As for those voluntary tortures that cause an effusion of blood, the insensibility of those who are the victims of it is explainable when we reflect that India is the country par excellence of anaesthetic plants.  It produces, notably, Indian hemp and poppy, the first of which yields hashish and the other opium.  Now it is owing to these two narcotics, taken in a proper dose, either alone or combined according to a formula known to Hindoo fakirs and jugglers, but ignored by the lower class, that the former are able to become absolutely insensible themselves or make their adepts so.

[Illustration:  INDIAN FAKIRS IN VARIOUS POSITIONS.]

There is, especially, a liquor known in the Indian pharmacopoeia under the name of bang, that produces an exciting intoxication accompanied with complete insensibility.  Now the active part of bang consists of a mixture of opium and hashish.  It was an analogous liquor that the Brahmins made Indian widows take before leading them to the funeral pile.  This liquor removed from the victims not only all consciousness of the act that they were accomplishing, but also rendered them insensible to the flames.  Moreover, the dose of the anaesthetic was such that if, by accident, the widow had escaped from the pile (something that more than once happened, thanks to English protection), she would have died through poisoning.  Some travelers in Africa speak of an herb called rasch, which is the base of anaesthetic preparations employed by certain Arabian jugglers and sorcerers.

It was hashish that the Old Man of the Mountain, the chief of the sect of Assassins, had recourse to for intoxicating his adepts, and it was, it is thought, by the use of a virulent solanaceous plant—­henbane, thornapple, or belladonna—­that he succeeded in rendering them insensible.  We have unfortunately lost the recipe for certain anaesthetics that were known in ancient times, some of which, such as the Memphis stone, appear to have been used in surgical operations.  We are also ignorant of what the wine of myrrh was that is spoken of in the Bible.

We are likewise ignorant of the composition of the anaesthetic soap, the use of which became so general in the 15th and 16th centuries that, according to Taboureau, it was difficult to torture persons who were accused.  The stupefying recipe was known to all jailers, who, for a consideration, communicated it to prisoners.  It was this use of anaesthetics that gave rise to the rule of jurisprudence according to which partial or general insensibility was regarded as a certain sign of sorcery.  We may cite a certain number of preparations, which vary according to the country, and to which is attributed the properly of giving courage and rendering persons insensible to wounds inflicted by the enemy.  In most cases alcohol forms the base of such beverages, although the maslach that Turkish soldiers drink just before a battle contains none of it, on account of a religious precept.  It consists of different plant-juices, and contains, especially, a little opium.  Cossacks and Tartars, just before battle, take a fermented beverage in which has been infused a species of toadstool (Agaricus muscarius), and which renders them courageous to a high degree.