Dr. Mead, above mentioned, gave a curious description of the symptoms of tarantism. "While the patients are dancing," said he, "they lose in a manner the use of all their senses, like so many drunkards, and indulge in many ridiculous and foolish antics. They talk and act rudely, and take great pleasure in playing with vine-leaves, naked swords, red cloths, and the like. They have a particular aversion for anything of a black color, so that if a bystander happens to appear in apparel of that hue, he must immediately withdraw; otherwise the patients relapse into their symptoms with as much violence as ever." FOOTNOTES: [185:1] _New York Medical Record_, October 29, 1909. [187:1] _Boston Daily Advertiser_, November 7, 1907. [188:1] Mrs. John Lane, _The Champagne Standard_. [188:2] _Chambers's Journal_, vol. lxxi, p. 145; 1894. [189:1] _Appleton's Booklovers' Magazine_, July, 1905. [189:2] _Boston Herald_, May 12, 1907. [190:1] Wien (Vienna), 1807. [190:2] _Philosophical Transactions_, 1668, p. 662. [191:1] _The Lancet_, vol. ii; 1880. [192:1] _The Gentleman's Magazine_, vol. lxxvii; November, 1807. [193:1] _Anatomy of Melancholy_, vol. ii, p. 132. [194:1] _The Chicago Inter-Ocean._ [195:1] _Boston Transcript_, March 10, 1900. [196:1] _Music and Morals._ [199:1] _The Spectator_, August 18, 1714. CHAPTER XVIII QUACKS AND QUACKERY Quackery and the love of being quacked, are in human nature as weeds are in our fields. DR. J. BROWN, _Spare Hours_. They are Quack-salvers, Fellowes that live by senting oyles and drugs. BEN JONSON, _Volpone_, Act II, Scene 2. These, like quacks in Medicine, excite the malady to profit by the cure, and retard the cure to augment the fees. WASHINGTON IRVING. Here also they have, every night in summer, a world of Montebanks, _Ciarlatani_, and such stuff, who together with their remedies, strive to please the People with their little Comedies, Popet-plays and songs. R. LASSELS, _Voy. Ital._: 1698. _Le monde n'a jamais manqué de charlatans; cette science, de tout temps, fut en professeurs très fertile._ LA FONTAINE. He took himself to be no mean Doctour, who being guilty of no Greek, and being demanded why it was called an _hectic_ fever; 'because,' saith he, 'of an _hecking_ cough, which ever attendeth that disease.' THOMAS FULLER, _The Holy State_. Man is a dupable animal. Quacks in Medicine, quacks in Religion, and quacks in Politics know this and act upon that knowledge. There is scarcely anyone who may not, like a trout, be taken by tickling. ROBERT SOUTHEY.