Volume 1

The occult sciences. The philosophy of magic, prodigies, and apparent miracles / From the French of Eusèbe Salverte, with notes illustrative, explanatory, and critical, by Anthony Todd Thomson.

  • Salverte, Eusèbe, 1771-1839.
Date:
1847
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The occult sciences. The philosophy of magic, prodigies, and apparent miracles / From the French of Eusèbe Salverte, with notes illustrative, explanatory, and critical, by Anthony Todd Thomson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    y^i) ing inspired the Psylli with so much confidence, that tliey did not hesitate to expose new-born in- fants to the bites of serpents, under the plea of as- suring themselves of their legitimacy ;* or, rather, in accordance with their suspicions, to destroy the presuined fruits of the adultérer. Bruce assured us that the secret of the Egyptians and Arabs, in bearing the bites of serpents with impunity, con- sists in bathing themselves in a décoction of herbs and roots, the nature of which they carefully con- ceal. Forskhal informs us, that the Egy])tians charm serpents with a bitter-wort, an aristoLochia, with the species of which he was not acquainted. According to Jacquin, the atistolochia anguicida is the plant which is eniployed by the indigenous tribes of Americat for the same purpose. At this day, when the traces of the émigrations which had conducted people from the plains of Tartary into equinoctial America hâve been dis- covered, it is not surprising to find this secret prop- agated in the New World. After being convinced of its great antiquity, comparing the narrations of .... Et somnum tacto misisse Chelydro. Sil. Italie., lib. v., v. 354. • Et Chelydris cantare soporem, Vipereum que herbis hebetare et carminé dentem. Ibid,, lib. viii., vers. 496, 497. Au impostor caused himself to be bitten in public by asps : Ælian thinks that he used a beverage prepared to preserve him- self from the conséquences of the bite. But this could only be an artifice destined to hide the true secret. * 1 he Psylli never divulged to their wives the secret. “ Mu- hcr enim. Psylla esse non potest.” (Xiphilin., in August.—Ælian, I)e Nat. Anhn., lib. i., cap. Ivii.) Their modem disciples hâve not imitated their reserve. Hasselquist (vol. i., pp. 96, 97) men- tions a woman who, under his eyes, rendered serpents completely povverless. t Hasselquist, Voyage dans le Levant, vol. i., p. 100. This species of aristolochia is a twining plant, with oblong, sharp- pointed, cordate leaves, with solitary heart-shaped stipules sur- roiinding lhe stem, and an erect, dilated coiolla, vvilh a lanceo-