have explained the healing of the Centurion's servant, 'Say the word,
Lord, and my servant shall be healed,' by suggestion & distance
(telepathy), and by premising that the servant's palsy was 'hysterical.'
But what do we mean by 'hysterical'? Nobody knows. The 'mind,' somehow,
causes gangrenes, if not cancers, paralysis, shrinking of tissues; the
mind, somehow, cures them. And what is the 'mind'? As my object is to give
savage parallels to modern instances better vouched for. I quote a
singular Red Indian cure by 'suggestion.' Hearne, travelling in Canada, in
1770, met a native who had 'dead palsy,' affecting the whole of one side.
He was dragged on a sledge, 'reduced to a mere skeleton,' and so was
placed in the magic lodge. The first step in his cure was the public
swallowing by a conjurer of a board of wood, 'about the size of a
barrel-stave,' twice as wide across as his mouth. Hearne stood beside the
man, 'naked as he was born,' 'and, notwithstanding I was all attention, I
could not detect the deceit.' Of course, Hearne believes that this was
mere legerdemain, and (p. 216) mentions a most suspicious circumstance.
The account is amusing, and deserves the attention of Mr. Neville
Maskelyne. The same conjurer had previously swallowed a cradle! Now
bayonet swallowing, which he also did, is possible, though Hearne denies
it (p. 217).

The real object of these preliminary feats, however performed, is,
probably, to inspire _faith_, which Dr. Charcot might have done by
swallowing a cradle. The Indians explain that the barrel staves apparently
swallowed are merely dematerialised by 'spirits,' leaving only the forked
end sticking out of the conjurer's mouth. In fact, Hearne caught the
conjurer in the act of making a separate forked end.

Faith being thus inspired, the conjurer, for three entire days, blew,
sang, and danced round 'the poor paralytic, fasting.' 'And it is truly
wonderful, though the strictest truth, that when the poor man was taken
from the conjuring house ... he was able to move all the fingers and toes
of the side that had been so long dead.... At the end of six weeks he went
a-hunting for his family' (p. 219). Hearne kept up his acquaintance, and
adds, what is very curious, that he developed almost a secondary
personality. 'Before that dreadful paralytic stroke, he had been
distinguished for his good nature and benevolent disposition, was entirely
free from every appearance of avarice,... but after this eve