effect a cure, and each in turn is dismissed if an immediate improvement is not evident. This is continued until the exhausted sufferer no longer tosses to and fro, but lies unconscious, breathing hard, the patient watching of the fond mother or sister is nearly over, the anxious pleading whisper is hushed, and the death-wail tells that another home is desolate, another soul seeks its eternal destiny.
As already mentioned, the Laos imagine many diseases to be caused by spirits. Those diseases which are peculiarly fatal, and over which they can exercise little or no control, are supposed to be due to agencies outside of nature. This belief encourages a disposition to neglect the investigation of natural causes and to multiply the instances of supposed supernatural manifestations. Thus the appeal to the supernatural to account for those deadly diseases so common in tropical climates strengthens and extends the superstitious belief which alone furnishes this interpretation of the mysterious phenomena of nature. This tendency to bring the intellectual faculties under subjection to the imagination is, of course, not limited to the realm of diseases, for every extraordinary phenomenon is supposed to be supernatural. The prevalence of fatal diseases and the frequency of epidemics secure this stronghold of superstition; any scheme which has for its object the elevation and enlightenment, the
