Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing by George Barton Cutten (websites to read books for free txt) 📖
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We need have no doubt concerning the operation of sympathetic cures, for Sir Kenelm has told us of their virtue in his own words.87 His method was what was called the cure by the wet way, but the cure could also be effected in a dry way. Straus, in a letter to Sir Kenelm, gives an account of a cure performed by Lord Gilbourne, an English nobleman, upon a carpenter who had cut himself severely with his axe. "The axe, bespattered with blood, was sent for, besmeared with an anointment, wrapped up warmly, and carefully hung up in a closet. The carpenter was immediately relieved, and all went well for some time, when, however, the wound became exceedingly painful, and, upon resorting to his lordship it was ascertained that the axe had fallen from the nail by which it was suspended, and thereby become uncovered."
Dryden in "The Tempest" (Act V, Sc. I) makes Ariel say, in reference to the wound received by Hippolito from Ferdinand:
And in the next scene we have the following dialogue between Hippolito and Miranda:
"Hip. O my wound pains me.
Mir. I am come to ease you.
[She unwraps the sword.
Hip. Alas! I feel the cold air come to me;
My wound shoots worse than ever.
[She wipes and anoints the sword.
Mir. Does it still grieve you?
Hip. Now methinks, there's something
Laid just upon it.
Mir. Do you find ease?
Hip. Yes, yes, upon the sudden, all the pain
Is leaving me. Sweet heaven, how I am eased!"
Werenfels says: "If the superstitious person be wounded by any chance, he applies the salve, not to the wound, but, what is more effectual, to the weapon by which he received it. By a new kind of art, he will transplant his disease, like a scion, and graft it into what tree he pleases."
The practice at the time was varied and general. All sorts of disgusting ingredients were gathered together to form the salve. Some idea of the condition of the science of medicine at that time may be gathered when we remember that a serious discussion was long maintained between two factions in the sympathetic school concerning the question "whether it was necessary that the moss should grow absolutely in the skull of a thief who had hung on the gallows, and whether the ointment, while compounding, was to be stirred with a murderer's knife."
There is no doubt that the sympathetic cures were really the most rapid and effective. The modern surgeon wonders how a wound ever healed prior to this treatment. There seemed to be little that could be imagined to prevent a wound from healing that the pre-sympathetic surgeon did not try. When the manipulations, doses, and treatments were transferred from the wound to the weapon, they did not injure the weapon, and did give the wound a chance to heal. In fact, leaving out the weapon part of the treatment, which could have none but a mental influence, the treatment would be recommended to-day. The wound was kept clean, the edges were brought in apposition, temperature was modified, and rest given. Under these circumstances, wounds which the surgeon had irritated so as to take weeks to heal, united in as many days. Mark this, however: the wounds treated were simple incisions, the ones which most readily united if cleansed, brought together, and left alone. Gunshot and similar wounds were not treated by this process.88
76T. J. Pettigrew, Superstitions Connected with ... Medicine and Surgery, pp. 63 f.
77Gentleman's Magazine, LVIII, pp. 586 and 695.
78H. Arnot, History of Edinburgh.
79 Pharmacologia, p. 51.
80 The Doctor, p. 59.
81 For a discussion on the doctrine of signatures see T. J. Pettigrew, Superstitions, etc., pp. 33 f.; E. Berdoe, Origin and Growth of the Healing Art, pp. 327 and 416 f.; A. D. White, History of the Warfare of Science with Theology, II, pp. 38 f.; Eccles, Evolution of Medical Science, pp. 140 f.
82 J. Brand, Popular Antiquities, III, p. 153. In references to this work, the edition used was that edited by W. Carew Hazlitt.
83 The Loseley Manuscripts, pp. 263 f., quoted by Berdoe.
84 Bede, Ecclesiastical History, bk. V, chap. III.
85 G. F. Fort, History of Medical Economy During the Middle Ages, p. 299
86 W. A. Hammond, Spiritualism and Nervous Derangement, p. 175.
87 Sir Kenelm Digby, A late discovery made in solemne assembly of nobles and learned men, at Montpellier, in France, touching the cure of wounds, by the Powder of Sympathy, etc.
88 I am indebted to T. J. Pettigrew, Superstitions Connected with the History and Practice of Surgery and Medicine, pp. 201-213; C. Mackay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions, pp. 266-268; W. A. Hammond, Spiritualism and Nervous Derangement, pp. 170-176; for the material on the subject of sympathetic cures.
CHAPTER VII AMULETS"He loved and was beloved; what more could he desire as an amulet against fear?"—Bulwer-Lytton.
"Such medicines are to be exploded that consist of words, characters, spells, and charms, which can do no good at all, but out of a strong conceit, as Pomponatius proves; or the Devil's policy, who is the first founder and teacher of them."—Burton.
"Old wives and starres are his councellors; his nightspell is his guard, and charms his physician. He wears Paracelsian characters for the toothache; and a little hallowed wax is his antidote for all evils."—Bishop Hall.
"Neither doth Fansie only cause, but also as easily cure Diseases; as I may justly refer all magical and jugling Cures thereunto, performed, as is thought, by Saints, Images, Relicts, Holy-Waters, Shrines, Avemarys, Crucifixes, Benedictions, Charms, Characters, Sigils of the Planets and of Signs, inverted Words, &c., and therefore all such Cures are rather to be ascribed to the Force of the Imagination, than any virtue in them, or their Rings, Amulets, Lamens, &c."—Ramesey.
Attention has already been called to the fact that the characteristic of the amulet is that it must be worn about the person, while the talisman may simply be in possession of a person wherever it may be, or deposited at a certain place by or for the person. The Arabic equivalent of the word Amulet means "that which is suspended."
The derivation of the word is uncertain, but there are at least two Latin antecedents claimed for it. Some claim that it is derived from the barbarous Latin word "amuletum," from amolior, to remove; others consider that it comes from "amula," the name of a small vessel with lustral water in it, which the Romans sometimes carried in their pockets for purification and expiation. Pliny says that many of these amulæ were carved out of pieces of amber and hung about children's necks. Whatever the derivation of the word, it is doubtless of Eastern origin.
There is also little doubt concerning the early belief in the efficacy of an amulet to ward off diseases, and to protect against supernatural agencies. So powerful were they supposed to be that an oath was formerly administered to persons about to fight a legal duel "that they had ne charme ne herb of virtue." St. Chrysostom and others of the church fathers condemned the practice very severely, and the Council of Laodicea (366) wisely forbade the priesthood from studying and practising enchantments, mathematics, astrology, and the binding of the soul by amulets.89
Burton has the following passage on the subject: "Amulets, and Things to be borne about, I find prescribed, taxed by some, approved by Renodeus, Platerus, and others; looke for them in Mizaldus, Porta, Albertus, &c. ... A Ring made of the Hoofe of an Asse's right fore-foot carried about, &c.
I say with Renodeus they are not altogether to be rejected. Piony doth help epilepsies. Pretious Stones, most diseases. A Wolf's dung carried about helps the Cholick. A spider, an Ague, &c. ... Some Medicines are to be exploded, that consist of Words, Characters, Spells, and Charms, which can do no good at all, but out of a strong conceit, as Pomponatius proves; or the Devil's policy, who is the first founder and teacher of them."90
"To this kind," says Bingham, "belong all Ligatures and Remedies, which the Schools of Physitians reject and condemn; whether in Inchantments or in certain marks, which they call Characters, or in some other things which are to be hanged and bound about the Body, and kept in a dancing posture. Such are Ear-rings hanged upon the tip of each ear, and Rings made of an Ostriche's bones for the Finger; or, when you are told, in a fit of Convulsions or shortness of Breath, to hold your left Thumb with your right hand."91
Unfortunately the wearing of amulets did not stop with the early civilizations or even with the Middle Ages. People in our own supposedly enlightened age indulge in them. The negro carries the hind foot of a rabbit, and the children see great virtue in a four-leafed clover; men carry luck pennies, and certain stones are worn in rings and scarf pins; camphor is worn about the person to avert febrile contagion, and anodyne necklaces of "Job's tears" and other equally harmless and inefficacious substances are placed on babies to assist them in teething. The camphor and necklaces are probably not supposed to be endowed with magical power, but a mistaken medical virtue is assigned to them.
There was neither rule nor reason for the composition of most amulets, and one would have to be well acquainted with the superstitions of the various ages to account for them. Sometimes the shape, rather than the material of which they were composed or the inscription on them, was the efficacious factor. Perhaps material, shape, and inscription would be combined in one object; or many objects, each purporting to contain magical properties, might be grouped for special efficacy, as when inscribed pieces of different stones of peculiar shape were formed into necklaces or bracelets.
Precious stones were often employed as amulets, and some even ground them up and took them internally in order to be more sure of their magical effects. "Butler quotes
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