Word: feign
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Dates: during 1923-1923
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Readers of Stevenson will recall, in "The Master of Ballantrae", the Hindu servant who taught his master to feign death by "swallowing his tongue". The experiment, in that case, was not altogether successful, and the author leaves doubt as to whether the Hindu really remained alive, after two week's burial in the ground, or not. But the trick was founded on an actual oriental superstition, of which many others have likewise appeared to baffle "civilized" doctors. Perhaps later investigators, like this Frenchman, will not only explain them by natural laws rather than supernatural, but also apply them usefully...