pells.[38:1]

In treating the sick, the Apache medicine-man mumbles incoherent
phrases, a method adopted quite generally by his professional brethren
in many Indian tribes. He claims for such gibberish a mysterious faculty
of healing disease. Much of its effectiveness, however, has been
attributed to the monotonous intonation with which the words are
uttered, and which tends to promote sleep just as a lullaby soothes an
ailing child.[38:2]

It is noteworthy, however, that meaningless words have always been the
favorite components of verbal charms, whose power, in the opinion of
medieval conjurers, was in direct ratio to their obscurity;[38:3] and
this fact is well shown in the incantations used by savages.

According to the late Dr. D. G. Brinton, the principle involved is,
either that the gods are supposed to comprehend what men fail to
understand; or else that the verbal charm represents "the god expressing
himself through human organs, but in a speech unknown to human
ears."[39:1] Reginald Scott expressed a popular modern idea of the force
of certain words and characters, when he said that they were able of
themselves to cure diseases, pull down, save, destroy and enchant,
"without the party's assistance."[39:2]

The term _incantation_ signifies a most potent method of magical
healing; namely, "that resting on a belief in the mysterious power of
words solemnly conceived and passionately uttered."[39:3]

In the belief of the Australian aborigines, "no demon, however
malevolent, can resist the power of the right word."[39:4] Ignorant
people are usually impressed by obscure phrases, the more so, if these
are well sprinkled with polysyllables. Cicero, in his treatise on
Divination (LXIV) criticizes the lack of perspicuity in the style of
certain writers, and supposes the case of a physician who should
prescribe a snail as an article of diet, and whose prescription should
read, "an earth-born, grass-walking, house-carrying, unsanguineous
animal." Equally efficacious might be the modern definition of the same
creature as a "terrestrial, air-breathing, gastropodous mollusk." The
degree of efficiency of such prescriptions is naturally in inverse
proportion to the patient's mental culture. An average Southern negro,
for example, affected with indigestion, might derive some therapeutic
advantage from snail diet, but would be more likely to be benefited by
the mental stimulus afforded by the verbose formula.

The Irish p