Abstract
FASCINATION originally meant a supposed power in man and snakes of controlling or arresting the movements of various animals by a glance. Your correspondent M. Chatel's personal anecdote, with his comment thereon, suggests that the snake in some way mesmerises his victim, not by its glance but by its movements. His supposition that “the rapid gyratory motion of a shining object” leads on to the debilitating nervous attack, is open to debate. In displays of fireworks such motion occurs before crowds without making any one sick or frightened or inclined to rush into the middle of a Catharine-wheel. However then the motions of the snake, whether swift or slow, may avail in attracting and fixing attention, the final catastrophe is probably due to pure fright, according to the old saying, Multis ipsum metuisse nocet. We may safely infer that your correspondent himself would have felt no squeezing round his temples had he known at first that the snake was for him a harmless one, and not a viper nearly five feet long!
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