Editorial note — Chapter VI · QUACKERY AND MIND CURES

[Footnote 5: (Transcriber: This footnote is not numbered in the text but appears to refer to the preceding paragraph.): In one of Plautus' plays there is a curiously interesting expression that is recalled by this subject. The dramatist described one of his characters, Sosia, as thrown into a sleep by the manipulations of Mercury. These manipulations are described as tractim tangere—that is, to touch strokingly. It would remind one very much of Perkins' Tractors, and in this regard the fact that Mercury was to the Romans, besides being the messenger of the gods, the divinity of thieves, seems not without interest.]