154 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



to the priest, suffering terribly with all the usual evidences of 

 diabolic possession. The priest was besought to cast out the 

 devil, but he simply took her to the hospital, where, under scien- 

 tific treatment, she rapidly became better.* 



The final triumph of science in this part of the great field has 

 been mainly achieved during the latter half of the present century. 



Following in the noble succession of Paracelsus and John 

 Hunter and Pinel and Tuke and Esquirol, have come a band of 

 thinkers and workers who have evolved out of the earlier forms 

 of truths new growths, ever more and more precious. 



Among the many facts and principles thus brought to bear 

 upon this last stronghold of the Prince of Darkness, may be 

 named especially those of " expectant attention," an expectation 

 of phenomena dwelt upon until the longing for them becomes 

 morbid and invincible, and the creation of them perhaps uncon- 

 scious. Still another class of phenomena are found to arise from 

 a morbid tendency to imitation which leads to epidemics. Still 

 another group has been brought under hypnotism. Multitudes 

 more have been found under the innumerable forms and results 

 of hysteria. A study of the effects of the imagination upon 

 bodily function has also yielded remarkable results. 



And, finally, to supplement this work, have come in an array 

 of scholars in history and literature who have investigated myth- 

 making and wonder-mongering. 



Thus has been cleared away that cloud of supernaturalism 

 which so long hung over mental diseases, and thus have they been 

 brought within the firm grasp of science. \ 



* See Figuier ; also Collin de Plancy, " Dictionnaire Infernale," article Possedes. 



f To go even into leading citations in this vast and beneficent literature would take me 

 far beyond my plan and space, but I may name, among leading and easily accessible au- 

 thorities, Brierre de Boismont on " Hallucinations," Hulme's translation, 1860; also James 

 Braid, " The Power of the Mind over the Body," London, 1846 ; Krafft-Ebing, "Lehrbuch 

 der Psychiatric," Stuttgart, 1888; Tuke, " Influence of the Mind on the Body," London, 

 1884; Maudsley, "Pathology of the Mind," London, 1879 ; Carpenter, "Mental Physi- 

 ology," sixth edition, London, 1888; Lloyd Tuckey, "Faith Cure," Nineteenth Century 

 Magazine for December, 1888; Pettigrew, "Superstitions connected with the Practice 

 of Medicine and Surgery," London, 1844. 



As to myth-making and wonder-mongering, the general reader will find interesting sup- 

 plementary accounts in the recent works of Andrew Lang and Baring-Gould. 



A very curious evidence of the effects of the myth-making tendency has recently come 

 to the attention of the writer of this article. Periodically, for many years past, we have 

 seen, in books of travel and in the newspapers, accounts of the wonderful performances of 

 the jugglers in India ; of the stabbing of a child in a small basket in the midst of an 

 arena, and the child appearing alive in the surrounding crowd ; of seeds planted, sprouted, 

 and becoming well-grown trees under the hand of the juggler; of ropes thrown into the air 

 and sustained by invisible force. A short time since Count de Gubernatis, the eminent 

 professor and Oriental scholar at Florence, informed the present writer that he had recently 

 seen and studied these exhibitions, and that, so far from being wonderful, they were much 

 inferior to the jugglery so well known in all our Western capitals. 



