that Eddyism is
an intellectual distemper, of a contagious character; that it is
epidemic in this country, and that, in its causation, its rise and
spread, it presents a close analogy to the great epidemics of history.

The ancient magicians, in their various methods of treating the sick,
strove ever after sensational means of healing, and their example has
been closely followed by the quacks of every succeeding age. They failed
to appreciate that a tablet of powdered biscuit, discreetly
administered, may be as beneficial therapeutically as any relic of a
holy saint, because the healing force in either case is wholly mental,
and resides in the patient. The exceptional notoriety achieved by
Paracelsus was largely due to his shrewdness in pandering to the love of
the marvellous, while utilizing also _bona-fide materia medica_.

Indeed, however strong may have been the belief in magical agencies as
healing factors, the most eminent early practitioners were ever ready to
avail themselves of material remedies. For they maintained that the
actions of the physician should not be hampered by metaphysical
considerations.[56:1] Not only did the magicians employ precious stones
and metals as remedies, on account of their intrinsic value and the
popular belief in their virtues, but they also prescribed the most
loathsome and repulsive substances. The early pharmacopoeias and the
works of noted charlatans, together with the annals of folk-medicine,
afford ample evidence of this fact.

Apropos of this subject, we quote from a lecture given by Dr. Richard
Cabot at the Harvard Medical School, February 13, 1909:--

In one of our great hospitals here it has been the custom for
a long time to use for treatment by suggestion a tuning-fork
which is known at that hospital as a magnet. It is not a
magnet; it is merely an ordinary, plain, rather large
tuning-fork. But people have, as you know, a very curious
superstition about the action of magnets, and believing this
tuning-fork to be a magnet, they attribute occult and
wonderful powers to it. When placed upon a supposedly
paralyzed limb or on the throat of a person who thinks he
cannot speak, it has wonderful powers just because it is
supposed to be a magnet, when in fact it is a tuning-fork. I
remonstrated once with the gentleman who uses this tuning-fork
because, so far as I could see, it was a lie, like all other