Various artificial means have been resorted to at all periods to prepare the intellects for inspirations, by creating a heated imagination. Pliny informs us that, in his days, the root of the _Halicacabum_, supposed to be a species of hyoscyamus, was chewed by soothsayers. Christopher D'Acosta relates that the Indians employ a kind of hemp called _Bangue_ for the same purpose: and in St. Domingo their supposed prophets masticate a plant called _Cohaba_. The priestesses of Delphi were also in the habit of chewing laurel-leaves before they ascended the tripod, which it is stated was originally formed of a laurel-tree root with three branches. Sophocles calls the Sibyls [Greek: daphnephagos], laurel-eaters; and thus Tibullus, Vera cano, sic usque sacras innoxia lauros Vescar, et aeternum sit mihi virginitas. Auguries were drawn from the burning of the laurel-leaf. If it crackled and sparkled during combustion, the inference was favourable; the reverse, if it was consumed in silence. Propertius alludes to this belief: Et tacet extincto laurus adusta foco. Yet so far from possessing exhilarating qualities, laurel-leaves were supposed to diminish the excitement produced by wine; and Martial affirms that the Roman ladies made use of them to drink large potations with impunity: Foetere multo Myrtale solet vino; Sed fallat ut nos, folia devorat lauri, Merumque, cauta fronde, non aqua miscet. May it not be inferred that the leaves given to the Pythia might have been those of the _Lauro-cerasus_, the effects of which are similar to those of prussic acid, producing vertigo, dizziness, and various convulsive symptoms? This tree was first observed by Belon, who discovered it in his eastern voyages in 1546; but it might have been well known to the ancients. We may thus account for the violent convulsions in which the priestesses of Apollo were thrown on these mystic occasions, and which were said to arise from the gas over which they were seated. Although the tree from which the leaves were gathered grew near the temple, and was the common _Lauros nobilis_, yet the leaves of the _Lauro-cerasus_ might have easily been substituted on the occasion; since, always green and shining, they are not very unlike each other, and the flowers of both trees are pedunculate; and, no doubt, the priests well knew to what extent they could carry the dose to serve their purposes; possibly the modern preparation of _noyau_ might have been a Pythian dram. The effects of enthusiasm in rendering its victims insensible to all external agents is truly surprising, and cannot be better illustrated than by a relation of the horrors which the famous Convulsionists of Paris and other parts of France underwent, not only voluntarily, but at their most earnest prayer and solicitation.