of the fields, in the supposition that they thereby screened them from danger; while others again turned a cart-wheel, to represent the retrograde movement of the sun. The last circumstance takes back the imagination to the old primitive worship of the sun; and perhaps the very fire of St. John might date their history from those kindled in honor of Baal or Moloch. Dr. Hecker suggests that mingling with these heathen traditions or customs a remembrance of the history of St. John's death-that dance which occasioned his decapitation-might also have had its share in determining the peculiar manner in which the saint's day should be observed. However that may be, as we find that the first dancers in Aix-la-Chapelle appeared with St. John's name in their mouths, the conjecture is very probable that the wild revels of St. John's day had given rise, if not to the disease, yet to the type or form in which it appeared. deprived them of their senses, that many of them dashed their brains out against the walls and rivers, where they found a watery grave. Roaring corners of buildings, or rushed headlong into rapid and foaming as they were, the bystanders could only succeed in restraining them by placing benches and chairs in their way, so that, by the high leaps they were tempted to take, their strength might be exhausted. Music, however, was a still better resource. It excited, but it hastened forward the paroxysm, and doubtless reduced it to some measure and rhythm. The magistrates even hired musicians for the purpose of carrying the dancers the more rapidly through the attack, and directed that athletic men should be sent among them, in order to complete their exhaustion. A marvellous story is related on the authority of one Felix Platier: Several powerful men being commissioned to dance with a girl who had the dancing mania till she had recovered from her disorder, they successively relieved each other, and danced At a subsequent period, indeed, when the on for the space of four weeks! at the end of disorder had assumed, if we may so speak, a which time the patient fell down exhausted, more settled aspect, the name of St. John was carried to an hospital, and there recowas no otherwise associated with it than the vered. She had never once undressed, was name of St. Vitus. People danced upon his entirely regardless of the pain of her lacefestival to obtain a cure. And these period-rated feet, and had merely sat down occasionical dances, while they relieved the patients, assisted also to perpetuate the malady. Throughout the whole of June, we are told, prior to the festival of St. John, many men felt a disquietude and recklessness which they were unable to overcome. They were dejected, timid, and anxious; wandered about in an unsettled state, being tormented with twitching pains, which seized them suddenly in different parts; they eagerly expected the eve of St. John's day, in the confident hope that, by dancing at the altars of this saint, they would be freed from all their sufferings. Nor were they disappointed. By dancing and raving for three hours to the utmost scope of their desires, they obtained peace for the rest of the year. For a long time, however, we hear of cases which assumed the most terrific form. Speaking of a period which embraced the close of the fifteenth century, Dr. Hecker says: The St. Vitus's dance attacked people of all stations, especially those who led a sedentary life, such as shoemakers and tailors; but even the most robust peasants abandoned their labors in the fields, as if they were possessed by evil spirits; and thus those affected were seen assembling indiscriminately, from time to time, at certain appointed places, and, unless prevented by the lookers-on, continuing to dance without intermission, until their very last breath was expended. Their fury and extravagance of demeanor so completely ally to take some nourishment or to slumber, and even then "the hopping movement of her body continued." Happily, however, this mania grew more rare every year, so that in the beginning of the seventeenth century we may be said to be losing sight of it in Germany. Nor shall we follow out its history further in that country, because the same disorder, under a different form, made its appearance in Italy, and we must by no means neglect to notice the dancing mania which was so universally attributed to the bite of the tarantula. Whatever part the festival of St. John the Baptist performed in Germany, as an exciter of the disease, that part was still more clearly performed in Italy by the popular belief in the venom of a spider. We shall not go back with Dr. Hecker into the fears or superstitions of classical times as to the bites of certain spiders or lizards; we must keep more strictly to our text; we must start from the period when men's minds were still open to pain and alarm on account of the frequent return of the plague. The bite of venomous spiders, or rather the unreasonable fear of its consequences, excited at such a juncture, though it could not have done so at an earlier period, a violent nervous disorder, which, like St. Vitus's dance in Germany, spread by sympathy, increasing in severity as it took a wider range, and still further extending its ravages from its long continuance. Thus, from the middle of the fourteenth century, the furies of The Dance brandished their scourge over afflicted mortals; and music, for which the inhabitants of Italy now probably for the first time manifested susceptibility and talent, became capable of exciting ecstatic attacks in those affected, and thus furnished the magic means of exorcising their melancholy. Does the learned doctor insinuate that the Italians owed their natural taste for music to this invasion of Tarantism? At the close of the fifteenth century we find that Tarantism had spread beyond the boundaries of Apulia, and that the fear of being bitten by venomous spiders had increased. Nothing short of death itself was expected from the wound which these insects inflicted; and if those who were bitten escaped with their lives, they were said to be pining away in a desponding state of lassitude. Many became weak-sighted or hard of hearing; some lost the power of speech; and all were insensible to ordinary causes of excitement. Nothing but the flute or the cithern afforded them relief. At the sound of these instruments they awoke as if by enchantment, opened their eyes, and moving slowly at first, according to the measure of the music, were, as the time quickened, gradually hurried on to the most passionate dance. It was generally observable that country people, who were rude and ignorant of music, evinced on these occasions an unusual degree of grace, as if they had been well practised in elegant movements of the body; for it is a peculiarity in nervous disorders of this kind, that the organs of motion are in an altered condition, and are completely under the control of the overstrained spirits. This increased agility and grace of movement is by no means to be discredited by the reader. It is a symptom which distinguishes one class of epileptic patients. Some have attributed it to an over-excitement of the cerebellum. However that may be, there are greater wonders than this contained in our most sober and trustworthy books on the disorders of the nervous system. We continue the account: Cities and villages alike resounded throughout the summer season with the notes of fifes, clarinets, and Turkish drums; and patients were everywhere to be met with who looked to dancing as their only remedy. Alexander ab Alexandro, who gives this account, saw a young man in a remote village who was seized with a violent attack of Tarantism. He listened with eagerness and a fixed stare to the sound of a drun, and his graceful movements gradually became more and more violent, until his dancing was converted into a succession of frantic leaps, which required the utmost exertion of his whole strength. In the midst of this overstrained exertion of mind and body the music suddenly ceased, and he immediately fell powerless to the ground, where he lay senseless and motionless until its magical effect again aroused him to a renewal of his impassioned performances. We have put the expression "mind and body" in italics, because we may as well take this opportunity to observe, that although convulsions of this kind are excited, and assume a certain form on account of the predominance of some idea, yet, when once called forth, they are almost entirely mechanical in their nature. Mere animal excitabilitywhat is called the reflex action, or other automatic movements quite as little associated with the immediate operation of “mind”— carry on the rest of the process. And it is some consolation to think that the appearance of pain and distress which marks convulsive disorders of all descriptions, is, for the most part, illusory. The premonitory symptoms may be very distressing, but the condition of the patient, when the fit is on, is that of insensibility to pain. The general conviction was, that by music and dancing the poison of the tarantula was distributed over the whole body, and expelled through the skin; but, unfortunately, it was also believed that if the slightest vestige of it remained behind, the disorder would break out again. Thus there was no confidence excited in a certain cure. Men who had danced themselves well one summer watched the next summer for the returning symptoms, and found in themselves what they looked for. Thus— The number of those affected by it increased beyond belief; for whoever had actually been, or even fancied that he had been once bitten by a poisonous spider or scorpion, made his appearance annually whenever the merry notes of the Tarantella resounded. Inquisitive females joined the throng and caught the disease-not indeed from the poison of the spider, but from the mental poison which they eagerly received through the eye; and thus the cure of the Tarantati gradually became established as a regular festival of the populace. It was customary for whole bands of musicians to traverse Italy during the summer months, and the cure of the disordered was undertaken on a grand scale. This season of dancing and music was called "The women's little carnival," for it was women more especially who conducted the arrangements. It was they too, it seems, who paid the musicians their fee. The music itself received its due share of study and attention. were different kinds of the Tarantella, (as the curative melody was called,) suited to every variety of the ailment. There One very curious circumstance connected with this disease must not pass unnoticed-the passion excited by certain colors. Amongst the Germans, those afflicted by St. Vitus's dance were enraged by any garment of the color of red. Amongst the Italians, on the contrary, red colors were generally liked. Some preferred one color, some another; but the devotion to the chosen color was one of the most extraordinary symptoms which the disease manifested in Italy. The color that pleased the patient, he was enamored of; the color that displeased excited his utmost fury. Some preferred yellow, others were enraptured with green; and eyewitnesses describe this rage for colors as so extraordinary that they can scarcely find words with which to express their astonishment. No sooner did the patients obtain a sight of their favorite color than they rushed like infuriated animals towards the object, devoured it with their eager looks, kissed and caressed it in every possible way, and gradually resigning themselves to softer sensations, adopted the languishing expression of enamored lovers, and embraced the handkerchief, or whatever article it might be which was presented to them, with the most intense ardor, while the tears streamed from their eyes as if they were completely overwhelmed by the inebriating impression on their senses. over the strongest minds. Men who in their sober moments considered the disorder as a species of nervous affection depending on the imagination, were themselves brought under the influence of this imagination, and suffered from the disorder at the approach of the dreaded tarantula. A very striking anecdote of this kind is told of the Bishop of Foligno. Quite sceptical as to the venom of the insect, he allowed himself to be bitten by a tarantula. But he had not measured the strength of his own imagination, however well he had estimated the real malignancy of the spider. The bishop fell ill, nor was there any cure for him but the music and the dance. Many reverend old gentlemen, it is said, to whom this remedy appeared highly derogatory, only exaggerated their symptoms by delaying to have recourse to what, after all, was found to be the true and sole specific. In a subsequent chapter, our author informs us that a disease of a similar character existed But even popular errors are not eternal. This of Tarantism continued, our author tells us, throughout the whole of the seventeenth century, but gradually declined till it became limited to single cases. "It may therefore be not unreasonably maintained," he concludes, "that the Tarantism of modern times The dancing fits of a certain Capuchin friar in bears nearly the same relation to the original Tarentum excited so much curiosity that Cardinal malady as the St. Vitus's dance which still Cajetano proceeded to the monastery that he might exists, and certainly has all along existed, see with his own eyes what was going on. As bears, in certain cases, to the original dancing soon as the monk, who was in the midst of his mania of the dancers of St. John." dance, perceived the spiritual prince clothed in his red garments, he no longer listened to the tarantella of the musicians, but with strange gestures endeavored to approach the cardinal, as if he wished to count the very threads of his scarlet robe, and to allay his intense longing by its odor. The interference of the spectators, and his own respect, prevented his touching it, and thus, the irritation of his senses not being appeased, he fell into a state of such anguish and disquietude that he presently sunk down in a swoon, from which he did not recover until the cardinal compassionately gave him his cape. This he immediately seized in the greatest ecstasy, and pressed, now to his breast, now to his forehead and cheeks, and then again commenced his dance as if in the frenzy of a love fit. Another curious symptom, which was probably connected with this passion for color, was an ardent longing for the sea. These over-susceptible people were attracted irresistibly to the boundless expanse of the blue ocean, and lost themselves in its contemplation. Some were carried so far by this vague passionate longing as to cast themselves into the waves. The persuasion of the inevitable and fatal consequences of being bitten by the tarantula was so general that it exercised a dominion in Abyssinia, or still exists, for the authority he quotes is that of an English surgeon who resided nine years in Abyssinia, from 1810 to the year 1819. We cannot pretend to say that we have ever seen the book, which the learned German has, however, not permitted and Adventures of Nathaniel Pearce, written to escape him-we have never seen the Life by himself; but, judging by the extract here given, Nathaniel Pearce must be a person worth knowing, he writes with so much candor and simplicity. The disease is called in Abyssinia the Tigretier, because it occurs most frequently in the Tigre country. The first remedy resorted to is the introduction of a learned Dofter, "who reads the Gospel of St. John, and drenches the patient with cold water daily." If this does not answer, then the relations hire a band of trumpeters, drummers, and fifers, and buy a quantity of liquor; all the young men and women of the place assemble at the patient's house, and she, (for it is generally a woman,) arrayed in all the finery and trinkets that can be borrowed from the neighbors, is excited by the music to dance, day after day, if necessary, till she drops of their numbers, became involuntary; the muscles of the face had escaped the control of the will. A decided tongue-mania was exhibited a short time amongst the Irvingites. Happily, in the present state of society, men's minds are called off into so many directions, that a predominant idea of this kind has little chance of establishing itself in that tyrannous manner which we have seen possible in the middle ages. But it is better not to play with edged tools. If people will stand round a table, fixing their minds on one idea that a certain mysterious influence will pass through their fingers to move the table-they will lose, for a time, the volun I could not have ventured to write this from hearsay, nor could I conceive it possible until I was obliged to put this remedy in practice upon my own wife, who was seized with the same disorder. I at first thought that a whip would be of some service, and one day attempted a few strokes when unnoticed by any person, we being by ourselves, and I having a strong suspicion that this ailment sprang from the weak minds of wo-tary command over their own fingers, which men, who were encouraged in it for the sake of the grandeur, rich dress, and music which accompany the cure. But how much was I surprised, the moment I struck a light blow, thinking to do good, to find that she became like a corpse; and even the joints of her fingers became so stiff that I could not straighten them. Indeed, I really thought that she was dead, and immediately made it known to the people in the house that she had fainted, but did not tell them the cause; upon which they immediately brought music, which I had for many days denied them, and which soon revived her; and I then left the house to her relations, to cure her at my expense. One day I went privately with a companion to see my wife dance, and I kept at a short distance, as I was ashamed to go near the crowd. In looking steadfastly upon her, while dancing or jump ing, more like a deer than a human being, I said that it certainly was not my wife; at which my companion burst into a fit of laughter, from which he could scarcely refrain all the way home. The capability of sustaining the most violent exercise for a long time together, and on very little food, is not one of the least perplexities attendant upon these nervous or epileptic diseases. The partial suspension of sensation and volition, by sparing the brain, may have something to do with it. But into scientific perplexities of this kind we cannot now enter. One plain and homely caution is derivable from all these histories. Good sense is a great preservative of health. Do not voluntarily make a fool of yourself, or your-folly may become in turn the master of your reason. Epilepsy has been brought on by the simulation of epilepsy. We doubt not that a man might dance to his own shadow, and talk to it, as it danced before him on the wall, till he drove himself into a complete frenzy. A sect in America thought fit to introduce certain grimaces, laughing, weeping, and the like, into their public service. It was not long before their grimaces, in some will exert themselves without any volition or The subject for the third treatise of Dr. Hecker is the Sweating Sickness. This third part is more miscellaneous than its predecessors, and we have no space to do justice to its varied and sometimes disputable matter. Dr. Hecker describes the sweating sickness as a legacy left us by the civil wars of York and Lancaster. It first developed itself in Richmond's army, which had been collected from abroad, over-fatigued by long marches in a very damp season, and probably ill supplied with rations. Its rapid extension through the cities he attributes to the intemperance of the English, to their overfeeding, and want of cleanliness in their houses. Gluttony and the filth of the rushcovered floors, he detects even amongst the wealthiest of the land. For a minute description of the disease, and the Doctor's investigation into the nature of it, we must refer to the book itself. On the physicians, and the manner in which they addressed themselves to the encounter of this strange calamity, there is a passage which it may be instructive to, peruse: The physicians could do little or nothing for the people in this extremity. They are nowhere alluded to throughout this epidemic, and even those who might have come forward to succor their fellow-citizens had fallen into the errors of Galen, and their dialectic minds sank under this appalling phenomenon. This holds good even of the famous Thomas Linacre, subsequently physician in ordinary to two monarchs, and founder of the College of Physicians in 1518. In the prime of his youth he had been an eyewitness of the events at Oxford, and survived even the second and third eruption of the sweating sickness; but in none of his writings do we find a single word respecting this disease, which is of such permanent importance. In fact, the restorers of the medical science of ancient Greece, who were followed by all the most enlightened men in Europe, with the single exception of Linacre, occupied themselves rather with the ancient terms of art than with actual observation, and in their critical researches overlooked the important events that were passing before their eyes. This reminds us of the later Greek physicians, who for four hundred years paid no attention to the small-pox, because they could find no description of it in the immortal works of Galen! Who shall say, in reading such passages, that the New Philosophy of Bacon, which reads now like old common sense, was not sadly wanted, if the learned physician, while feeling his patient's pulse, could see only with the eyes of Galen? In the fourteenth century we see the physician busied with his astrology, and laboriously fixing the day when Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars did battle with the sun over the great Indian Ocean; in the sixteenth we find him, with quiet dialectic mind, absorbed in the study of his classical authorities; at the present time we may truly say that there are no inquiries conducted with a more philosophical spirit, or with greater zeal and energy, than those which relate to the human frame, its functions, and its diseases. The extreme complexity of the subject renders our progress slow. And yet progress can hardly be said to have been slow. Let any one take up that admirable little manual on The Nervous System, by Dr. Herbert Mayo, and compare it with any work of a hundred years old: it is a new science; and that not only from the new facts which a Robert Bell and a Marshall Hall, and other distinguished men in France and Germany, have added to our knowledge, but from the fine spirit of philosophical inquiry which presides over the whole. We have not only left astrology behind, we have not only left behind the undue reverence to classical authority, but we have thrown aside that dislike and depreciation of physiology which the metaphysician had done his part to encourage, and have entered, as with a fresh eye and a beating heart, upon the study of the wonders of the human frame. From the New Monthly Magazine. THE CAFES AND RESTAURANTS OF PARIS. DR. VERON AND BILBOQUET.* SINCE the publication of the first volume | folded, and the steps to fame and repute acof the "Memoirs of a Bourgeois of Paris," tually cut from the feet of some imaginary by Dr. Véron, a bourgeois of the opposition pretender. has published the memoirs of one Bilboquet, wherein the means by which wealth and station among the redoubtable Bourgeoisie of Paris are to be obtained are amusingly un * I. Mémoires d'un Bourgeois de Paris. Par Le Docteur L. Véron. Tome Deuxième. II. Mémoires de Bilboquet recueillis par un Bourgeois de Paris. Who am I? You know, O Athenians of the Rue Saint Martin and the Boulevart de Gand! Twenty times, seeing me pass by, my paunch in front and my neck buried in its kerchief, you have turned round to contemplate me. It is Bilboquet, you said to yourselves, the great Bilboquet, our Bilboquet, who has carried off all the rings in the great tilting-match of life. He |