90 Oft Popular Illuftons. 



" who had got as clofe to the corpfe as we could, 

 " that we might be more exa£t in our obfer- 

 ** vations, we were ahiioft poifoned by the in- 

 ** tolerable flench that ilTued from it. When 

 " they afked us what we thought of this body," 

 (every one knows that Tournefort was a phy- 

 fician) " we told them we believed it to be 

 " thoroughly dead ; but as we were willing to 

 ** cure, or at leaft not to exafperate their pre- 

 *' judiced imaginations, we reprefented to them, 

 ** that it was no wonder the butcher fhould feel 

 *• a little warmth, when he groped among the 

 " putrid inteftines; that it was no extraordinary 

 " thing for the body to emit fumes, fince dung 

 '* turned up will do the fame j that as for the 

 *' pretended rednefs of the blood, it ftill ap- 

 *' peared, by the butcher's hands, to be nothing 

 " but a very foetid, nafty fmear." 



V. The devil took care to get into the cellars 

 of thofe perfons who abandoned their houfes, in 

 order to drink up their wine. 



VI. No watch was kept, nor any proper mea- 

 fures taken to prevent villanous prafticesj 



Upon the whole then, the opinion of a vrou- 

 colacas, like the others already examined, ap- 

 pears to be only an hypothefis, formed to ac- 

 count for phaenomena, whofe caufes were not 

 obvious to the people. But if a philosopher had 

 not unluckily been prefent at this curious tranf- 

 aflion, the annals of credulity could fcarce have 



furnifhed 



