On Popular Illufions. 55 



lufpefting preternatural influence*. It is evi- 

 dent that this teft was admitted entirely from 

 ignorance and prefumption, becaufe feveral 

 difeafes do certainly accede without much previ- 

 ous fenfible indifpofition. 



1. When the caufe of a difeafe did not readily 

 fuggeft itfelf, it was generally attributed to 

 witchcraftf . Thus, the atrophy of infants was 

 long imputed to the power of evil eyeSy and 

 Sennertus has treated largely of this fort of 

 fafcination. 



3. Convulfive difeafes were fuppofed to be 

 preternatural, when fuch mufcles were afFefted, 

 as produced unufual contorfions, of a terrifying 

 appearance. The cafe of the Norfolk boy, in 

 the late Dr. Wall's Medical Eflays, has all thofe 

 fymptoms which a demonologift would require, 

 to eftablifh it as an inftance of fafcination ; and 

 we learn that his parents fufpefted fuch an in- 

 fluence. The only thing deficient in this ftory, 

 for the purpofe of demonology, is that the boy 

 did not fpeak Greek or Latin ; that is, he wanted 

 jufl: fo much of being an impoflor. In the ninth 

 volume of the Medical Commentaries, publilhed 

 in 1786, are three cafes of convulfions, in which 

 the appearances were fo extraordinary that the 

 country people fuppofed the patients were be- 

 witched. 



• DaItoi>'s Country Juftice. f Joubert, 



4. Demono- 



