lar power, but the effects produced would seem rather to resemble
those of opium, or perhaps of stramonium, than of prussic acid, which
the cherry-laurel water is known to contain.

The priests of the American Indians, says Monardur, whenever they were
consulted by the chief gentlemen, or _caciques_, as they are called,
took certain leaves of the tobacco, and cast them into the fire, and
then received the smoke thus produced by them into their mouths, which
caused them to fall upon the ground. After having remained in this
position for some time in a state of stupor, they recovered, and
delivered the answers, which they pretended to have received during the
supposed intercourse with the world of spirits.

The narcotic, or sedative influence of the garden radish, was known in
the earliest times. In the fables of antiquity we read, that, after the
death of Adonis, Venus, to console herself, and repress her desires, lay
down upon a bed of lettuces. The sea onion, or squill, was administered
by the Egyptians, in cases of dropsy, under the mystic title of the eye
of Typhon. The practices of incision and scarification, were employed in
the Greek camp at the siege of Troy; and the application of spirits to
wounds, was likewise understood; for we find Nestor applying a poultice
compounded of cheese, onion, and meal, mixed up with the wine of
Pramnos, to the wounds of Machaon.

To bring some inactive substance into repute, as promising some
extraordinary, nay, wonderful medicinal properties, requires only the
sanction of a few great names; and when once established on such a
basis, ingenuity, argument, and even experiment, may open their
otherwise powerful batteries in vain. In this manner all the quack
medicines, ever held in any estimation, got into repute. And the same
vulgar prejudice, which induces people to retain an accustomed remedy
upon bare assertion and presumption, either of ignorance or partiality,
will, in like manner, oppose the introduction of any innovation in
practice with asperity, and not unfrequently with a quantum sufficit of
scrutiny and abuse, unless, indeed, it be supported by authorities of
still greater weight and consideration.

The history of many articles of diet, as well as medicine, amply prove
how much their reputation and fate have depended upon some authority or
other. Ipecacuanha had been imported into England for many years, before
Helvetius, under the patronage of Louis XIV, succeeded in