ON SYMPATHY AND FASCINATION. 



259 



In these cases we trace something of the medium by which the irritable 

 or sensorial power is Exhausted. There are various other cases, however, 

 in which, to this moment, we are as ignorant, and as little capable of tracing 

 it, as mankind must have been in regard to the animals before us, ante- 

 cedently to a discovery of the electric aura. And I here particularly al- 

 lude to the torpid effects produced upon poisonous serpents and scorpions 

 in Africa and America, on their being handled by persons of two different 

 descriptions ; the one possessing this torpifying power naturally and here- 

 ditarily, and the other, acquiring it by artificial preparation ; such as chew* 

 ingthe roots or other parts of certain plants, rubbing them in their hands, 

 or bathing the body in aqueous infusions of them, and thus impregnating 

 the body of the operator with their virtues. 



There appears to be no country in the world so much infested with ser- 

 pents of this kind as the ancient Cyrenaica, or that part of Africa which 

 lies northward of the great desert of Sahara. Among the different tribes 

 that formerly inhabited this region, one of the most celebrated was the 

 Psylli ; and as this tribe seems to have been in full possession of this pow- 

 er, either from art or nature, and to have given the strongest and most ex- 

 traordinary proofs of its having possessed it, all persons capable of exerting 

 a similar effect were denominated Psylli by the Greek and Roman writers. 

 And hence Plutarch tells us, that when Cato pursued his march through 

 the CyrenaiC desert in search of Juha, he took with him a variety of these 

 Psylh to suck out the poison from the wounds of such of his soldiers as 

 should be bitten by the numerous serpents of the country. 



It appears most probable that the Psylli were not naturally protected 

 against this venom, but from long and skilful practice, were acquainted 

 with the virtue of those plants which, as I have just hinted, answer both as 

 a preservative against the bite, and as an antidote after the bite has been 

 inflicted : and, being strongly addicted to divination or pretended magic, 

 as all the historians who have given us any account of them, aflirm ihenX 

 to have been, affected to derive their power of subduing poison from this 

 preternatural source alone, and inculcated the belief that they could only 

 exercise it, by muttering or chanting some potent verse or sp^ell over the 

 person who was affected. And hence the disarming a serpent of his ca- 

 pacity of poisoning, or disarming the poison itself of its deadly effect aflet 

 a wound had been received, was denominated charming or incantation. 

 So Silius Italicus,'"^ in allusion to the Psylli, or their neighbours, the Mar- 

 marides, lib. iii. 



Ad quorum CANTUS mites jacuere Cerastes. 

 The horned snake lies harmless at their song. 



This sort of power derived from art or nature, and probably origuiating 

 in this quarter of the world, appears to have been knovvn in the remotest 

 ages, and to have been uniformly ascribed to the same influence of cer- 

 tain magical words or verses chanted, or uttered in recitative ; and it ap- 

 pears also to have been very generally conjectured, that there exist sbmd 

 lands or species of poisonous serpents that are capable of shutting their 



* See also Virgil, JEn. vii. 763, in which he ascribes the salotiferous power both to fiie 

 song and touch of the enchanter. 



Vipereo generi et graviter spirantibus hydris 

 Spargere qui soranos cantuquje manuque solebat,, 

 Mulcebatque iras, et morsiis arte levabat. 



