Chapter 157, Recommended a Written Charm for the Cure of Fractures; and

Ovid (B. C. 43-A. D. 18), in his "Metamorphoses," wrote these lines: "By means of incantations I break in twain the viper's jaws." In very early times physicians were regarded as under the protection of the gods, and the magical charms employed by them were therefore naturally invested with supernatural curative power. Melampus, a noted mythical leech of Argos, before the Trojan War, was said to have made use of healing-spells in his practice.

Professor H. Bluemner, in "The Home Life of the Ancient Greeks," chapter 7, remarks that, in the early historic era, medicine developed especially in two directions in Greece: namely, as practised by a regular medical fraternity; and secondly, "as a kind of religious mystery in the hands of the priests." The latter system was doubtless connected with the worship of Esculapius. But quacks and charlatans were much in evidence, even in that remote epoch. Francis Bacon, in his "Advancement of Learning," chapter 2, says that "the poets were clear-sighted in discerning the credulity of men in often preferring a mountebank, or a cunning woman to a learned physician. Hence they made Esculapius and Circe brother and sister, and both children of Apollo."

The Grecians believed that petitions offered in a foreign tongue were more favorably received than those in the vernacular; and as a reason for this belief it was alleged that the earliest languages, however barbarous and strange to classic ears, contained words and names which were somehow more consonant to nature and hence more pleasing to their deities.[121:1] Especial magical efficacy has always been ascribed to certain Hebrew, Arabian, and Indian words.[121:2]

Aetius, who lived at Amida in Mesopotamia in the fifth century, the first Christian physician whose medical writings are extant, repeated biblical verses during the preparation of his medicines, in order to increase their efficacy.[122:1] And until comparatively modern times, the employment of verbal charms, curative spells, and formulas, was believed to enhance the therapeutic virtues of medicines. No remedy, we are told, was administered without mysterious ceremony and incantation.

According to Suidas, a Greek lexicographer, supposed to have lived in the tenth century, the method of curing diseases by the repetition of certain words had been practised ever since the time of the mythological King Minos, of Crete. Indeed, among the peoples of antiquity, the science of therapeutics was largely of a theurgic or supernatural character, and Sibylline verses were in great repute. In this connection it is interesting to note that, according to one authority, the word carminative, a remedy which relieves pain "like a charm," is derived from the Latin carminare, to use incantations.

Words of encouragement and a cheerful mien are good therapeutic agents; and the physician of Plato's day, we are told, sometimes took an orator along with him, in his visits to Grecian households, to persuade his patients to take medicines.[122:2] Such an expedient may have been warranted in those days, but it is of course wholly unnecessary in this age of palatable elixirs and chocolate-coated tablets.

Alexander of Tralles, a Greek physician of the sixth century, recommended a verse of Homer for the cure of colic. In our advanced stage of culture, we should hardly be content with such a carminative, but should rather employ one of the modern aromatic remedies of the pharmacopoeia. In the classic age, however, as well as at later epochs, the use of verbal charms for the cure of disease was forbidden under severe penalties. The case is recorded of a woman of Achaia, who was stoned to death for attempting to cure a fever by the repetition of spells. This was in the fourth century, during the reign of Valentinian.[123:1]

The Greeks invoked Asklepios, the god of Medicine, and his daughters Hygeia, the goddess of Health, and Panacea, the All-Healer, who personified attributes of their father. Apollo, too, under the title of Paean, was worshipped as a health-deity and physician of the gods. He was addressed both as a healer and destroyer; as one who inflicted diseases, but who likewise vouchsafed remedies for their cure. But there appears to have been no incompatibility between the offering of prayers to these heathen deities, and the use of magical spells, formulas and verses. For religion, the healing art, and magic seem to have been inextricably blended in the early days of Greece and Rome, notwithstanding the teachings of Hippocrates, who first strove to liberate medicine from the superstition which enslaved it.

The complex character of therapeutic methods in vogue among the ancient classical peoples, finds a modern parallel in the case of American aborigines. In various tribes the functions of priest, doctor, and wizard are assumed by one and the same person.[124:1] Under the influence of civilization the leech and parson have their distinct professions, and the role of the magician loses much of its importance. In the present advanced stage of culture, many physicians devote themselves to particular branches of their art, and each human organ, when ailing, may invoke assistance from its own special Esculapian.

The Romans of the fourth century, says Edward Gibbon,[124:2] "dreaded the mysterious power of spells and incantations, of potent herbs and mysterious rites, which could extinguish or recall life, inflame the passions of the soul, blast the works of creation, and extort from reluctant demons the secrets of futurity." They held firmly to the belief that this miraculous power was possessed by certain old hags and enchantresses, who lived in poverty and obscurity. The modern popular ideas about witches having compacts with evil spirits, whereby the former are enabled to operate supernaturally, appear to be of very ancient origin, as is evident from the folk-lore of different peoples.

Magical arts, wrote Gibbon, although condemned alike by popular opinion and by the laws of Rome, were continually practised, because they tended to gratify the most imperious passions of men's hearts.

Among pagan nations prayers were somewhat akin to incantations, and were not always regarded as petitions; but their value was supposed to inhere in the power of the uttered words, a power which even the gods were unable to withstand.[125:1] The mystic verses by means of which Athenian physicians anciently invoked supernatural aid, were called carmina, charms,[125:2] their magical nature was incompatible with a purely devotional spirit, and they were therefore incantations rather than prayers. Invocations of deities and magic spells have one point in common; both are appeals to spirits believed to possess supernatural powers. This very kinship may render verbal charms the more obnoxious to devout people, on the same principle which led Lord Bacon to declare superstition to be the more repulsive on account of its similitude to religion, "even as it addeth deformity to an ape to be so like a man." In the prayers offered by the Romans to their deities, the choice of apt phrases was considered to be of greater importance than the mental attitude of the petitioner, because of the prevalent belief in the efficacy of appropriate words per se.

Hence, we are told, when prayers for the welfare of the State were publicly recited by a magistrate, it was customary for a high-priest to dictate suitable expressions, lest an unhappy selection of words provoke divine anger.[126:1] Popular credence attributed to the classic writer Marcus Varro (B. C. 116-28), sometimes called "the most learned of the Romans," the faculty of curing tumors by the direct expression of mental force, namely, by means of words.[126:2]

The Romans believed that the magical power of prayers was enhanced if they were uttered with a loud voice. Hence a saying attributed to Seneca: "So speak to God as though all men heard your prayers." Of great repute among the healing-spells of antiquity was the cabalistic word Abracadabra, which occurs first in a medical treatise entitled "Praecepta de Medicina," by the Roman writer Quintus Serenus Samonicus, who flourished in the second century. An inverted triangular figure, formed by writing this word in the manner hereinafter described, was much valued as an antidote against fevers; cloth or parchment being the material originally used for the inscription.

Thou shalt on paper write the spell divine, Abracadabra called, on many a line, Each under each in even order place, But the last letter in each line efface; As by degrees the elements grow few, Still take away, but fix the residue, Till at the last one letter stands alone, And the whole dwindles to a tapering cone. Tie this about the neck with flaxen string, Mighty the good 't will to the patient bring. Its wondrous potency shall guard his bed, And drive disease and death far from his head.[127:1]

Another favorite therapeutic spell, no less venerable than Abracadabra, was the mystical word Abraxas, which was first used by Basilides, a leader of the Egyptian Gnostics in the second century. This word, engraved on an antique precious stone, sometimes accompanied by a magical emblem and meaningless inscription, was commonly used as a medical amulet, and was well adapted to fire the imagination of ignorant patients.

The following curious extract is taken from a rare book published by W. Clowes, serjeant-surgeon to Queen Elizabeth, entitled, "A Proved Practice for all Young Chirurgians," 1588:

It is not long since that a subtile deluder, verie craftely having upon set purpose his brokers or espials abroade, using sundry secret drifts to allure many, as did the syrens by their sweet sonets and melody seduce mariners to make them their pray, so did his brokers or espials deceive many, in proclayming and sounding out his fame abroade from house to house, as those use which crye, "Mistresse, have you any worke for the tincker?" At the lengthe they heard of one that was tormented with a quartaine; then in all post haste this bad man was brought unto the sicke patient by their craftie means, and so forth, without any tariance, he did compound for fifteene pounde to rid him within three fits of his agew, and to make him as whole as a fish of all diseases: so a little before the fit was at hand, he called unto the wife of the patient to bring him an apple of the biggest size, and then with a pinne writte in the rinde of the apple Abracadabra, and such like, and perswaded him to take it presently in the beginning of his fit, for there was (sayeth he) a secret in those words. To be short, the patient, being hungry of his health, followed his counsell, and devoured all and every peece of the apple. So soon as it was receyved, nature left the disease to digest the apple, which was to hard to do; for at length he fell to vomiting, then the core kept such a sturre in his throate, that wheretofore his fever was ill, now much worse, a malo ad pejus, out of the frying-pan into the fire: presently there were physitions sent for unto the sick patient, or else his fifteene pound had been gone, with a more pretious jewell: but this lewde fellow is better knowne at Newgate than I will heere declare.[128:1]

Certain mystic sentences of barbaric origin, mostly unintelligible, and known as "Ephesian Letters," engraved upon the famous statue of Diana at Ephesus, were popular among the Greeks as charms wherewith to drive away diseases, to render the wearer invincible in battle, or to purify demon-infested places. Their invention was attributed to the fabulous Dactyls of Phrygia, and they appear to have been held in equally great esteem, whether pronounced orally as incantations, or inscribed upon strips of parchment and worn as amulets.

In ancient Hibernia, the former western limit of the known world, the Druids, in their medical treatment, relied much upon magic rites and incantations.[129:1] And the early Irish physicians, who belonged to the Druid priesthood, were devoted to mystical medicine, although they also prescribed various herbs with whose therapeutic use they were familiar.[129:2] In Ireland according to Lady Wilde,[129:3] invocations were formerly in the names of the Phenician god Baal, and of the Syrian goddess Ashtoreth, representing the sun and moon respectively. . . . After the establishment of Christianity, formulas of invocation were usually in the names of Christ or the Holy Trinity, and those of Mary, Peter, and numerous saints were also used. In Brand's "Popular Antiquities,"[129:4] we find a long list of the names of saints who were invoked for the cure of particular ailments; and the same authority quotes from a work entitled "The Irish Hubbub," by Barnaby Rich, 1619, these lines: "There is no disease, no sicknesse, no greefe, either amongst men or beasts, that hath not his physician among the saints."

The devotion of the Teutonic tribes to magical medicine is not surprising to any one versed in the mythological lore of Scandinavia, which is replete with sorcery. And throughout the Middle Ages, although medical practice was largely in the hands of Christian priests and monks, yet sorcerers and charlatans continued to employ old pagan usages and magical remedies. The German physicians of the Carlovingian era pretended to cure ailments by whispering in the patient's ear, as well as by the use of enchanted herbs. They inherited ceremonial formulas from the practitioners of an earlier age, for the treatment of ophthalmic diseases; and in addition to such spells, they made use of various gestures, and were wont to thrice touch the affected eyes.[130:1]

In Grimm's "Teutonic Mythology"[130:2] is to be found an old German spell against gout, as follows: "God, the Lord went over the land; there met him 70 sorts of gouts and goutesses. Then spake the Lord: 'Ye 70 gouts and goutesses, whither would ye?' Then spake the 70 gouts and goutesses: 'We go over the land and take from men their health and limbs.' Then spake the Lord: 'Ye shall go to an elder-bush and break off all his boughs, and leave with [such an one, naming the patient] his straight limbs.'"

Many old German healing-spells contain the names of our Lord and of the Virgin, which probably superseded those of pagan deities and sacred mythological personages, the formulas remaining otherwise the same. Such spells are akin to pious invocations or actual prayers. Others exhibit a blending of devotion and credulity, and appear to have degenerated into mere verbal forms.

According to a tradition of the North, while Wodan and Baldur were once on a hunting excursion, the latter's horse dislocated a leg; whereupon Wodan reset the bones by means of a verbal charm. And the mere narration of this prehistoric magical cure is in repute in Shetland as a remedy for lameness in horses at the present day.

A remarkable cure for intermittent fever, in a marshy district of Lincolnshire, is described in "Folk-Lore," June, 1898 (page 186). An old woman, whose grandson had a bad attack of the fever, fastened upon the foot-board of his bed three horse-shoes, with a hammer laid cross-wise upon them. With the hammer the old crone gave each shoe a smart tap, repeating each time this spell: "Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, nail the Devil to this post, one for God and one for Wod and one for Lok. . . . Yon's a sure charm," said she, "that will hold the Old One as fast as t' church tower, when next he comes to shake un." The chronicler of this curious incantation calls attention to the association of the name of God with two heathen personages: Wodan, the chief ruler, and Loki, the spirit of evil, in the mythology of the North.

The early Saxons in England knew little of scientific medicine, and relied on indigenous herbs. They were much addicted to the use of wizard spells, a term which originated with them; and were too ignorant to adopt the skilled methods of the practitioners of Greece and Italy.

The invention of some especially forceful words for exorcising fiends and illnesses was ascribed to Robert Grosseteste (about 1175-1253), Bishop of Lincoln; and the fact that a learned prelate should devote attention to the subject is strong testimony to its importance in medieval times. There is indeed abundant evidence that throughout that period verbal charms were very commonly worn, whether devotional sentences, prayer formulas written on vellum, or mystic letters, words, and symbols inscribed on parchment.[132:1] For many centuries medical practice consisted largely of prayers and incantations, the employment of charms and talismans, and the performance of superstitious rites. Until the seventeenth century these methods were more or less in vogue. Thus, a verse from the Lamentations of Jeremiah was thought to be a specific for rheumatism.[133:1]

The Atharva-Veda, one of the ancient Vedas, or religious books of the Hindus, contains hundreds of healing-spells, as well as formulas to secure prosperity, in expiation of sin, and as safeguards against robbers and wild beasts. They are repeated either by the person expecting assistance therefrom, or by a magician for his benefit. Of the therapeutic verses brief examples are here given:

(A charm against fever.) "O Takman (fever), along with thy brother balasa, along with thy sister cough, along with thy cousin paman, go to yonder foreign folk!"

(A charm against cough.) "As a well-sharpened arrow swiftly to a distance flies, thus do thou, O Cough, fly along the expanse of the earth!"

(A charm against the demons of disease.) "O amulet of ten kinds of wood, release this man from the demon and the fit which has seized upon his joints!"

While reciting the above formula, a talisman consisting of splinters from ten kinds of wood is fastened upon the patient, and ten of his friends rub him down.[133:2]

The following translation of an old Scottish incantation against disease is taken from a collection of charms, chiefly of the Outer Hebrides Islands, and included by Alexander Carmichael in his "Carmina Gaelica," Edinburgh, 1900.

Peter and James and John, The Three of sweetest virtues in glory, Who arose to make the charm, Before the great gate of the City, By the right knee of God the Son, Against the keen-eyed men, Against the peering-eyed women, Against the slim, slender, fairy darts, Against the swift arrows of fairies. Two made to thee the withered eye, Man and woman in venom and envy, Three whom I will set against them. Father, Son, and Spirit Holy. Four-and-twenty diseases in the constitution of man and beast. God scrape them, God search them, God cleanse them, From out thy blood, from out thy flesh, From out thy fragrant bones, From this day, and each day that comes, Till thy day on earth be done.

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