There is reason to believe that the Pagan priesthood were under the influence of some powerful narcotic during the display of their oracular powers, but the effects produced would seem to resemble rather those of Opium, or perhaps of Stramonium, than of the Prussic acid. Monardes tells us that the priests of the American Indians, whenever they were consulted by the chief gentlemen, or _casiques_ 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 _Lactuca Sativa_, or Lettuce,[17] were known also in the earliest times; among the fables of antiquity, we read that after the death of Adonis, Venus threw herself on a bed of lettuces, to lull her grief, and repress her desires. The sea onion or _Squill_, was administered in cases of dropsy by the Egyptians, 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.[18] The revolutions and vicissitudes which remedies have undergone, in medical as well as popular opinion, from the ignorance of some ages, the learning of others, the superstitions of the weak, and the designs of the crafty, afford ample subject for philosophical reflection; some of these revolutions I shall proceed to investigate, classing them under the prominent causes which have produced them, viz. Superstition—Credulity—Scepticism—False Theory—Devotion to Authority, and Established Routine—The assigning to Art that which was the effect of unassisted Nature—The assigning to peculiar substances Properties, deduced from Experiments made on inferior Animals—Ambiguity of Nomenclature—The progress of Botanical Science—The application, and misapplication of Chemical Philosophy—The Influence of Climate and Season on Diseases, as well as on the properties, and operations of their Remedies—The ignorant Preparation, or fraudulent Adulteration of Medicines—The unseasonable collection of those remedies which are of vegetable origin,—and, the obscurity which has attended the operation of compound medicines. SUPERSTITION.