AUTHOR'S PREFACE 



XI 



accentuates the kindly and helpful attitude of the great 

 majority. Even in the cases where I have ventured to 

 differ from high authorities on obscure points which are 

 still unsettled, I have found them ready to listen and 

 eager to discover the possible value of any suggestion. 



To subjects purely scientific I have thought it worth 

 while to add a short paper, originally published in Folk- 

 lore, which deals with the Thargelian Pharmakos. The 

 etymology and significance of the word Pharmakos, 

 and its relations to magic medicine, are very obscure, and 

 any possible elucidation of its meaning should be of interest 

 to such modern descendants of the ancient therapeutic 

 magicians as practise medicine with more modesty as 

 well as with more success. I cannot refrain from stating 

 here that the friend mentioned in the paper, to whom I 

 owed the knowledge of the existence of the Turkic word 

 vourmak, was the late Mr. Max Montesole, whose vast stores 

 of linguistic learning were always open to those who could 

 not aspire to equal his own, and whose death no one who 

 knew him will cease to deplore. With this acknowledgment 

 of gratitude I wish to combine my sincerest thanks for help 

 and encouragement to such men of science, who are 

 happily still at work, as Professor VV. M. Bayliss, Professor 

 E. W. MacBride, Professor J. T. Cunningham, Professor 

 Marcus Hartog, Dr. Chalmers Mitchell, and Professor 

 Benjamin Moore, while for help given me upon special 

 points I desire to add to these the names of Sir John Biand- 

 Sutton, Dr. Lambert Lack, and Mr. Sampson Handley. In 

 saying so much I by no means imply that what I ventured 

 to put forward always met with acceptance. On the 



