Produced by Chris Curnow, Les Galloway and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) Transcriber’s Notes Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations in hyphenation have been standardised but all other spelling and punctuation remains unchanged. Italics are represented thus _italic_. 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 AND PHYSIOLOGY IN KING’S COLLEGE; PROFESSOR OF COMPARATIVE ANATOMY IN 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. PREFATORY REMARKS. In the following Letters I have endeavoured to exhibit in their true light the singular natural phenomena of which old superstition and modern charlatanism in turn availed themselves—to indicate their laws, and to develop their theory. The subject is so important that I might well have approached it in a severer guise. But, slight as this performance may appear, I profess to have employed upon it the keenest and most patient efforts of reflection of which I am capable. And as to its tone at the commencement, and the prominence given to popular and trivial topics, I candidly avow that, without some such artifice, I doubt whether I should have found a publisher of repute to publish, or a circle of readers to read, my lucubrations. “Cosi all’ egro fanciul porgiamo aspersi Di soave licor gli orli del vaso; Succhi amari ingannato intanto ei beve, E dall’ inganno suo vita riceve.”