C 178 ) 



ly lafcivious, and one would aimed alway 

 think, that they meant not fo much to cure 

 as to kill the patient : but what proves the power 

 of imagination over men is, that thefe phyficians 

 with all their abfurdities cure to the full as often 

 as our own. 



In fome countries, when the patient is defpaired 

 of, they difpatch him to keep him from lan- 

 guifhing. In the canton of Onnontague they 

 put to death young children who have loft 

 their mothers before they are weaned ; they 

 even bury them alive with them, from a per- 

 fuafion that no other woman could fuckle them, 

 and that they would languifli away their lives ; 

 I do not, however, know whether they have not 

 lately renounced this barbarous cuftom. Others 

 abandon their rick, the moment they are given 

 over by the phyficians, and leave them to die 

 of hunger and thirft. And fome there are who, 

 in order to hide the contortions of vifage in the 

 dying perfon, mut his eyes and mouth, as foon as 

 he begins to be in agony. 



In Accadia the quacks were called Autmoms, 

 and it was commonly the chief of the village 

 who was inverted with this dignity. Thus they had 

 much more authority than the other jugglers, al- 

 though they were neither pofTefTed of greater 

 abilities nor lefs impoftors. When they happen- 

 ed to be called upon to vifit a patient, they find 

 infpecled him for a confiderable time, after which 

 they breathed upon him* If this produced no- 

 thing, " of certainty," faid they, 66 the devil is 

 <c within him 5 he mull, however, very foon 



go 



