Notwithstanding this, people still shut their eyes, and take
every thing upon trust, that is administered by any pretender to
medicine, without daring to ask him a reason for any part of his
conduct. Implicit faith, every where else the object of ridicule, is
still sacred here."
FOOTNOTES:
[132] The berries of the belladonna or deadly nightshade, produce, when
eaten, a furious madness, followed by sleep, which lasts for twenty-four
hours. Such drugs as produce mental stupefaction, without impairing the
physical powers, may have given rise to the accounts of men being
transformed into brutes, so frequent in what are denominated the
fabulous writers, while the evanescent but exquisite joys of an opposite
description, an anticipation of what implicit obedience would ensure
them for ever, produced blind, furious, devoted adherents to any
philosophical speculator, who would venture to try so desperate an
experiment.
[133] The Rowan tree or Mountain ash, is used by the Scottish peasantry
with the same view; and a small twig of it is sewed up in the cow's
tail, to preserve the animal and its produce from the influence of
witches and warlocks.
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