so numerous that it would be a herculean task to give an
account of one half of them. Where the inhabitants were destitute of
medical resources, amulets and charms were employed for the
alleviation of bodily suffering. Pericles wore an amulet about his
neck, as such charms were supposed to be capable of preserving the
wearers from misfortune and disease. Lord Bacon was of opinion that if
a man wore a planet seal, it might aid him in obtaining the affection
of his sweetheart, give him protection at sea and in battle, and make
him more courageous. Cramp rings and eel skins were worn round the
limbs, to prevent sickness; and people were sometimes cured by laying
sticks across each other in front of their beds at night. Moreover,
the sticks thus placed prevented demons approaching the couch of rest.
The moss off a dead man's skull, says the great Mr. Boyle, is an
effectual remedy against bleeding at the nose. We are told by Lord
Verulam, that when he was at Paris he had above one hundred warts on
his hands, and that they were removed by the English ambassador's lady
rubbing them with a piece of bacon, afterwards nailed to a post. In
five weeks the bacon, being exposed to the sun, melted away, and the
warts disappeared.

St. Vitus' dance was cured by the sufferer visiting the tomb of the
saint, near Ulm, every May. The bites of certain reptiles are rendered
harmless by music. Dr. Sydenham orders, in cases of iliac passion, a
live kitten to be laid on the abdomen. Pigeons, split alive and
applied to the soles of the feet, are efficacious in fevers and
convulsions. Quincey says that yawning and laughing are infectious,
and so are fear and shame; and from these, by a system of reasoning
peculiarly his own, he endeavours to prove that amulets may be
sufficient to counteract, if not to entirely hinder, infection.
Throughout the Mohammedan dominions the people were convinced that
charms were indispensable to their well-being. By charms they cured
every kind of disease, provided predestination had not determined that
the sick man's days were at an end. Surprise, it is urged, removes the
hooping-cough; looking from a precipice, or seeing a wheel turn
swiftly, causes giddiness. "Why then," asks a wise man, "may not
amulets or charms, by their secret influence, produce the effects
ascribed to them? Who can comprehend by what impenetrable means the
bite of a mad dog produces hydrophobia? Why does the touch of a
torpedo induce numbnes