Description
Contents
Chapter 1
Fire worship
Fire eating and heat resistance
The Middle Ages
Among the Navajo Indians
Fire-walkers of Japan
The Fiery Ordeal of Fiji
Chapter 2
Watton’s Ship-swabber from the Indies
Richardson 1667
De Heiterkeit 1713
Robert Powell 1718-1780
Dufour 1783
Quackensalber 1794
Chapter 3
The nineteenth century
A “Wonderful Phenomenon”
“The Incombustible Spaniard, Senor Lionetto” 1803
Josephine Girardelli 1814
John Brooks 1817
W. C. Houghton 1832
J. A. B. Chylinski 1841
Chamouni the Russian Salamander 1869
Professor Rel Maeub 1876
Rivelli (died 1900)
Chapter 4
The Master—Chabert, 1792-1859
Chapter 5
Fire-eating magicians
Ching Ling Foo and Chung Ling Soo
Fire-eaters employed by magicians
The Man-Salamander 1816
Mr. Carlton: Professor of Chemistry 1818
Miss Cassillis (aged nine) 1820
The African Wonder 1843
Ling Look and Yamadeva die in China during Kellar’s world tour 1877
Ling Look’s double 1879
Electrical effects
The Salambos
Bueno Core
Del Kano
Barnello
Edwin Forrest as a heat-resister
The Elder Sothern as a fire-eater
The Twilight of the Art
Chapter 6
The Arcana of the fire-eaters
The formula of Albertus Magnus
Of Hocus Pocus
Richardson’s method
Philopyraphagus Ashburniensis
To breathe forth sparks, smoke, and flames
To spout natural gas
Professor Sementini’s discoveries
To bite off red-hot iron
To cook in a burning cage
Chabert’s oven
To eat coals of fire
To drink burning oil
To chew molten lead
To chew burning brimstone
To wreathe the face in flames
To ignite paper with the breath
To drink boiling liquor and eat flaming wax
Chapter 7
The spheroidal condition of liquids
Why the hand may be dipped in molten metals
Principles of heat resistance put to practical uses
Aldini, 1829
In early fire-fighting
Temperatures the body can endure
Chapter 8
Sword-swallowers
Cliquot
Delno Fritz
Deodota, a razor-swallower, an umbrella-swallower
William Dempster
John Cumming
Edith Clifford
Victorina
Chapter 9
Stone-eaters
A Silesian in Prague, 1006
Francois Battalia, ca. 1641
Platerus’ beggar boy
Father Paulian’s lithophagus of Avignon, 1760
“The Only One in the World,” London, 1788
Spaniards in London, 1790
a secret for two and six
Japanese training
Frog-swallowers
Norton
English Jack
Bosco, the snake-eater
Billington’s prescription for hangmen
Captain Veitro
Water spouters
Blaise Manfrede, ca. 1650
Floram Marchand, 1650
Chapter 10
Defiers of poisonous reptiles
Thardo
Mrs. Learn, dealer in rattle-snakes
Sir Arthur Thurlow Cunynghame on antidotes for snake-bite
Jack the Viper
William Oliver, 1735
The advice of Cornelius Heinrich Agrippa, (1480-1535)
An Australian snake story
Antidotes for various poisons
Chapter 11
Strongmen of the eighteenth century
Thomas Topham (died, 1749)
Joyce, 1703
Van Eskeberg, 1718
Barsabas and his sister
The Italian Female Sampson, 1724
The “little woman from Geneva,” 1751
Belzoni, 1778-1823
Chapter 12
Contemporary strong people
Charles Jefferson
Louis Cyr
John Grun Marx
William Le Roy
The Nail King, The Human Claw-hammer
Alexander Weyer
Mexican Billy Wells
A foolhardy Italian
Wilson
Herman
Sampson
Sandow
Yucca
La Blanche
Lulu Hurst, The Georgia Magnet, The Electric Girl, etc.
Annie Abbott
Mattie Lee Price
The Twilight of the Freaks
The dime museums
