-not more
irrationally--on the prayers and incantations of the practitioner. But
this sort of practice, in the wilder parts of the country, renders the
medical profession somewhat unsafe to its professors; for the doctor
is looked upon as a wizard, with _power_ to cure or kill as he
chooses. In such places--the jungly districts--there are diseases of
the liver and spleen, to which the children, more especially, are
subject; and when so affected, the patient pines away and dies without
any external token of disease. This result is, of course, attributed
to preternatural means; and if there is not an old woman at hand
obnoxious to suspicion, the doctor is set down as the murderer. 'I
have in these territories,' says Colonel Sleeman, 'known a great many
instances of medical practitioners being put to death for not curing
young people for whom they were required to prescribe. Several cases
have come before me as a magistrate, in which the father has stood
over the doctor with a drawn sword, by the side of the bed of his
child, and cut him down, and killed him the moment the child died, as
he had sworn to do when he found the patient sinking under his
prescriptions.'

Another superstition of the country, originating no doubt in local
circumstances, found its way into Europe, where no such circumstances
existed. In India, a man suddenly vanishes. His family, perhaps, are
expecting him at home, but from that moment he is never more heard of.
He has been destroyed in the jungle by a tiger, and his remains so
completely devoured by other animals, that there is scarcely a relic
of his body left to give assurance of a man, far less as a proof of
his identity. These mysterious disappearances, however, are connected
with their real cause; and men are believed to be frequently
metamorphosed--sometimes voluntarily, sometimes involuntarily--into
tigers. The voluntary transformation is effected merely by eating a
certain root, whereupon the man is instantly changed into a tiger; and
when tired of his new character, he has only to eat another, when,
_presto!_ he subsides from a tiger into a man. But occasionally
mistakes happen. An individual of an inquiring disposition once felt a
strong curiosity to know what were the sensations attendant on such a
transformation; but being a prudent person, he set about the
experiment with all necessary precaution. Having provided himself with

----the insane root
That takes the r