On the Truths Contained in Popular Superstitions, With an Account of Mesmerism.

MAYO, Herbert (1796-1852).

Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1851. [Paranormal] SECOND EDITION. Octavo (21 x 13cm), pp.[2] vi; 197 [1]. Publisher's brown cloth, blind-ruled to boards, gilt titles to spine. Partially re-backed with original spine laid over. Edges untrimmed. Yellow endpapers. Internally clean, minimal spotting to prelims and rear blanks. Some thumbing to front endpaper. Small binder's label to rear pastedown, bookseller's stamp to front flyleaf. A few pencil annotations to title-page. Some expected toning and age to cloth, some small ink blots to lower. Spine neatly and tightly re-backed. Gentle edgewear. Very good. A sceptic's guide to the supernatural! Middlesex surgeon and author Herbert Mayo targets occult phenomena one by one - divining rods, ghosts, unnatural visions - and offers sensible, materialist explanations for each. For example, he postulates that what popular superstition upholds as vampirism is actually an unfortunate medical state called the death-trance wherein a body's metabolism slows enough to mimic death and then inevitably... resurrection. Item #69297

Price: £300.00