^ISCULAPIUS. 517 



intense contemplation, by excessive abstraction, holding the 

 intellect in thumb-screws, a cast-steel rivet through the cen- 

 tre of the mind ; a kind of " double internal squint" being 

 the most potential direction of the eyes for the purpose. 

 "Abstraction tends to become more and more abstract, nar- 

 rower and narrower ; it tends to unity, and afterward to 

 nullity." Sound ! Of course to nullity. All films are thus 

 cast aside from organs and tissues ; exaltation in impressi- 

 bility is. the achievement; "the body trembles like down 

 with the wafts of the atmosphere ; the world plays upon 

 it as upon a spiritual instrument finely attuned;" ("Harp 

 of a thousand strings and sperets of just men," including 

 the "voice of the turtle;") angels of mercy descend, touch 

 the raw and agonized surfaces with balmy kisses of healing ; 

 and the patient, in the sanitary embraces of a hypnotic trance, 

 is redeemed from the horrors of disease, and is carried bliss- 

 fully back to the harmonious circulation of health and life. 

 This idea is supposed to be a full forty-second cousin of that 

 highly respectable phantom of the human brain, called Ani- 

 mal Magnetism. 



Beside these fanciful and suggestive systems of medica- 

 tion which seem to bring in arcs of the circle, and serve to 

 complete the whole sphere of the possible in this realm of 

 imaginative and ideal healing, there are others scarcely 

 worthy of notice, while some are positively filthy, noxious, 

 and insane, mere beggarly insults to the good sense of hu- 

 manity ; for, to speak or allude to Uroscopy or Thompsonian- 

 ism in the presence of decent persons, is to be vulgar and 

 ridiculous. Add to this list the "grape cure," the "goats- 

 whey cure," the "hunger cure," the "beer cure," the "rest 

 cure," and there would seem to be no end to the cures or 

 systems of healing in this department of strategies and wiles, 

 of humbugs and horrors. Still is it wonderful how the 

 swarms of delusions acknowledge the same venerable author 

 of lies for their illustrious sire, and have even a similarity of 

 detail, a family resemblance most obvious ; the end proposed 

 by ALL their efforts being to humbug and swindle the world. 



44 



