Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing, George Barton Cutten [crime books to read TXT] 📗

these are undeniable truths. He that lives owes his life to the peculiar clemency of his Lord, who by his providence takes care of his subsistence. He is a wise prince or governor."97

The Jews used as amulets some sacred name, such as the true pronunciation of the name of Jehovah, written down. The Mischna permitted the Jews to wear amulets provided they had been found efficacious in at least three cases by an approved person. One of the most famous amulets is that known as "Solomon's Seal."

Ligatures, similar to the earlier amulets, a heritage from the northern pagan races, were freely applied for the prevention and cure of maladies.

After imposing invocations and the addition of mystical characters, these medical charms were presumed to be of the greatest efficacy, and ready for suspension from the neck. Their efficacy was admitted by Christians, but they were condemned on account of their pagan and consequently satanic origin.

Alexander of Tralles recommended a number of amulets, some of which I will mention later, but admits that he had no faith in them, but merely ordered them as placebos for rich and fastidious patients who could not be persuaded to adopt a more rational treatment. Baas tells us that "A regular Pagan amulet was found in 1749 on the breast of the prince bishop Anselm Franz of Würzburg, count of Ingolstadt, after his death."

Amulets were also worn to protect the wearer from charms exercised by others. The "Leech Book" gives us one to be worn and another to be taken internally for this purpose. To be used "against every evil rune lay, and one full of elvish tricks, writ for the bewitched man, this writing in Greek letters: Alfa, Omega, Iesvm, BERONIKH. Again, another dust and drink against a rune lay; take a bramble apple, and lupins, and pulegium, pound them, then sift them, put them in a pouch, lay them under the altar, sing nine masses over them, administer this to drink at three hours."

The powers of the mandragora, as an amulet, place it almost in a class by itself. Fort tells us that in addition to its power to protect herds of cattle and horses, to prevent misfortunes of various kinds, to preserve the exhilarating wine and beer against loss of their intoxicating property, to render successful commercial negotiations, and promote infallibly, rapid and enormous influence, "other virtues of a surprising character were awarded the omnipotent mandragora. It conciliated affection and maintained friendship, preserved conjugal fealty and developed benevolence. The immensity of worth inherent in this mystical medicament, its vital essence, was by no means confined to sustaining health and providing certain remedies for infirmities; its power manipulated tribunals and secured judicial favor at court; and when this resistless amulet was held under the arm by a suitor at law, however unjust his cause, the vegetable Rune controlled the forum and obtained the verdict."98

It may be well at this point to enumerate at least a number of the most noted amulets, according to the disease for which they were supposed to be efficacious.

Ague.—On account of the periodic character of this disease it was considered to be a supernatural complaint and hence many unnatural cures were suggested, among which were a number of amulets. The Abracadabra amulet was supposed to be especially efficacious in ague. The chips of a gallows put into a bag and worn around the neck, or next the skin, have been said to have served as a cure, at least, so reports Brand.99 Millefolium or yarrow, worn in a little bag on the pit of the stomach is reported to have cured this disease, and Alexander of Tralles advises, for a quartan ague, that the patient must carry about some hairs from a goat's chin.100

Elias Ashmole, in his Diary, April 11, 1681, has entered the following: "I tooke early in the morning a good dose of Elixir, and hung three spiders about my neck, and they drove my Ague away. Deo Gratias!"101

Wristbands, called pericarpia, were employed in the cure. Robert Boyle says he was cured of a violent quotidian ague, after having in vain resorted to medical aid, by applying to his wrists "a mixture of two handfuls of bay salt, the same quantity of fresh English hops, and a quarter of a pound of blue currants, very diligently beaten into a brittle mass, without the addition of anything moist, and so spread upon linen and applied to his wrists."102

Burton gives us a leaf from his own experience.103 "Being in the country in the vacation time, not many years since, at Lindly, in Leicestershire, my father's house, I first observed this amulet of a spider in a nut-shell, wrapped in silk, &c., so applyed for an ague by my mother; whom, although I knew to have excellent skill in chirurgery, sore eyes, aches, &c., and such experimental medicines, as all the country where she dwelt can witness, to have done many famous and good cures upon divers poor folks that were otherwise destitute of help, yet among all other experiments, this methought was most absurd and ridiculous. I could see no warrant for it. Quid aranea cum Febre? For what antipathy? till at length rambling amongst authors (as I often do), I found this very medicine in Dioscorides, approved by Matthiolus, repeated by Aldrovandus, cap. de Aranea, lib. de Insectis, I began to have a better opinion of it, and to give more credit to amulets, when I saw it in some parties answer to experience."

A narrative of not a little interest, concerning Sir John Holt, Lord Chief Justice of the Court of King's Bench, 1709, should be given in this connection. He was extremely wild in his youth, and being once engaged with some of his rakish friends in a trip into the country, in which they had spent all their money, it was agreed they should try their fortune separately. Holt arrived at an inn at the end of a straggling village, ordered his horse to be taken care of, bespoke a supper and a bed. He then strolled into the kitchen, where he observed a little girl of thirteen shaking with ague. Upon making inquiry respecting her, the landlady told him that she was her only child, and had been ill nearly a year, notwithstanding all the assistance she could procure for her from physic. He gravely shook his head at the doctors, bade her be under no further concern, for that her daughter should never have another fit. He then wrote a few unintelligible words in a court hand on a scrap of parchment, which had been the direction fixed to a hamper, and rolling it up, directed that it should be bound upon the girl's wrist and there allowed to remain until she was well. The ague returned no more; and Holt, having remained in the house a week, called for his bill. "God bless you, sir," said the old woman, "you're nothing in my debt, I'm sure. I wish, on the contrary, that I was able to pay you for the cure which you have made of my daughter. Oh! if I had had the happiness to see you ten months ago, it would have saved me forty pounds." With pretended reluctance he accepted his accommodation as a recompense, and rode away. Many years elapsed, Holt advanced in his profession of the law, and went a circuit, as one of the judges of the Court of King's Bench, into the same county, where, among other criminals brought before him, was an old woman under a charge of witchcraft. To support this accusation, several witnesses swore that the prisoner had a spell with which she could either cure such cattle as were sick or destroy those that were well, and that in the use of this spell she had been lately detected, and that it was now ready to be produced in court. Upon this statement the judge desired that it might be handed up to him. It was a dirty ball, wrapped round with several rags, and bound with packthread. These coverings he carefully removed, and beneath them found a piece of parchment which he immediately recognized as his own youthful fabrication. For a few moments he remained silent. At length, recollecting himself, he addressed the jury to the following effect: "Gentlemen, I must now relate a particular of my life, which very ill suits my present character and the station in which I sit; but to conceal it would be to aggravate the folly for which I ought to atone, to endanger innocence, and to countenance superstition. This bauble, which you suppose to have the power of life and death, is a senseless scroll which I wrote with my own hand and gave to this woman, whom for no other reason you accuse as a witch." He then related the particulars of the transaction, with such an effect upon the minds of the people that his old landlady was the last person tried for witchcraft in that county.104

Calculus.—Boyle tells us105 that the Lapis Nephriticus, a species of jasper, when bound to the left wrist, was a cure for this trouble. Others have borne evidence to its efficacy.

Childbirth.—Among the ancient Britons, when a birth was difficult or dangerous, a girdle, made for this purpose, was put around the woman and afforded immediate relief. Until quite recently they were kept by many families in the Highlands of Scotland. They were marked with certain figures and were applied with certain ceremonies derived from the Druids. Women in labor were also supposed to be quickly delivered if they were girded with the skin which a snake has sloughed off.106

Cholera.—Bontius declared the Lapis Porcinus to be good for cholera, but dangerous to pregnant women. If the females of Malaica held the stone in their hands an abortion was produced. When cholera was prevalent during the early part of the last century, it was common in many parts of Austria, Germany, and Italy to wear an amulet at the pit of the stomach, in contact with the skin. Pettigrew describes one of these which was sent to him from Hungary. "It consists merely of a circular piece of copper two inches and a half in diameter, and is without characters."

Colic.—Says Pliny, the extremity of the intestine of the ossifrage, if worn as an amulet, is well known to be an excellent remedy for colic. A tick from a dog's left ear, worn as an amulet, was recommended to allay this and all other kinds of pain, but one must be careful to take it from a dog that is black. Alexander of Tralles recommended the heart of a lark to be fastened to the left thigh as a remedy for colic. Mr. Cockayne, the editor of Saxon Leechdoms, gives us further remedies for colic which Alexander prescribed. "Thus for colic, he guarantees by his own experience, and the approval of almost all the best doctors, dung of a wolf, with bits of bone in it if possible, shut up in a pipe, and worn during the paroxysm, on the right arm, or thigh, or hip, taking care it touches neither the earth or a bath."107

Cramp.—The following amulets are mentioned as specifics against cramp: