “that the state of reflection is unnatural, and that the man who meditates is a depraved animal.”
Insanity may be divided into four species:
1st,Monomania, andmelancholy, in which the delirium is confined to one or few objects.
2nd,Mania, where the delirium embraces a variety of impressions, and is accompanied with violence.
3rd,Dementia, or insanity in the full acceptation of the word, where the senses are totally bewildered, and the faculty of thinking destroyed.
4th,Imbecilityoridiotcy, where, from imperfect organisation, ratiocination cannot be correct.
To the first of these categories enthusiasts generally belong. Delirium, or wandering, is to a certain extent applicable to all, being a want of correspondence between judgment and perception. Locke and Condillac characterize madness as afalse judgment, or a disposition to associate ideas incorrectly, and to mistake them for truths. Hence it is observed by Locke that “Madmen err, as men do that argue right from wrong principles.” Dr. Beattie refers madness tofalse perception; and Dr. Mason Good, justly remarks, that “the perceptions in madness seem, for anything we know to the contrary, to be frequently as correct as in health, the judgment or reasoning being alone diseased or defective.”
I hope that I may not be accused ofmaterialismwhen I venture to affirm that all these enthusiasts labour under a physical disease; but whether this state was originally brought on by a morbid condition of the intellectual or the empassioned faculties of the mind, or, in other words, whether a diseased state of the mind brought on a diseased state of the body, I shall not at present venture to decide, as the disquisition would be foreign to the nature of this work, and lead us into investigations of little interest to the generality of readers.
In the German Psychological Magazine we meet with a curious case of a patient who believed that he was supernaturally endowed with the power of working miracles. The man was a gend’arme of the name of Gragert, of a harmless and quiet disposition, but rather of a superstitious turn of mind. From poverty, family misfortunes, and severe military discipline, a series of sleepless nights and a mental disquietude were brought on that, according to his own report, nothing could dissipate but a perusal of pious works. In reading the Bible he was struck with the book of Daniel, and was so much pleased with it, that it became his favourite study; from that moment the idea of miracles so strongly possessed his imagination, that he began to believe that he could perform some himself. He was persuaded more especially that if he were to plant an apple-tree with the view ofits becoming a cherry-tree, such was his power that it would bear cherries. He was wont to answer every question correctly, except when the subject concerned miracles, in regard to which he ever entertained his old notions; adding, however, that he would relinquish this thought if he could be convinced that the event of his trials did not correspond with his expectations.
That many enthusiasts, although incurable in their peculiar aberration, have possessed some amiable qualities, is undeniable. Such rare occurrences remind one of the curious case of madness recorded by Tidemann of a lunatic of the name of Moses, who was insane on one side, and who observed his insanity with the other; his better half constantly rebuking his worse half for its absurdities. This case was certainly typical of the married state.
In vain have physicians endeavoured to break through this morbid catenation of incongruous ideas by diversions, or what the French calldistractions, which in general answered to our literal translation of the word, anddistractedtheir patients. Dramatic performances were once allowed in a mad-house near Paris; but the violence of the maniacs, the moroseness of the melancholy, and the stupidity of the idiots, rendered the exertions of the actors perilous to some, and idle to all. Mr. D’Esquirol once took one of his patients to a play, and the man swore that every performer who came on was making love to his wife; and a young lady, placed in a similar situation, exclaimed that all the people were going to fight about her. Jealousy and vanity were, no doubt, the ruling passions in both these cases. Travel has been recommended both by the ancients and the moderns. Seneca on this subject quotes Socrates, who replied to a melancholy wight who complained that his journeys had afforded him no amusement, “I am not surprised at it, since you were travelling in your own company.”
The contagion of enthusiasm is a marvellous fact. Pausanias relates that the malady of the daughters of Prœtus, who ran about the country fancying that they were transformed into cows, was common amongst the women of Argos. Plutarch states that a disease reigned in Miletium, in which most of the young girls hung themselves; recent observations have confirmed this singular circumstance. Dr. Deslages, of St. Maurice, relates that a woman having hanged herself in a neighbouring village, most of her companions felt an invincible desire to follow her example. Primrose and Bonet tell usthat at one period it was found difficult to prevent the young girls in Lyons from casting themselves into the river. Simon Goulard has recorded the prevalent madness amongst the nuns of the States of Saxony and Brandenburg, and which soon extended its influence to Holland, during which these religious ladies “predicted, capered, climbed up walls, spoke various languages, bleated like sheep, and amused themselves by biting each other.” History has recorded the horrible judicial murder of Urbain Grandier, at Laudun, who was sacrificed for bedevilling a nunnery. The recent gift of tongues amongst theIrvingitesis still in full vigour, and theSouthcotiansare still on the look-out in London, as theSebastianistsare in Lisbon.
Addison has remarked that an enthusiast in religion is like an obstinate clown, and a superstitious man like an insipid courtier. On this subject he quotes the following old heathen saying recorded by Aulus Gellius—Religentem esse oportet, religiosum nefas; for, as the author tells us, Nigidius observed upon this passage, that the Latin words which terminate inosusgenerally imply vicious characters, or the having any quality to excess. That we should enthusiastically admire all that is holy, sublime, or endowed with uncommon superiority in religion, in poetry, in the fine arts, is not only justifiable but praiseworthy. Genius cannot exist without a certain degree of fervour; its inspiration is a gift divine, naturally associated with a religious feeling. The man thus inspired must bend in humble admiration before the wondrous harmony that surrounds him. The poet, the painter, the musician, can only seek excellence by studying primitive perfection. Nothing that is not natural can be truly sublime or beautiful. A rigid observation of nature can alone lead to superiority, and we can only be taught to create by, endeavouring to imitate the beauties of the creation. How distant are these generous feelings from the low grovelling prejudices of bigotry! We admire perfection even in our enemies; and Erasmus was not a truant to his faith when, transported with Socrates’s dying speech, he exclaimed, “O Socrates! I can scarce forbear kneeling down to thee, and praying,
Sancte Socrates, ora pro nobis.”
While considering this interesting subject, a curious question arises: is enthusiasm more frequently excited by truth than by error? I sadly fear that the latter influence will in general be found to predominate, although falsehood then assumes the deceptive garb of veracity. The noble writer whom I havealready cited,[19]has justly said, “that truth is the most powerful thing in the world, since even fiction itself must be governed by it, and can only please by its resemblance.”
To what then are we to attribute this power that fallacy possesses of inspiring the mind with visionary hopes and fears? Simply because we cease to reason upon matter of fact, and soar in fanciful regions in search of a flittering phantom, a creature of our own imaginative faculties. What falls every day under our personal observation ceases to amaze, and one might even become familiarized to miracles were they of frequent occurrence. Man is naturally disposed to admire what he cannot understand, and to venerate what is incomprehensible. The nature of the divinity being essentially incomprehensible, a religious character is attached to all other subjects that are equally beyond the limits of our understanding. Sir Thomas Brown has said, “Methinks there be not impossibilities enough in religion for an active faith. I love to lose myself in a mystery, to pursue my reason to anO altitudo! I can answer all the objections of Satan and my rebellious reason, with that odd resolution I learned from Tertullian,Certum est quia impossibile est.” From our earliest infancy we are delighted with fictions, which we verily fancy to be relations of true facts, and whether we believe with the ancients in the metamorphoses of heathen mythology, the absurd papal stories of the miracles of their saints, or the wondrous incidents of a fairy tale, we listen to these rhapsodies with avidity; whether Jupiter is turned into a shower of gold, St. Denis and St. Livarius travel with their heads under their arm, or Tom Thumb pulls on his seven-league boots. These absurdities are our day thoughts, our night dreams—nay, busy fancy does so dwell on these enchanting phantasies, that, in some cases, the intellectual faculties become deranged, and I have at present under my care, a female who lost her reason by constantly reading the Arabian Nights, and who in her hallucinations, describes as many marvellous voyages as could have done the sailor Sinbad.
The foundation of incredulity no doubt is ignorance, but too often we find men of refined education and feeling the most easily imposed upon by incredible assertions; we seldom experience as much enthusiasm in the possession of any object as in the pursuit, more especially if that pursuit be vain. The merchant who has realized a splendid fortune in his commercial ventures, is satiated with his business, andbecomes careless in the pursuit of greater riches, but let him for one moment contemplate the possibility of discovering the philosopher’s stone, he will lose, and cheerfully too, all his past earnings in the chimerical pursuit, and the man who would doze over his ledger, will spend his sleepless nights contemplating his crucibles, and studying the black art.
What is there of an exciting nature in the common events of life and the usual course and uniformity of nature? Very little. However wondrous the works of the creation may be, habit has so accustomed us to behold them, that they are familiar to our eyes; they become matter of fact, and science has taught us to comprehend the nature of many phenomena, which might otherwise have appeared incredible: but when we seek for an unattainable object, however fallacious its attraction may be, the mind is roused to energetic action: if we strive to excel all others in the fine arts, in poetical productions, we become fired with an exalted zeal, which age and experience alone can temper. In our vain pursuit of ideal perfection, the mind may be compared to a focus in which our burning thoughts are concentrated, until we are consumed by disappointment: the love of Pygmalion was probably the most ardent passion that could fire the breast of man. Enthusiasm laughs to scorn the suggestion of the senses and common understanding, therefore all its priests and votaries are surrounded with a deceptive halo; and Plotinus maintained that a proper worship of the gods consisted in a mysterious self annihilation and a total extinction of every faculty. The same may be said of love, which, like all other enthusiastic passions, may be considered a temporary hallucination.
Moreover the language of fiction is not required to maintain the self-evident testimonies of facts.
As true as truth’s simplicity,And simpler than the infancy of truth.
Whereas false doctrines and fallacious opinions need all the aid of imagination’s vivid colours to disguise their real form with a goodly outside. We may in general conclude that enthusiasts are at first deceived themselves to become in turn deceivers. Seldom does man display sufficient humility to admit that he has erred in his favourite doctrines, and how much less will he be disposed to confess his deviation from rectitude, when imposture becomes the source of wealthand power, and hypocrisy a trade: to the ghostly speculator we may well apply the lines of Massinger:
Oh, now your hearts make ladders of your eyes,In show to climb to heaven, where your devotionWalks upon crutches.
It is, however, fortunate that errors generally assist the development of truth. The progress of the Christian faith was materially forwarded by the absurdities and fallacies of all other religions; and Helvetius has truly observed that if we could for a moment doubt the truth of Christianity, its divine origin would be proved by its having survived the horrors of popery. False theories led Columbus to correct geographic conclusions, and Galileo’s discoveries overthrew his own former theories.
Amongst the various means resorted to by quackery to speculate upon the credulity of mankind, simple river or spring water, coloured and flavoured with inert substances, has not been the least productive; and many a time the Thames and Seine have been fertile sources of supposed invaluable medicines. Sangrado’s doctrines on aqueous potations have long prevailed in the profession; and it has been stoutly maintained that a water diet can cure the gout and various other diseases. That relief, if not cures, have been obtained by this practice, there cannot be the least doubt. Are we to attribute these favourable results to the effects of the imagination, the beneficial efforts of nature, or the salutary abstinence which this prescription imposed? Possibly they all combined to assist the physician’s efforts, or rather aid his effete treatment. Cold water and warm water have in turn been praised to the very skies by their eulogists, and become the subject of ridicule and persecution on the part of more spirited practitioners.
In surgery, water has ever been considered of great utility; it, no doubt, was instinctively used by man to cleanse and heal his wounds. Patroclus, having extracted the dart from his friend Eurypylus, washes the wound; and the prophet Elisha prescribes to Naaman the waters of Jordan. Rivers hadvarious qualities, and were supposed to prove as different in their action on the economy as the mineral springs which from time immemorial, have been resorted to. These effects may in fact not be altogether doubtful; for, although these salutary streams may not possess sufficient active ingredients to be recognised by chemical tests, yet we know that substances which appear perfectly inert may prove highly active and effectual when combined and diluted naturally or artificially. Moreover, in the effects of watering-places on the invalid or valetudinarian, we must not forget the powerful influence of change of air and habit, the invigorating stimulus of hope, and the diversion from former occupations. To these auxiliaries many a remedy has owed its high reputation; and probably when Wesley attributed his recovery to brimstone and supplication, he in a great measure might have considered rest from incessant labour the chief agent in his relief. The exhilarating effects of the picturesque site of many of these salutary places of resort is universally acknowledged. Montaigne, Voltaire, Alfieri, acknowledged their influence on the imagination. Petrarch’s inspirations flowed with the waters of Vaucluse, some of Sevigné’s most delightful letters were written at Vichy, and Genlis and Staël were particularly happy in their epistolary elegance at Spa and Baden.
We owe to accident many valuable discoveries in medicine. It is said that several Indians, having used the waters of a lake in which a cinchona tree was growing, experienced the benefit which led to the use of the Peruvian bark; and the thermal properties of the baths of Carlsbad were first made known by the howling of one of Charles the Fourth’s hounds, that had fallen in them in a hunt. It has been also observed, in various countries, that particular waters produced various morbid affections; and to this cause have been attributed goitres, cretinism, calculi, and other distressing diseases. The ancients dreaded the impurity of their rivers. The Romans boiled their water in extensivethermopolia, where not only potations were drunk hot, but occasionally refrigerated with ice and snow, and, when thus prepared, calleddecocta. Juvenal and Martial refer this custom to the Greeks. Herodotus informs us that the Persian monarchs were accompanied on their expeditions by chariots laden with silver vases filled with the water of theChoaspesthat had been boiled, and which was solely destined for the king’s use:Athenæus tells us that it was light and sweet. Many ancient coins and inscriptions have recorded these salutary properties of certain waters.
This real or supposed efficacy was scarcely discovered before it became the domain of priests: and common rain or river water became valuable and sanctified when blessed by them: hence the introduction of lustral water. The fluid extracted from the gown of Mahomet is the sacred property of the sultan. The moment the fast of the Ramazan is proclaimed, this holy vestment is drawn from a gold chest, and, after having been kissed with due devotion, plunged in a vase of happy water, which, when wrung from the garment, is carefully preserved in precious bottles, that are sent by the monarch as valuable presents, or sold at exorbitant prices as cures for any and every disease. Thus were the good effects of ablution, especially in wounds, attributed to some secret charm or quality conferred upon it by clerical benediction or the legitimacy of princes. When a quack of the name of Doublet cured the wounded at the siege of Metz in 1553, the water he used was considered to have been of a mystic nature; and Brantome describes his treatment in the following words: “Durant le susdit et tant mémorable siège, était en la place un chirurgien nommé Doublet, lequel faisait d’estranges cures avec du simple linge blanc, et belle eau claire venant de la fontaine ou du puit; mais il s’aidait de sortilèges et paroles charmées, et chacun allait à luy.” This Doublet, no doubt, was acquainted with an ingenious treatise on gun-shot wounds, written by Blondi in 1542, in which he strongly recommended the use of cold water; but, as his recommendation was not founded on any miraculous quality, he was forgotten, while Doublet was considered a supernatural being. Previous to this simple and sagacious method of healing wounds, various curious applications were in high repute; more especially the oil of kittens, which the celebrated Paré discovered to his great delight, was prepared by boiling live cats, coat and all, in olive oil, and was until then a valuable secret preparation, calledoleum catellorum, and its use, with that of other nostrums, was known under the name ofsecret dressing.[20]
This simple mode of dressing wounds, especially those that were inflicted by fire-arms, was a great desideratum; for, up to this era in surgery, these injuries were healed by the application of scalding oil or red-hot instruments, under the impression that they were of a poisonous nature. Paré was one of the first army-surgeons who exploded this barbarous practice. Having, according to his own account, expended all his boiling oil, he employed a mixture of yolk of egg, oil, and turpentine, not without the apprehension of finding his patients labouring under all the effects of poison the following day; when, to his great surprise, he found them much more relieved than those to whom the actual cautery had been applied. In more recent times, armies have been unjustly accused of making use of poisonous balls; and this absurd charge was brought against the French after the battle of Fontenoy, when the hospital fever broke out among the wounded crowded in the neighbouring villages. Chewing bullets was also considered a means of imparting to them a venomous quality. Lead and iron, the metals of which these projectiles were usually cast, were also deemed of a poisonous nature. A sort of aristocratic feeling seemed to obtain in those days; and it is related that two Spanish gentlemen had procured gold balls to fire at Francis I. at the battle of Pavia, that so noble and generous a prince should not fall by the vile metal reserved for vulgar people; and, in the adverse ranks, La Chatarguene, a noble of the French court, had prepared bullets of the same costly material for the reception of Charles V. It was under the impression of this poisonous nature of wounds, that individuals of both sexes, called suckers, followed armies, and endeavoured to extract the venom by suction; the records of chivalry give us instances of lovely damsels who condescended to perform this operation with their lovely mouths upon theirdamoiseaux; and Sibille submitted the wounds of her husband, Duke Robert, to a similar treatment: indeed, these suckers were chiefly females. May not this practice be the origin of the termleech, applied in ancient times to medical men? Leechcraft was the art of healing. Thus Spenser:
And then the learned leechHis cunning hand ’gan to his wounds to lay,And all things else the which his art did teach.
To this day, the custom of sucking wounds prevails among soldiers; and there is every reason to hope, from the experiments of the late Sir David Barry, that the exhaustion produced by cupping-glasses will be found of essential service in all venomous wounds. This practice of suction, no doubt, was known in Greece; Machaon performed it at the siege of Troy. The mothers and wives of the ancient Germans had recourse to the same process. In India the suction of wounds constitutes a profession. It was by this means that the Psylli cured the bite of serpents; and it is related of Cato, that his abhorrence of the Greek surgeons was such, that he directed Psylli to follow the Roman armies.
Water affords a beautiful illustration of that indestructibility with which the Creator invested matter for the preservation of the world he formed from elementary masses, and appears to have existed unchangeable from the commencement of the universe. Its constituent parts are not broken into by any atmospheric revolution; they continue the same, whether in the solid ice, the fluid state of a liquid, or the gaseous form of a vapour. Its powers are undiminished, whether in the wave or the steam; the most effective agent in the hands of man to promote that welfare and happiness which his own errors deprive him of, frequently bringing on those calamities that his perversity attributes to the will of the Omnipotent. Water is the same in the atmosphere as on the earth, and falls in the very same nature as it ascends; electricity has no other influence upon it than that of hastening its precipitation. Chemical agents, however powerful, can only decompose its elementary principles upon the most limited scale. The heterogeneous substances with which water may occasionally be alloyed must be considered as purely accidental.
The homogeneous characters of this fluid admit of no alteration, and, like atmospheric air, are still obtained as pure most probably as when they first emerged from chaotic matter. The same principles are found in the clouds, the fogs, the dews, the rain, the hail, and the snow. For the preservation of the world it was indispensable that water should be endowed with the property of ever retaining its fluid form,and in this respect become subject to a law different from that of other bodies, which change from fluid to solid. This is a deviation from a general decree of Nature. Were it not for this wise provision of the Creator, the world would shortly have been converted into a frozen chaos. All bodies contract their dimensions, and acquire a greater specific gravity by cooling; but water is excepted from this law, and becomes of less specific gravity, whether it be heated, or cooled below 42° 5′. Were it not for this exemption, it would have become specifically heavier by the loss of its caloric, and the waters that float on the surface of rivers would have sunk as it froze, until the beds of rivers would have been filled up with immense masses of ice. From the observations of Perron, there is reason to believe that the mountainous accumulations of ice that have hitherto arrested the progress of polar navigators have been detached from the depths of the ocean to float upon its surface. This circumstance would account for the difference of temperature of the sea according to its depth. The experiments of Perron, made with an instrument of his own invention, which he called the thermobarometer, gave the following results:
1st, The temperature of the sea upon its surface, and at a distance from shore, is at the meridian, lower than that of the atmosphere in the shade; much more elevated at midnight, but in a state of equilibrium morning and evening.
2nd, The temperature rises as we approach continents or extensive islands.
3rd, At a distance from land, the temperature of the deep parts of the sea is lower than that of the surface, and the cold increases with the depth. It is this circumstance which led this ingenious philosopher to conclude that even under the equator the bottom of the sea is eternally frozen.
Humboldt is of a contrary opinion, and maintains that the temperature is from two to three degrees lower in shallow water; and he therefore is of opinion that the thermometer might prove of material use to navigators. He attributes this diminution of temperature to the admixture of the lower bodies of water with that of the surface. Who is to decide between these two ingenious experimentalists? “Experientia fallax, judicium difficile.” The curious reader may consult in this investigation the tables of Forster in Cook’s second voyage, those of Lord Mulgrave when Captain Phipps, and various other navigators.
The salutary medicinal effects of sea-bathing are generallyacknowledged, although too frequently recommended in cases which do not warrant the practice; in such circumstances they often prove highly prejudicial. The ancients held sea-water baths in such estimation, that Lampridius and Suetonius inform us that Nero had it conveyed to his palace. As sea-bathing is not always within the reach of those who may require it, artificial sea-water has been considered a desirable substitute; and the following mode of preparing it, not being generally known, may prove of some utility. To fifty pounds of water add ten ounces of muriate of soda, ten drachms of muriate of magnesia, two ounces of muriate of lime, six drachms of sulphate of soda, and the same quantity of sulphate of magnesia. This is Swediaur’s receipt. Bouillon Lagrange, and Vogel, recommend the suppression of the muriate of lime and sulphate of soda, to be replaced with carbonate of lime and magnesia; but this alteration does not appear necessary, or founded on sufficient chemical grounds for adoption.
Sea-water taken internally has been considered beneficial in several maladies; and, although not potable in civilized countries, it is freely drunk by various savage tribes. Cook informs us that it is used with impunity in Easter Island; and Schouten observed several fishermen in the South Sea drinking it, and giving it to their children, when their stock of fresh water was expended. Amongst the various and capricious experiments of Peter the Great, an edict is recorded ordering his sailors to give salt water to their male children, with a view of accustoming them to a beverage which might preclude the necessity of laying in large stocks of fresh water on board his ships! The result was obvious: this nursery of seamen perished in the experiment. Russel, Lind, Buchan, and various other medical writers, have recommended the internal use of sea-water in scrofulous and cutaneous affections; but its use in the present day is pretty nearly exploded.
An ague in the spring is physic for a king.
Agues come on horseback, but go away on foot.
A bit in the morning is better than nothing all day.
You eat and eat, but you do not drink to fill you.
An apple, an egg, and a nut, you may eat after a slut.
Poma, ova, atque nuces, si det tibi sordida, gustes.
Old young and old long.
They who would be young when they are old, must be old when they are young.
When the fern is as high as a spoon,You may sleep an hour at noon.When the fern is as high as a ladle,You may sleep as long as you are able.When fern begins to look red,Then milk is good with brown bread.
At forty a man is either a fool or a physician.
After dinner sit a while, after supper walk a mile.
After dinner sleep a while, after supper go to bed.
A good surgeon must have an eagle’s eye, a lion’s heart, and a lady’s hand.
Good kale is half a meal.
If you would live for ever you must wash milk from your liver.
Vin sur lait, c’est souhait; lait sur vin, c’est venin.
Butter is gold in the morning, silver at noon, and lead at night.
He that would live for aye, must eat sage in May.
Cur moriatur homo, cui salvia crescit in horto?
After cheese comes nothing.
An egg and to bed.
You must drink as much after an egg as after an ox.
He that goes to bed thirsty rises healthy.
Qui couche avec la soif, se leve avec la santé.
One hour’s sleep before midnight is worth two hours after.
Who goes to bed supperless, all night tumbles and tosses.
Often and little eating makes a man fat.
Fish must swim thrice.
Poisson, goret, et cochon vit en l’eau, mort en vin.
Drink wine and have the gout, drink no wine and have it too.
Young men’s knocks, old men feel.
Quæ peccamus Juvenes, ea luimus Senes.
Go to bed with the lamb, and rise with the lark.
Early to bed, and early to rise,Makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.
Wash your hands often, your feet seldom, and your head never.
Eat at pleasure, drink by measure.
Pain tant qu’il dure, vin à mésure.
Cheese is a peevish elf,It digests all but itself.
Caseus est nequam,Quia digerit omnia se quàm.
The best physicians are Dr. Diet, Dr. Quiet, and Dr. Merryman.
Si tibi deficiant medici, medici tibi fiantHæc tria; mens læta, requies, moderata diæta.
Drink in the morning staring,Then all the day be sparing.
Eat a bit before you drink.
Feed sparingly and dupe the physician.
Better be meals many than one too many.
You should never touch your eye but with your elbow.
Non patitur ludum fama, fides, oculus.
The head and feet keep warm, the rest will take no harm.
Tenez chaud le pied et la tête, au demurant vives en bête.
Qui ne boit vin après salade, est en danger d’être malade.
Cover your head by day as much as you will, by night as much as you can.
Fish spoils water, but flesh mends it.
Apples, pears, and nuts spoil the voice.
Quartan agues kill old men and cure young.
Old fish, old oil, and an old friend.
Pesce, oglio, ed amico vecchio.
Raw pullet, veal, and fish, make the churchyard fat.
Of wine the middle, of oil the top, of honey the bottom.
Vino di mezzo, oglio di sopra, e miele di sotto.
The air of a window is the stroke of a cross-bow.
Aria di finestra, colpo di balestra.
Piscia chiaro, ed incaca al medico.
When the wind is in the east, it’s neither good for man nor beast.
A hot May makes a fat churchyard.
That city is in a bad case, whose physicians have the gout.—Hebrew Proverb.
When the sun rises, the disease will abate.[21]
If you take away the salt, throw the meat to the dogs.
Splen ridere facit, cogit amare jecur.[22]
Lever à cinq, dîner à neuf.Souper à cinq, coucher à neuf.Font vivre dans nonante neuf.
Surge quintâ, prande nonâ, cœna quintâ, dormi nonâ, nec est morti vita prona.
Hunger’s the best sauce.
Optimum condimentum fames.
Plures occidit gula quàm gladius.
Qui a bu, boira.Ever drunk ever dry.
Vinum potens, vinum nocens.
The child is too clever to live long.
Præcocibus mors ingeniis est invida semper.
Le chant du cocq, le coucher du corbeau,Préservent l’homme du tombeau.
Bitter to the mouth, sweet to the heart.
Paulò deterior, sed suavior potus est cibus; meliori quidem, sed ingrato, præferendus est.
Après la soupe, un coup d’excellent vinTire un écu de la poche du médecin.
The Night-mare or Ephialtes,incubus, from εφαλλομαι, “to leap upon,” andincubo, “to lie upon,” may be considered a sympathetic affection of the brain during our sleep, generally arising from a derangement in the digestive functions. We therefore observe it after a heavy supper, or the use of any article of food of difficult digestion. It is to these circumstances more than to the “unusual loss of volition,” which some physiologists consider as its cause, that we are to attribute this unpleasant perturbation of our repose, which impresses the sleeper with the idea of some living being pressing upon the chest, inspiring terror, impeding respiration, and subduing all voluntary action that might endeavour to remove the unwelcome visiter. It has been observed that persons of a melancholy and contemplative disposition are more subject to it than the gay and the vivacious. Sedentary employment and anxiety of mind often bring it on; and it has been noticed innostalgia, or regret of home, in soldiers and sailors. The sense of apprehension remains after the sufferer is awakened, and the fluttering of the heart and quick pulse are observed for some time after, while drops of cold perspiration frequently trickle down his brow. When the night-mare is the result of too much repletion, it is possible that its symptoms denote a pressure of the loaded stomach on the solar plexus.
It is said that thenight-marederives its name fromMara, an evil spirit of the Scandinavians, which, according to the Runic theology, seized men in their sleep, and deprived them of the powers of volition. Our old Anglo-Saxon name for the disease wasElf-Sidenne, or elf-squatting; hence the popular term “hag-ridden.”
There is a variety of the malady which makes its attack by day, and when waking: it has been called the day-mare, orephialtes vigilantium. This affection, although uncommon, has been noticed by Forestus, Rhodius, Sauvages, and Good. Forestus has known it to return periodically like an intermittent fever.
It is not always that the patient experiences unpleasant sensations in these nocturnal attacks, which were not unfrequently of a curious nature. The ancients thought that theseintruders were sometimes sportive Fauns; hence Pliny calls the affectionludibria Fauni. At a subsequent period, superstition replaced the Fauns byIncubi, or evil spirits, who visited the earth to destroy virtuous women; and it was once gravely discussed by the Sorbonne, whether the offspring of such an union should be considered human, or the fair lady’s reputation injured by the involuntary act of giving a young incubus to the world. The absurd stories of the pranks of theSuccubiandIncubiare well known.
Ephialtes has been known to be epidemic, and has attacked numbers at a time. Cælius Aurelianus informs us that Silimachus, a disciple of Hippocrates, observed the phenomenon in Rome, when the disease generally proved fatal. It is more than probable that in these cases the night-mare was merely symptomatic of other complaints. A French physician, Dr. Laurent, however, has related a very curious instance of a species of night-mare attacking an entire regiment; he thus relates the singular occurrence:
“The first battalion of the regiment Latour d’Auvergne, of which I was the surgeon, was garrisoned at Palmi, in Calabria, when we received a sudden order at midnight to march with all possible speed to Tropea; a flotilla of the enemy having appeared off the coast. It was in the month of June; we had a march of forty miles of the country, and only arrived at our destination at seven o’clock the following evening, having scarcely halted during those thirty-one hours, and suffered considerably from the heat of the sun. On our arrival the men found their rations cooked and their quarters prepared; but, having arrived the last, our regiment had the worst accommodation, and eight hundred men were pent up in a building scarcely capacious enough for half the number. The soldiers were in consequence much crowded, and slept upon the straw without any bedding, and most uncomfortably. The building was an abandoned monastery; and the inhabitants warned us that we should not be able to occupy it quietly, as it was haunted every night. We laughed at their superstitious fears, but were much amazed when, towards midnight, we heard loud cries, and the soldiers rushed tumultuously, and in evident terror, out of their rooms. Being interrogated as to the causes of this alarm, they all affirmed that the devil was in the abbey; that they had seen him enter in the shape of a large black dog, that had jumped upon their breasts and disappeared. To convince them of the absurdity of their fears was of no avail; not a single mancould be persuaded to return to his quarters, and they wandered about the town until daybreak. On the following morning I questioned the most steady non-commissioned officers and the oldest soldiers; and though under ordinary circumstances they were strangers to fear, and never gave credit to any tales of supernatural agency, they assured me that the dog had weighed them down and nearly suffocated them. We remained that day in Tropea, and had no other quarters to occupy but the same monastery, and the soldiers would only take up their residence on the condition that we should remain with them: the men retired to sleep—we watched; all was quiet until about one in the morning; when they awoke in the same terror, and fled from the building in dismay. We had looked out most attentively, but could not perceive the cause of this commotion. The following day we returned to Palmi; and, although we marched over a great part of Italy, and were frequently equally crowded and uncomfortable, a similar scene never recurred.”
Dr. Laurent very judiciously attributes this singular attack to the pernicious local influence of some deleterious gas, and the very crowded state the men slept in. It is also probable that they did not take off their accoutrements, and lay down with their belts on: might they not also have eaten some unwholesome fruit upon the line of march, for it was in the month of June, when various berries grow in abundance along the road-side?
Hippocrates’s theory of the night-mare was, that, during our sleep, our volition being suspended, the soul, still awake, watches over all the functions of the body. It is rather odd that the animal that most persons pretend to have thus annoyed them, is a long-haired black dog. Forestus assures us that it was a similar visiter that tormented him in his youth. This circumstance can only be attributed to vulgar superstition and tradition. Dubosquet has preceded his Treatise on Ephialtes with the engraving of a large monkey who had perplexed a young lady whom he attended; the monkey most probably came on horseback, as his steed is also delineated looking over the sleeping victim.
Various medicines have been recommended to prevent these attacks; amongst others, saffron and peony: and several learned commentators have endeavoured to prove and disprove that they were only specific in the form of an amulet. Zacutus Lusitanus recommends aloes, and his advice is perhaps as good a one as could be given. The ancientsattributed many powerful effects to saffron, and, amongst other properties, it was considered as an effective narcotic, and was said to occasion violent headaches. Curious anecdotes are related of its effects. Amatus Lusitanus having exhibited this medicine to accelerate a tardy accouchement, the woman was delivered of two yellow daughters; and Hertodt, in his work called Crocology, relates that, having tried it on a bitch, all her pups were of a similar colour. The ancients called saffron the king of plants, the vegetable panacea, and the soul of the lungs. In modern times we do not recognise any peculiar property in this production; and in Spain and Italy it is used as a condiment with perfect impunity. Peony was also deemed a valuable remedy, when gathered as the decreasing moon was passing under Aries: the slit root being then tied round the neck of an epileptic person, he was forthwith cured. “Unlimited scepticism,” Dugald Stewart observes, “is as much the child of imbecility as implicit credulity.” How difficult it is to steer the vessel of our understanding between those shoals!
Medical writers have divided the night-mare, according to its phenomena, into complete, incomplete, mental, and bodily. The complete night-mare, in which the suspension of the functions had been so powerful, has been known to prove fatal. In the incomplete, we fancy ourselves placed in a peculiar situation, opposed by some unexpected obstacle, and all our efforts seem of no avail to extricate ourselves from our difficulties. There is an incubus, called indirect, in which the dreamer is not the individual arrested in his movements; but he is impeded in his progress by the stoppage of his horse, his carriage, his ship, which no power can propel. In the mental or intellectual night-mare, the flow of our ideas is embarrassed, all the associations of our very thoughts appear to be singularly unconnected; we think in an unintelligible language; we write, and cannot decipher our manuscript: all is a mental chaos, and no thread can lead us out of the perplexing labyrinth. In the corporeal ephialtes, we imagine that some of our organs are displaced, or deranged in their functions. One man fancies that a malevolent spectre is drawing out his intestines or his teeth: a patient of Galen felt the cold sensation of a marble statue having been put into bed with him. These, however, are nothing else than the actual sensations we experience at the time. Thus Conrad Gesner fancied that a serpent had stung him in the left side of the breast; an anthrax soon appeared upon the very spot, and terminated his existence.Arnauld de Villeneuve imagined that his foot had been bitten, and a pimple which broke out on the spot soon degenerated into a fatal cancerous affection. Corporeal night-mare may therefore be simply considered as a symptom of disease, and not as a mysterious forewarning.
The cold stage of fever that often invades us in our sleep is the natural forerunner of the malady. This was the case with Dr. Corona, the physician of Pius VI. who upon two occasions was attacked with typhus fever, ushered in by a distressing dream or incubus. These physical phenomena only strengthen the opinion, that in our sleep we are equally alive to mental impressions and bodily sufferings; and that, correctly speaking, there is no suspension of our intellectual faculties of perception, nor is there any interruption in the susceptibilities of our relative existence. The various doctrines regarding dreams illustrate this position.