These deceptions have, besides, acted as an agreeable and most
powerful antidote to superstition, and to that popular belief in
miracles, conjuration, sorcery, and witchcraft, which preyed upon the
minds of our ancestors; and the effects of shadows, electricity,
mirrors, and the magnet, once formidable instruments in the hands of
interested persons, for keeping the vulgar in awe, have been stripped of
their terrors, and are no longer frightful in their most terrific forms.
ON THE TRANSFUSION OP BLOOD FROM ONE ANIMAL TO ANOTHER.
At a time when the shortness of human life was imputed to a distempered
state of the blood; when all diseases were ascribed to this cause,
without attending to the whole of what relates to the moral and physical
nature of man, a conclusion was easily formed, that a radical removal of
the corrupted blood, and a complete renovation of the entire mass by
substitution was both practicable and effectual. The speculative mind
of man was not at a loss to devise expedients, to effect this desirable
purpose; and undoubtedly one of the boldest, most extraordinary, and
most ingenious attempts ever made to lengthen the period of human life
was made at this time.
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