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The Disorder of Epilepsy has oftentimes Jain dormant for several years, and in some cases has suddenly and wholly disappeared, There is a well known example in the famous Physician of Ferrara, Nicholas Leonicenus, who was afflicted with this malady from his. cradle till his thirtieth year, under its most distressing form; when the Disorder left him and he passed thro' a long life of ninety four, or as some say ninety six years, with all his faculties and his limbs entire, free from any taint or suspicion of the existence of such a Disorder. *We have likewise innumerable instances in which Maniacal and Hypochondriacal hallucinations, have suddenly disappeared by some accident, which has violently affected the frame or the mind, and never again returned to the annoyance of the

sufferer.

Medical writers have recorded the extraordinary remedies, which the ancients have left us for the cure of this Disorder, as the warm blood of a gladiator, flowing from his wounds in the agonies of Death &c. &c. who conceived no doubt, that the Disorder was

* See Heberden on Epilepsy, who has quoted the testimony of Joseph Scaliger on this occasion.

was partly an affection of the Imagination and curable through the same medium, by which it is produced. Dr. Henry Fraser, has proposed the Misseltoe, as a Remedy for Epileptic Disorders; and it has assuredly succeeded in many cases, though in others it has unhappily failed. If the Druids in their veneration for the Misseltoe understood this property of the plant, and were able to apply it with success, by some additional ceremonies affecting the imagination, they had good cause indeed to celebrate its virtues and to applaud their own dexterity in the mode of its application.

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We shall not wonder that Epileptic Diseases were attributed to the agency of Demons, and that various ceremonies and exorcisms, tending to affect the imagination, were employed in their expulsion.-Solomon appears to have discovered a plant, which was efficacious in the cure of this Disorder; though, according to the account of Josephus, * he did not disdain to employ the aid of charmsand spells, for the purpose of co-operating with the virtues of his specific. The Root of

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*. Joseph. Antiq. Jud. Lib. 8. C. 2. 5. This passage has, I believe, escaped the notice of the Medical writers.

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the Herb was concealed in a Ring, which was applied to the nostrils of the Demoniac, and Josephus himself, as he informs us, saw a Jewish priest, practise Solomon's art, with success in the presence of Vespasian, his sons, and the Tribunes of his Army. From this art of Solomon, exhibited through the medium of a Ring or Seal, we have the stories among the people of the East, which celebrate the Seal of Solomon, and record the potency of its sway over the various orders of Demons or of Genii, who are supposed to be the invisible Tormentors or Benefactors of the Human Race.

These imaginary Tormentors, whom fancy or folly has personified, are the restless desires of a morbid mind and the feverish irritations of a disordered frame, which still continue to disturb and to destroy the sons of Adam, under every variety of affliction, pain, sickness, and sorrow: The Good Spirits, who bestow their blessings upon us, are the Sages furnished with their Physical truths or Moral precepts, which teach us better to enjoy life, by a removal of its evils, or better to endure it, by infusing patience under its sufferings.The state of Man is indeed beset with such

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numerous obstacles, so impeding to his progress in the pursuit of good, that we cannot perhaps expect much to be atchieved for the advancement of his condition: Still however it is our duty to hope, to proceed, and to persevere; and it may perchance happen, that the good, so long and so unsuccessfully pursued, may be at last acquired on an occasion, when it was little expected, and by a process wholly remote from the operations, which have been employed for its attainment. The great Master in the Science of Healing, if Science it can be called, has long since warned his Disciples, that Life is short, and Art is long, and the experience of so many ages has taught us, that the modes, by which the secret of the Art has been sought, are not the devices, by which it can be discovered.

It might have been imagined, that the active Spirit of Man, urged by his own sufferings and those of his fellow creatures, would have been more successful in his struggles against the enemies of his frame; and that after his "labours long' he would have discovered, amidst the unbounded storehouse of Nature, some precious balms, potent to sway and to controul those afflicting maladies, which

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which marr or annihilate all the comforts of his being. Though we should be grateful to our benefactors for the portion of good, which we have obtained; yet it must still be acknowledged, that the great evils attached to the frame still continue, as in every former age,to harrass and to afflict us,-almost, nay, altogether in many cases, just as if no efforts had ever been made to guard against their attacks or to mitigate their malignity. Nature must be viewed with other eyes, and her processess be contemplated under other modes of conception; or we shall in vain endeavour to effect any purposes of important and substantial good, for removing the disordered actions of a System, in which Mind and Matter are so combined with each other, in the generation and propagation of sympathetic affections. The magic of this wonderful machinery is far hidden from the view of all the Sages of all times; and we must wait in patience for the appearance of some future Wizard of another mould, who shall at last unravel by some simple process the mystic characters of the Talisman, in which has been deposited the great secret of the Microcosm-MAN.

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