ous case of possession by the use of a powerful emetic; yet
myth-making came in here also, and it was stated that when the emetic
produced its effect people had seen multitudes of green and yellow
devils cast forth from the mouth of the possessed.

The last great demonstration of the old belief in England was made in
1788. Near the city of Bristol at that time lived a drunken epileptic,
George Lukins. In asking alms, he insisted that he was "possessed," and
proved it by jumping, screaming, barking, and treating the company to a
parody of the Te Deum.

He was solemnly brought into the Temple Church, and seven clergymen
united in the effort to exorcise the evil spirit. Upon their adjuring
Satan, he swore "by his infernal den" that he would not come out of
the man--"an oath," says the chronicler, "nowhere to be found but in
Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, from which Lukins probably got it."

But the seven clergymen were at last successful, and seven devils were
cast out, after which Lukins retired, and appears to have been supported
during the remainder of his life as a monument of mercy.

With this great effort the old theory in England seemed practically
exhausted.

Science had evidently carried the stronghold. In 1876, at a little
town near Amiens, in France, a young woman suffering with all the usual
evidences of diabolic possession was brought to the priest. The priest
was besought to cast out the devil, but he simply took her to the
hospital, where, under scientific treatment, she rapidly became
better.(409)

(409) See Figuier; also Collin de Plancy, Dictionnaire Infernale,
article Posseses.

The final triumph of science in this part of the great field has been
mainly achieved during the latter half of the present century.

Following in the noble succession of Paracelsus and John Hunter and
Pinel and Tuke and Esquirol, have come a band of thinkers and workers
who by scientific observation and research have developed new growths of
truth, ever more and more precious.

Among the many facts thus brought to bear upon this last stronghold
of the Prince of Darkness, may be named especially those indicating
"expectant attention"--an expectation of phenomena dwelt upon until the
longing for them becomes morbid and invincible, and the creation of
them perhaps unconscious. Still other classes of phenomena leading to
epidemics are found to arise from a morbid tendency to imitation. Still
other groups have been