The Rhode Island Republican

ON THE POWER OF IMAGINATION.

In the year 1785, Elijah Barnes, of Bucks county, Pennsylvania, assisted by his people working in harvest, killed a rattlesnake; and soon after having occasion to go home, took up by mistake, his son's jacket and put it on; the son was a stripling, and both their jackets were made out of the same cloth: The old man being warm did not button the jacket until he got to the house, then he found it much too little for him;—he instantly conceived the idea that he had been imperceptibly bitten by the rattlesnake, and swelled from the effects of the poison; he grew suddenly very ill and was put to bed. The people about him were very much alarmed, and sent for two or three physicians, one of whom poured down his throat a pint of melted lard, another gave him a dose of wild plantain, and the third, made him drink hoar-hound tea made very strong. Notwithstanding all, he grew worse, and was to appearance on the verge of dissolution, when his son came home, with the old gentleman's jacket—hanging like a bag about him. The whole mystery was at once unravelled, and poor Elijah Barnes, notwithstanding his drenches of hog's fat, plantain, and hoar hound was well in an instant.