ON SYMPATHY AND FASCINATION. 



Me instituted to ascertain it. The plant chiefly employed by tiie American 

 Indians, he tells us, is denominated in that part of the world vejuco de 

 guaco, guaco-withy, from their having first observed that the bird of this ^ 

 name, or as Catesby calls it, the serpent-hawk, usually sucks it before it 

 attacks poisonous serpents, and then attacks them without mischief.* 

 Prepared by drinking a small portion of the juice of this plant, and inocu- 

 lating themselves with it, also, by rubbing it upon three small punctures in 

 the hands, breast, and feet, and thus impregnating the body with its virtues, 

 Don Pedro himself, and all his domestics, were accustomed to venture into 

 the open fields, and fearlessly seize hold of the largest and most venomous 

 serpents. It was scarcely ever that the animal thus charmed or fascinated 

 had power to bite, and when he did so, the wound produced was slight 

 and of no consequence. M. Acrell, in the Amoenitates Academicae, after 

 mentioning the same plant, tells us that the senega is possessed of a like 

 power, t 



Of the truth of the fact, therefore, thus confirmed by the most trusty 

 travellers and historians, in different quarters of the world, there can be 

 no doubt ; and it adds to the facility of beheving it to find that other ani- 

 mals besides men are possessed of a similar power. Thus the condor and 

 the wild boar feed harmlessly on the rattlesnake, which appears to ofier 

 no resistance to their attack, and suflTer no injury from its venom after they 

 have satisfied their hunger. In both these cases, the charm or power of 

 protection appears to be natural, as in the Nuba and Funge tribes of Afi-ica. 

 In the serpent-hawk or guaco, however, just noticed, which derives its 

 chief food from poisonous snakes, and in the tantalus or ibis of Egypt, the 

 numenius Ibis of Cuvier, which equally attacks and devours them, the 

 charm or protection seems to be artificial, and to depend upon the virtue 

 of the plant to which they have recourse for this purpose ; for 1 have 

 already observed that the serpent-hawk uniformly applies to the ophiorrhiza 

 before he commences the battle ; while the ibis, though he appears to open 

 the fi^ht without any such preparation, retires from the field, if wounded, 

 to the plant which he knows will serve as an antidote, and immediately 

 renews and continues it till he has vanquished his enemy. 



The fact, then, being incontrovertible, we have next to inquire into the 

 secret and invisible cause of so very salutiferous and extraordinary an effect ; 

 or rather, into the nature of the medium by which so extraordinary an 

 effect is produced. That there is in all these cases a peculiar emanation 

 issuing from the body of the protected, there is little doubt. 



But we have no reason for ascribing it to electricity or voltaism, since 

 the persons thus peculiarly endowed, whether by art or nature, whether 

 temporarily or permanently, exhibit no proofs of an electric power, upon 

 any other animal, or of the same power, whatever it may be, in any other 

 way. It appears, nevertheless, to be a power that operates in a manner 

 somewhat similar to, but in son\e respects more forcible and more general 

 than that of electricity : I mean by exhausting equally and altogether the 

 muscular and sensorial energy of the serpent or scorpion to which it is 

 applied ; for, in regard to the serpent kinds, we are told distinctly, as well 

 in America as in Africa, that they remain totally torpid and inactive beneath 

 its influence ; scarcely ever being able to muster up force enough to attempt 

 any resistance, even when eaten up alive, as Bruce assures us he has seen 



♦ It appears to be the ophiorrhiza Mungos of Liuueus. 

 T Amosn, Acad. vol. vi, No. 112. Morsijra Serpenturo, 1762. 



