POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS,

AND

THE TRUTHS CONTAINED THEREIN,

WITH AN

ACCOUNT OF MESMERISM.

BY

HERBERT MAYO, M.D.,
FORMERLY SENIOR SURGEON OF MIDDLESEX HOSPITAL; PROFESSOR OF ANATOMY ANDPHYSIOLOGY IN KING’S COLLEGE; PROFESSOR OF COMPARATIVE ANATOMYIN THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS, LONDON.F.R.S., F.G.S., ETC.

FROM THE THIRD LONDON EDITION.

PHILADELPHIA:
LINDSAY AND BLAKISTON.
1852.

WM. S. YOUNG, PRINTER.

iii

PREFATORY REMARKS.

In the following Letters I have endeavoured to exhibit in theirtrue light the singular natural phenomena of which old superstitionand modern charlatanism in turn availed themselves—to indicate theirlaws, and to develop their theory. The subject is so important that Imight well have approached it in a severer guise. But, slight as thisperformance may appear, I profess to have employed upon it the keenestand most patient efforts of reflection of which I am capable. And asto its tone at the commencement, and the prominence given to popularand trivial topics, I candidly avow that, without some such artifice, Idoubt whether I should have found a publisher of repute to publish, ora circle of readers to read, my lucubrations.

It was in the winter of 1846 that the original sevenLetters were written, of which the present fourteen arethe third and expanded reprint. The hour had come forivsuccessfully assailing certain already shaking prejudicesof the reading public. The Selbstschau of Zschokke,and the researches of Von Reichenbach, were in the handsof the literary and philosophic. The seer-gift of theformer (see Letter IV.) had established the fact that onemind can enter into direct though one-sided communionwith another. The undenied Od-force of the latter (seeLetter I.) is evidently the same influence with that, thefirst crude announcement of which, by Mesmer, hadscared the world into disbelief. It had now becomepossible to explain ghostly warnings, and popular prophecies,the wonders of natural trance, and of animalmagnetism, without having recourse to a single unprovenprinciple. I therefore made the attempt; other more efficientlabourers have co-operated in the same object; andpublic opinion is no longer hostile to this class of inquiries.

Bad Weilbach, near Mayence,
1st August, 1851.

v

CONTENTS.