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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



EDITOR'S TABLE. 



ANCIENT AND MODERN SUPERSTI- 

 TIONS. 



N the interesting work by M. Mas- 

 pero, entitled Ancient Egypt and 

 Assyria, a translation of which has late- 

 ly been published in this country (Apple- 

 tons), a vivid description is given of the 

 way in which, in the fourteenth century 

 b. o., an Egyptian physician would have 

 proceeded to cope with a serious case of 

 disease. Psarou, an officer of high rank, 

 has fallen sick. His wife Khait — here 

 let us quote the author's words — " sum- 

 mons an exorcist to see her husband. 

 Nibamon is unequaled in Thebes for his 

 skill in curing the most violent head- 

 aches. He arrives toward evening, ac- 

 companied by two servants; one carries 

 his black book, the other a casket filled 

 with the necessary ingredients for man- 

 ufacturing every variety of talisman on 

 the spot — clay for modeling, plants, 

 dried or freshly culled, consecrated 

 linen, black or red ink, small figures in 

 wax or baked earth. One glance at 

 the patient tells him the cause of the 

 illness: a dead man visits Psarou every 

 night and is slowly devouring him. 

 After a few moments' reflection he 

 takes a little clay, mixes some blades of 

 grass with it, and kneads the whole into 

 a rather large ball, over which he recites 

 in a low tone one of the most powerful 

 incantations contained in his book." 

 Returning next day to ascertain how 

 the sick man is faring, the exorcist finds 

 that the symptoms are worse than the 

 day before. " These incidents distress 

 Nibamon. but do not surprise him. The 

 evil spirits are always unwilling to leave 

 their prey, and always endeavor to dis- 

 pute it inch by inch with the magician 

 who opposes them. The ghost driven 

 from the head now attacks the stomach, 

 and he will only yield to a new spell." 

 The second incantation succeeds no bet- 



ter than the first, and in a few days the 

 man is dead. 



Such were the superstitions of an- 

 cient times. Did the exorcists lose 

 their credit because their spells pro- 

 duced no effect? By no means. "What- 

 ever recoveries took place would be set 

 down to their credit, while failure to 

 cure would be ascribed to occult causes 

 into which it was either vain or im- 

 pious to inquire. Had any one in those 

 days proposed a statistical test of the 

 physical efficacy of incantations in the 

 cure of sickness, by tabulating the cases 

 in which such measures had been re- 

 sorted to and those in which they had 

 not been resorted to, and striking a 

 percentage of recoveries under one and 

 the other system, there would have 

 been a fourteenth-century b. o. anticipa- 

 tion of the execration which a kindred 

 proposition of Prof. Tyndall's met with 

 a dozen or more years ago. Lucky in- 

 deed would the ancient skeptic have 

 been, had he escaped with no more 

 unpleasant consequences than averted 

 gazes and a scolding all round. Yet 

 what other method than the statistical 

 could any one now suggest for proving 

 or disproving the efficacy of the incanta- 

 tion business ? 



Could the ancient Egyptian exorcist 

 be revived in our times it would not be 

 difficult, in the very heart of civilization 

 to introduce him to quarters where he 

 would feel that his art might still be 

 pursued with much pecuniary and social 

 success. There are hundreds of thou- 

 sands of our fellow-citizens who are 

 willing to pay hard and honestly earned 

 money for medals and charms of one 

 kind and another which by virtue of 

 some ecclesiastical benediction are sup- 

 posed to have the most remarkable spe- 

 cific properties. One medal will give suc- 

 cess in agricultural operations, another 



