_" Olaus Magnus agrees with him in
these symptoms; and Hieronymus says, that, when infants suddenly grow lean,
waste away, twist about as if in pain, and sometimes scream out and cry in
a wonderful way, you may be certain that they have been fascinated. This,
to be sure, looks mightily like a diagnosis for worms; but we would not
measure our wits with the grave Hieronymus. Still, as an amulet against
such fascination, "Jaynes's Vermifuge" might be suggested as efficient, or
at least a grain or two of _Santonina_.
In Abyssinia, it is supposed that men who work in iron or pottery are
peculiarly endowed with this fatal power of fascination, and in consequence
of this prejudice they are expelled from society and even from the
privilege of partaking of the holy sacrament. They are known by the name of
_Buda_, and, though excluded from the more sacred rites of the Church,
profess great respect for religion, and are surpassed by none in the
strictness of their fasts. All convulsions and hysterical disorders are
attributed to these unfortunate artificers; and they are also supposed to
have the power of changing themselves into hyenas and other ravenous
beasts. Nathaniel Pearce, the African traveller, relates that the
Abyssinians are so fully convinced that these unhappy men are in the habit
of rifling graves in their character of hyenas, that no one will venture to
eat _quareter_ or dried meat in their houses, nor any flesh, unless it be
raw, or unless they have seen it killed.
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