There is reason to believe that the Pagan priesthood were under the influence of some narcotic during the display of their oracular powers, but the effects produced would seem rather to resemble those of opium, or perhaps of stramonium, than of Prussic acid. Monardus tells us, that the priests of the American Indians, whenever they were consulted by the chief gentlemen, or _caciques_, as they are called, took certain leaves of the tobacco, and cast them into the fire, and then received the smoke which they thus produced in their mouths, in consequence of which they fell down upon the ground; and that after having remained for some time in a stupor, they recovered, and delivered the answers, which they pretended to have received during their supposed intercourse with the world of spirits. The sedative powers of the garden lettuce were known in the earliest times. Among the fables of antiquity we read, that after the death of Adonis, Venus threw herself upon a bed of lettuces, to lull her grief and repress her desires. The sea onion, or _squill_, was administered by the Egyptians in cases of dropsy, under the mystic title of the Eye of Typhon. The practices of incision and scarification, were employed in the camp of the Greeks before Troy, and the application of spirit to wounds, was also understood, for we find the experienced Nestor applying a cataplasm, composed of cheese, onion, and meal, mixed up with the wine of Pramnos, to the wounds of Machaon. Footnote 29: Æis addatur quod scripsit Necepsos, draconem radios habentem insculptum, collo suspensum, ita ut contingeret ventriculum, mire ei prodesse.—TIEDMAN. Footnote 30: On the subject of the Jewish magii, the works of Buxtorf, Lightfoot, Bekker, and others, have been consulted. Footnote 31: Les Juifs croient que Lilis veut faire mourir les garçons dans le huitième jour après leur naissance, et les filles dans le vingt-unième. Voici le remède des Juifs Allemans pour se préserver de ce danger. Ils tirent des traits en ronde avec de la craϊe, ou avec des charbons de bois, sur les quatre murs de la chambre oû est l’accouchée, et ils écrivent sur chaque trait: _Adam! Eve! qui Lilis se retire_. Ils écrivent aussi sur le parti de chambre les noms des trois anges qui président à la médicine, _Senai_, _Sansenai_, et _Sanmangelof_, ainsi que Lilis elle-même leur apprit qu’il falloit faire lorsqu’elle espéroit de les faire tout tous noyer dans la mer. _Elias, as quoted by Becker._ Footnote 32: This remarkable confession may be found in Menange’s. Observations sur la langue Françoise, Part II. p. 110. Footnote 33: This was written in 1560, and before the era of revolutions had commenced even among ourselves. He penetrated into the important principle merely by the force of his own meditation. Footnote 34: Vide Lectures on Phrenology, by Drs. Gall and Spurtzheim. Footnote 35: