The Mystery and Romance of Alchemy and Pharmacy
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Title: The Mystery and Romance of Alchemy and Pharmacy
Author: C. J. S. Thompson
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MYSTERY AND ROMANCE OF ALCHEMY AND PHARMACY ***
THE MYSTERY AND ROMANCE
OF
ALCHEMY AND PHARMACY
THE SCIENTIFIC PRESS, LTD.
THE MYSTERY AND ROMANCE
OF
ALCHEMY AND PHARMACY
BY
C. J. S. THOMPSON
AUTHOR OF “POISON ROMANCE AND POISON MYSTERIES,”
“THE CHEMIST’S COMPENDIUM,” “THE CULT OF BEAUTY,”
ETC., ETC.
LONDON
THE SCIENTIFIC PRESS, LIMITED
28 & 29 SOUTHAMPTON STREET, STRAND, W.C.
1897
PREFACE.
It has been my endeavour in the following pages to sketch, however
imperfectly, some phases of the romance and mystery that have
surrounded the arts of medicine, alchemy, and pharmacy from the
earliest period of which we have record down to the close of the
eighteenth century. The influence of the past on the present is greater
than we commonly suppose. In this age of rapid scientific progress
and brilliant research, we are apt to overlook and lose sight of the
patient labours of the early pioneers of science, many of whom laid the
foundations of discoveries that have since proved of inestimable value
to mankind. Hence the history of the past, whether in science or in
art, is always worthy of study and attention.
My thanks are due to the Editor of the _Pharmaceutical Journal_ for
permission to reproduce several illustrations which appeared in its
pages together with a portion of this work.
C. J. S. T
LIVERPOOL, 1897.
CONTENTS.
PART I.
CHAPTER I.
THE DAWN OF THE ART OF HEALING.
The foundation of the art of healing—The most ancient record
of medicine and pharmacy—The _Ebers Papyrus_—Origin of the
term pharmacist—Drugs used in ancient Egypt—Early Jewish
medicines—The antiquity of medicine and alchemy in China—The
Chinese and the Philosopher’s Stone—Ancient Chinese _materia
medica_—The medical art in ancient Greece—The Grecian temples
of medicine—Methods of treatment—The oath of Hippocrates
_pages_ 1-13
CHAPTER II.
THE WIZARDS OF EARLY GREECE.
Tiresias—Abaris—Pythagoras—Epimenides—Empedocles—Aristras—
Hermotimus _pages_ 14-23
CHAPTER III.
THE WIZARDS OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.
A Roman sorceress—Virgil’s sorceress—Canidia—A witches’
incantation _pages_ 24-29
CHAPTER IV.
THE FATHERS OF MEDICINE.
Æsculapius—Hippocrates—Diocles—Praxagoras—Chrysippus—
Hierphilus—Erasistratus—Serapion—Asclepiades—Galen—His
system of treatment—Medical practice in the fifth
century—Alexander of Tralles—The fees of Roman
practitioners—Votive offerings for health—Roman
_donaria_—Roman temples of healing _pages_ 30-38
CHAPTER V.
THE EARLY AGE OF GREEK AND ROMAN PHARMACY.
Celsus—Roman pharmacy—Methods of administration—Antidotes—Grecian
remedy for hydrophobia—Chemical bodies and drugs employed
by the Greeks and Romans—Dioscorides—His work on _materia
medica_—Ancient method of collecting opium—Preparation of wool
fat—Drugs used in Pompeii and Herculaneum _pages_ 39-46
CHAPTER VI.
ALCHEMY—THE ALCHEMISTS.
Origin of the term chemistry—Practice of the hermetic science
by the Egyptians—Al-Chindus—Geber—Rhazes—Merlin—St.
Dunstan—Albertus Magnus—Vincent de Beauvais—Raymond
Lulli—Arnauld de Villeneuve—Roger Bacon—Antonio
Quainer—Discoveries made by the early alchemists—Eck—John
Baptist Porta—Cornelius Agrippa—Dr. Dee—Symbols of the
alchemists _pages_ 47-63
CHAPTER VII.
THE PHILOSOPHER’S STONE.
Alchemical research—Its objects—Supposed composition of the
Philosopher’s Stone—Claimants to the discovery—The theories of
Rhazes, Merlin and Bacon—Bacon’s definition of alchemy—Ripley’s
process—The Elixir of Life—The theories of Paracelsus—His
secret elixirs—Elixir Vitæ _pages_ 64-71
CHAPTER VIII.
THE BLACK ART AND OCCULT SCIENCES.
The antiquity of magic—Early magicians and wise men—Variety
of forms practised—Oneiromancy—Theurgy and Goetry—Historic
dreams—Necromancy—Methods of evocation—Chiromancy—Origin
of the practice—Astrology—Its antiquity—Famous astrologers
_pages_ 72-78
CHAPTER IX.
THE ART OF FORETELLING.
Influence of the planets and signs of the Zodiac—Casting
horoscopes—Methods of divination—Crystal
gazing—Dactylomancy—Pyromancy _pages_ 79-82
CHAPTER X.
BLACK MAGIC.
Practice of magic by the early alchemists—Demonology—Initiation
of novices—Taking the oath—The ceremonial—Perfumes
employed—Composition of the incense used—Black magic by
burning—Witchcraft—Methods of practice—Trial of the Duchess
of Gloucester—The “evil eye”—Apparitions in the sky—A
witches’ Sabbath—Appearance of the devil—Origin of the word
“witch”—Their initiation and pact _pages_ 83-89
CHAPTER XI.
SUPERSTITION AND ITS INFLUENCE ON MEDICINE.
Origin of incantations and charms—The cure of disease by poetry
and music—Ancient theory of the cause of disease—Precious
stones as remedial agents—Influence of the planets on
herbs—Survival of old superstitious customs—The “coral
and bells”—Sympathetic powders—Curing by touch—Empirical
nostrums—The doctrine of Signatories—Ancient superstitious
practices _pages_ 90-97
CHAPTER XII.
LOVE PHILTRES.
Composition of philtres—Roman love philtres—Law
against their use—Greek Love philtres—Ingredients
employed—Botanomancy—“Water of Magnanimity” _pages_ 98-101
CHAPTER XIII.
THE PIONEERS OF PHARMACY AND BOTANY—PHYSIC GARDENS.
Drugs used by the Arabs—Avicenna—Basil Valentine—Paracelsus—His
life and teaching—Van Helmont—Monastic
Gardens—Mesué—Ebor-Taitor—The medical treatment of the
monks—Hildegarde—Gilbert and Hernicus Arviell—Simon de
Cordo—Peter de Crescenzi—Bartholomew Glanvil—Advent of
printing—George Agricola—Conrad Gesner—Jacques Gohory—The
_Jardin des Plantes_—William Davisson—Matthias of
Lille—Andrew Cesalpin—The first pharmacopœia—The _London
Pharmacopœia_—The _Dublin Pharmacopœia_—The _British
Pharmacopœia_—The Chelsea Physic Garden—Its origin—Thomas
Dover—The “quicksilver doctor”—His exploits _pages_ 102-117
CHAPTER XIV.
AMULETS, TALISMANS AND CHARMS.
Their antiquity—Definition—Object of their use—Egyptian
amulets—Grecian amulets—Roman amulets—Chinese
amulets—Knightly talismans—Precious stones as
talismans—Metallic amulets—Written amulets—Amulet
rings—Curious articles used as amulets—Charms—The “Lee
Penny”—The “Holy Hand”—Medical Charms—Early British
charm—Toadstones—Medicinal virtues of the toad—Roman charm for
prolonging life _pages_ 118-137
CHAPTER XV.
MONK PHYSICIANS—ITINERANT DOCTORS—SURGERY IN THE MIDDLE AGES.
Monk physicians and their methods of treatment—Early
hospitals—Their originators—The first school of nurses—Medical
faculties of the thirteenth century—Examinations for title of
master physician and surgeon—Barber surgeons—Itinerant barbers
in France—Credulity of the public—Medical art in the fifteenth
century—Surgery in the time of the Crusades—Early tests for
water—Methods of disinfection _pages_ 138-146
CHAPTER XVI.
PLANT LORE—DRUG CHARMS—FOLK MEDICINE.
The mystery of dragon’s blood—Charms and superstitious
practises connected with dragon’s blood—Use of dragon’s
blood by the ancients—Modern practitioners of magic—Magic
properties attributed to the walnut—Sage—Rue—Henbane—Moon
Wort—Solomon’s Seal—Anemone—Trefoil—St. John’s
Wort—Dill—Thistle—House-leek—Pimpernell—Vervain—Magic
wreathes—Hawkweed—Mountain Ash—Squill—Mandrake—Method of
gathering the mandrake—Abrunes—The willow as a symbol of
sorrow—Almonds—The bachelor’s button—The bean and nut—White
hawthorn—Ferns and fern seeds—Leaves of peculiar shape—Black
hellebore—Ceremonial rites observed when collecting the
root—Peony—Forget-me-not—Elder _pages_ 147-165
CHAPTER XVII.
MUMMIES AND THEIR USE IN MEDICINE—THE UNICORN.
The art of embalming and its antiquity—Various processes
employed—The cost of embalming—The practitioners of the
art—The drugs and substances employed—Process used for the
poorer people—The veneration of mummies by the Egyptians—Trade
in mummies for use in medicine—Fictitious mummies—How to tell
genuine mummy—The dose and medicinal properties—The price
in 1685—Varieties of mummies used in medicine—Process for
preparing artificial mummy—Methods of administration—Human
fat and its medicinal properties—Human skulls and their
value—Human bones and other animal substances as remedial
agents—The Unicorn—Its appearance described—Properties
attributed to the horn—Where the horn was obtained—The value of
the horn—A horn presented to King Charles I.—Virtues attributed
to it _pages_ 166-174
CHAPTER XVIII.
ORIGIN OF THE SOCIETY OF APOTHECARIES—APOTHECARIES AND THEIR
PRACTICE—APOTHECARIES AND THEIR BILLS—CURIOUS REMEDIES—A DRUG
PRICE LIST OF 1685.
Earliest record of an apothecary in England—Powers granted
to the College of Physicians—Foundation of the Society of
Apothecaries—Nicholas Culpepper—History of the Society—Charter
granted—The first hall and council house—Examinations
found necessary—The apothecaries and the druggists—The
glass tax—Rules for the guidance of apothecaries—The sale
of drugs and poisons restricted in Glasgow—A cavalier’s
experience of apothecaries and their treatment—His doctor’s
bill and his opinion on it—Apothecaries’ bills—Favourite
methods of administration—Animal _materia medica_—Broth
of viper—Curious remedies employed—Drugs used by the
physician to King Edward I.—Physicking an ambassador—An
apothecary’s advertisement—Physicians’ fees—Midwife’s
fee in the seventeenth century—Ancient pharmaceutical
preparations and their origin—Mediæval method of improving
the complexion—Human blood as a remedial agent—Celtic
recipes—A remedy for drunkenness—Oil of red dog and its
preparation—Strange recipes—The “everlasting pill”—Cleopatra
and the asp—Ancient method of changing the colour of the
hair—The aloe of Scripture—Pharmacy 200 years ago—The cupidity
of the apothecaries—Denouncing the apothecaries—Herb-women of
London—The price of bottles in 1656—Popular preparations—A
drug price-list of 1685 _pages_ 175-211
CHAPTER XIX.
PHARMACY IN THE TIME OF QUEEN ELIZABETH.
An apothecary’s shop in the time of Queen Elizabeth—Description
of the interior—The customers—Apothecaries’
prescriptions—Apothecaries’ guilds and their injunctions as to
prayer—The itinerant dentist—Medicaments used in the time of
Queen Elizabeth _pages_ 212-220
CHAPTER XX.
FAMOUS EMPIRICS AND THEIR NOSTRUMS.
Early methods of introducing a nostrum—The origin of
quack medicines—The Elixir of Life—The Collyrium
of Danares—Sympathetic Powder—Hoffman’s Water of
Magnanimity—Dutch Drops—_Eau Médicinale de Husson_—Dr. James’
fever powder—Count St. Germain’s tea—Cagliostro’s Balm of
Life—How the Count was confounded—Count Thün of Leipzig—Dr.
Brodum and his “Nervous Cordial”—Dr. Solomon and his “Balm of
Gilead”—How “the doctor” was punished—Perkin’s Tractors—An old
ballad _pages_ 221-228
CHAPTER XXI.
THE ANTIQUITY AND HISTORY OF THE MORTAR.
The origin of the mortar—Derivation of the name—Primitive
mortars—Grain crushers—Egyptian mortars—Antiquity
of the mortar in Africa—A Cingalese mortar—Roman
mortaria—Manufactories of mortaria in Britain—Stone
mortars—Wooden querns—Origin of the pestle and mortar
as a trade sign—Iron mortars—Bell-metal mortars—Brass
mortars—Copper mortars—Marble mortars—Modern mortars
_pages_ 229-237
PART II.
ALCHEMY AND PHARMACY IN LITERATURE.
CHAPTER I.
PAGES
Chaucer 239-252
CHAPTER II.
Shakespeare 253-277
CHAPTER III.
Spenser 278-282
CHAPTER IV.
Goethe 283-291
CHAPTER V.
Le Sage 292-299
CHAPTER VI.
Ben. Jonson 300-302
CHAPTER VII.
Sir Walter Scott 303-305
CHAPTER VIII.
Dumas 306-311
CHAPTER IX.
Reade 312-321
CHAPTER X.
Dickens, Thackeray 322-328
CHAPTER XI.
Marryat 329-335
ALCHEMY AND PHARMACY:
THEIR MYSTERY AND ROMANCE.
PART I.
CHAPTER I.
THE DAWN OF THE ART OF HEALING.
The birth of the art of healing goes back to a period of great
antiquity. The instinct that first led man to utilise the fruits of the
earth for his bodily sustenance, may perchance have suggested the herbs
which grew around him as a means of alleviating the ills of his flesh.
It is a matter of doubt whether medicine as an art was first practised
in Egypt or China; from recent research probably the former, as at the
time of the writing of the _Ebers Papyrus_, B.C. 1550, the Egyptians
had a considerable knowledge of the use of herbs and other bodies for
medicinal purposes.
The art of medicine had two foundations—empiricism and
superstition—which have influenced it from its birth down to the
present time.
The most ancient record of medicine and pharmacy known was discovered
at Kahun in 1889, near the pyramid of Illahun in the ruins of an
ancient town, which had apparently been inhabited by the builders of
the pyramid. It dates from the twelfth dynasty, B.C. 2700 to 2500, more
than a thousand years before the Exodus.
Besides containing instructions for midwives, it includes numerous
formulæ for the treatment of various complaints, composed of such very
homely articles as beer, cow’s milk, honey, oil, onions, herbs, dates,
and other fruits.
The _Ebers Papyrus_, which was found reposing between the legs of a
mummy, throws a light on ancient Egyptian pharmacy, and was written in
the reign of King Amenhotep I., of the eighteenth dynasty. It commences
as follows: “Beginning of the chapter of applying medicaments to every
part of the patient.
“I have come forth from Heliopolis with the mighty ones of the Temple
of the Sun, the wielders of protection, the princes of eternity.
“Rescuing (?) I have come forth from Sais with the Mothers of the Gods,
who have given me their protection.
“I have magic formulæ made by the Universal Lord to drive out the
stroke of god and goddess, the Male Death and Female Death, _et
cetera_,[1] that is in this my head, in this my neck, in this
my shoulder, in this my flesh, in these my limbs, to punish the
above-named enchanters (?) who introduce disturbance into this my
flesh.”
[1] Etc. is probably a direction _ad lib._ for the doctor
speaking the formulæ.
Such formulæ, evidently for recitation during the treatment, continue
for a page and a half. The book has thus no general title, but plunges
at once into the mysteries of the profession.
“Beginning of the mystery of the physician who knows the motion of
the heart. There are vessels in it to every limb. When any physician,
doctor, or amulet-maker puts his fingers upon the top of the head, upon
the occiput, upon the hands, upon the chest, upon the arms, upon the
legs, he communicates (?) with the heart, for its vessels extend to
every limb, wherefore it is called the starting-point of every limb.”
The following may be taken as an example of the recipes given in the
manuscript:—
“A remedy for the belly that is painful: Cummin 1∕64 hin, goose-grease
1∕8 hin, milk 1∕16 hekt; cool, strain, and drink”. The hin is about 29
cubic inches, and the 1∕16 hekt 18 cubic inches; the prescription is
thus roundly 1∕2 cubic inch of cummin, and 4 of goose fat, in half a
pint of milk.
This papyrus contains 110 pages, each page consisting of about
twenty-two lines of bold Hieratic writing. It may be described as an
encyclopædia of medicine as known and practised by the Egyptians of
the eighteenth dynasty, and it contains prescriptions of all kinds of
diseases—some borrowed from Syrian medical lore, and some of such
great antiquity that they are ascribed to the mythological ages,
when the gods yet reigned personally on earth. Among others is given
the recipe for an application whereby Osiris cured Ra of a headache.
In this papyrus is an example of an old Egyptian diagnosis and
therapeutics, as follows: “When thou findest any one with a hardness
in his re-hit (pit of the stomach), and when, after eating, he feels
a pressure on his intestines, his hit is swollen and he feels bad in
walking like one who suffers from heat in his back, then observe him
when he lies stretched out, and if thou findest his intestines hot and
a hardness in his re-hit, say unto thyself, This is a disease of the
liver. Then prepare for thyself according to the secrets of the science
from the plant pa-che-test and dates, mix them, and give in water.”
It also contains numerous recipes for the treatment of diseases, for
internal and external use. Most of the drugs mentioned are derived from
indigenous plants, and such chemical bodies as alum, salt, nitre, and
sulphate of copper are included in some of the prescriptions.
It seems probable that most of the medicines used in these early
times were first tried as foods; and those which when taken in large
quantities or in special conditions influenced the functions of the
body, these and others found to be too strong for dietetic use were
relegated to the books of medicine.
As an instance of this, the leaves and seeds of the castor oil plant
and the astringent sycamore fig are included in many recipes, but
Maspero states that there is little doubt that castor oil was taken
regularly in food in the time of the Pharaohs, and at the present time
it is a favourite adjunct to the salads of the Egyptian fellaheen.
The same writer thinks the Egyptians began by eating every kind of
food which the country produced, and so became acquainted with their
therapeutic properties.
In another papyrus said to have been written about the time of King
Chata of the first dynasty, who reigned B.C. 4000, the following
prescription for promoting the growth of the hair is given:—
Pad of a dog’s foot 1
Fruit of date palm 1
Ass’s hoof 1
Boil together in oil.
Dr. v. Oefele states of pharmacy before the time of Hippocrates, that
although the practice of medicine was not separated from pharmacy among
the Greeks and Romans, there was such a separation among the ancient
Egyptians, from whom the distinction was handed down to the Copts,
and by them to the Arabians; and, in fact, that the term pharmacist
is probably of Egyptian origin, being derived from Ph-ar-maki, which
signifies the preparation of medicine from drugs. The Egyptian pharmaki
who were engaged in that occupation belonged to the higher social
ranks of writers or academically-educated persons, comprising also the
priests, physicians, statesmen, and military commanders.
The Jews were indebted to Egypt for their primary ideas of medicine,
but they cast away the ideas of demonology and magic which clouded
what was good in the practice of Egypt. The Talmud recommends onions
for worms, and wine, pepper, and asafœtida for flatulency. The
Talmudists are responsible for calling the earth, air, fire, and water
elementary bodies. In the middle ages the Jews rendered service to the
healing art, and had a large share in the scientific work connected
with the Arab domination of Spain.
In China the use of drugs goes back to a very remote age, and alchemy
was practised by the Chinese long previous to its being known in
Europe. For two centuries prior to the Christian era, and for four or
more subsequent, the transmutation of the base metals into gold, and
the composition of the elixir of immortality, were questions ardently
studied by the Chinese. It is, moreover, a matter of history that
intercourse between China and Persia was frequent both before and
after the Mahomedan conquest of the latter country; that embassies
from Persia as well as from the Arabs, and even from the Greeks in
Constantinople, visited the court of the Chinese emperor in Shansi;
that Arab traders settled in China, and that there was frequent
intercourse by sea between China and the Persian Gulf; and lastly, that
China had an extensive alchemical literature anterior to the period
when alchemy was studied in the West. All these facts go to prove that
the ancient science known as alchemy was originated by the Chinese, and
not by the disciples of Mahomed, who only acquired the knowledge at
second hand.[2]
[2] Hanbury’s _Notes on Chinese Materia Medica_.
It is somewhat curious that while the alchemists of the West were
always in doubt as to what constituted the true Philosopher’s Stone,
the Chinese seemingly had no doubt as to its identity. Cinnabar was
regarded by the early alchemists and philosophers of that nation as
the wonderful body which was supposed to have the mysterious power
of converting other metals into gold, and when used as a medicine
would prolong life for an indefinite period. Ko-hung, author of the
_Pau-p’uh-tsi p’ian_, a work of the fourth century, and undoubtedly
genuine, gives various mineral and vegetable productions possessing in
different degrees the properties of an elixir vitæ. In one paragraph of
this work he states: “When vegetable matter is burnt it is destroyed,
but when the Ian-sha (Cinnabar) is subjected to heat it produces
mercury. After passing through other changes it returns to its original
form. It differs widely, therefore, from vegetable substances, and
hence it has the power of making men live for ever and raising them to
the rank of the genii. He who knows the doctrine, is he not far above
common men, etc.?”
In _materia medica_ the knowledge of the Chinese was much in
advance of the nations of the West, and their great herbal, entitled
_Pun-Isaun-Kang-Mûh_, written by Le-she-chin in the middle of the
sixteenth century, shows the discernment possessed by these curious
people. This work consists of forty thin octavo volumes, the first
three of which contain woodcuts of many of the minerals, plants, and
animals referred to in the text. The woodcuts alone number 1100, and
the work itself is divided into fifty-two divisions. The antiquity
of the practice of medicine among the Chinese may be gathered from
the fact that there exists a work entitled _A Treatise from the Heart
on the Small-pox_, which was written during the dynasty of Icheon,
B.C. 1122. In this work the eruption is described, and some kind of
inoculation is also referred to as a remedy.
But it is to Greece that we have to look for the birth of medical art
in the West, its practice by the priests being of great antiquity.
The earliest record of a temple of medicine is of one erected in the
Peloponnesus in the year B.C. 1130, or about fifty years after the fall
of Troy. Other temples or centres of the healing art gradually sprang
up, and round each of those clustered a little school of students.
There were the temple of Health at Pergamus, the temple of Hygeia at
Cytea, and the temples of Æsculapius at Cos and Epidamus, where the
famous statue of Æsculapius stood. The father of ancient medicine,
Hippocrates, graduated as a student of Cos, and Galen is said to have
been at Epidamus.
It was in the temple of Æsculapius at Greece that any record of
medicine was first kept, the names of diseases and their cures being
registered on tablets of marble. The priests and priestesses, who were
the guardians of the temple, prepared the remedies and directed their
application, and thus commenced the practice of physic as a regular
profession.
These official persons were ambitious to pass as the legitimate
descendants of Æsculapius, and therefore assumed the title of
the Asclepiades. The writings of Pausanius, Plutarch, and others
abound with accounts of the artifices of these early practitioners.
Aristophanes mentions the dexterity and promptitude with which they
collected and put into their bags the offerings on the altar.
The patients were wont to repose on the skins of sacrificed rams in
order to procure celestial visions. As soon as they were supposed to
be asleep, a priest, clothed in the dress of Æsculapius, imitating his
manner, and accompanied by the daughters of the god (that is, by young
actresses well up in their parts), entered and solemnly delivered a
medical opinion. The student sat at the feet of the philosopher of his
choice, and after a certain period and course of probation, was granted
the rights of priest and physician to practise as a teacher and healer.
They had their code and ethics of a standard almost equal to those of
to-day, and their knowledge of surgery, and the use of the herbs and
plants which grew around them, was not a little.
Entering on their novitiate at their chosen temple or school, they were
required to make a protestation or oath, of which the following is the
one made by Hippocrates:—
“I, Hippocrates, do now promise and protest to the great god Apollo
and his two daughters Hygeia and Panadie, and also to all the gods and
goddesses, to observe the contents of this oath or tables wherein the
oath is carved, written, or engraved, so far as I can possibly, and so
far as my wit or understanding shall be able to direct me, _viz._, I
yield myself tributary and debtor to the master and doctor, who hath
instructed me and showed me this science and doctrine, even as much
or rather more than to my father who hath begotten me, and that I
shall live and communicate with him, and follow him in all necessities
which I shall know him to have, so far as my power shall permit and
my goods extend. Also that I shall love and cherish his children as
my brother’s, and his progeny as my own. Further, that I shall teach,
show and demonstrate the said science without reward or covenant, and
that I shall give all the canons, rules and precepts freely, truly and
faithfully to my master, his children as to my own, without hiding or
unacting anything, and to all other scholars who shall make the same
oath or protestation, and to no others. Also that in practising and
using my science towards the sick, I shall use only things necessary,
so far as I am able, and as my spirit and good understanding shall
give unto me, and that I shall cure the sick as speedily as I may
without dilating or prolonging the malady, and that I shall not do
anything against equity for hatred, anger, envy or malice to any
person whatsoever. Moreover, that I shall minister no poison, neither
counsel nor teach poison, nor the composing thereof to any. Also that
I shall not give nor cause to be given, nor contend that anything be
applied to a woman breeding, to destroy and make her void her fruit.
But I shall protest to keep my life and science purely, sincerely and
inviolably, without deceit, fraud or guile. And that I shall not cut
or incise any person having the stone, but shall leave the same to
those who are expert in it. And, furthermore, that I shall not enter
into the patient’s house lest with purpose to heal him, and that I
shall patiently sustain the injuries, reproaches, and loathsomeness of
sick men and other base railings, and that I shall eschew, as far as
I may, all venereous lasciviousness. Moreover, I protest, be it man,
woman, or servant who is my patient, to cure them of all things, that
I may see or hear either in mind or manner, and I shall not betray
that which should be concealed or hidden, but keep inviolable with
silence; neither reveal any creature under pain of death. And therefore
I beseech our gods that observing this protestation, promise, and vow
entirely and inviolably, all things in my life, in my art, and science,
may succeed securely, healthfully, and prosperously to me, and in the
end eternal glory.
“And to him that shall violate, transgress, or become perjured, that
the contrary may happen unto him, _viz._, misery, calamities, and
continual maladies.”
We have here principles laid down which would do honour to any medical
body, and which show the highly civilised condition and the excellent
moral teaching of the early Greek philosophers and priests.
CHAPTER II.
THE WIZARDS OF EARLY GREECE.
One of the earliest magicians or soothsayers of which we have record
out of the era of mythology was Tiresias. He lived in the times of
Œdipus and the war of the seven chiefs against Thebes. For having
offended the gods he was visited with blindness, but being repentant,
tradition states they recompensed him for this affliction by endowing
him with the gift of prophecy and the act of divination. He is also
said to have been able to hold communion with the feathered world, and
to have power over the spirits of the dead, whom he could compel to
appear and reply to his inquiries. His incantations and spells were
supposed to be irresistible, and he could foretell future events by
signs from fire, smoke, and other methods of divining.
Abaris, a native of Scythia, was another magician of renown. There is
no exact record of the time in which he lived, but he is represented
by some as having constructed the Palladium which protected Troy from
its enemies for a long time. Other authors declare he was a friend of
Pythagoras, who flourished some 600 years later.
According to Herodotus, he travelled over the world with an arrow,
eating nothing during his journey. By others it is said the arrow was
presented to him by Apollo, and that upon it he rode through the air,
and travelled over lands, seas, mountains, and other inaccessible
places. But from all accounts his repute as a magician and seer is
confirmed. He is said to have foretold earthquakes, allayed storms and
pestilence, cured disease by charms and incantations, and was generally
revered for his power and command over the dwellers in the unseen world.
Pythagoras, one of the most notable magicians in early history, was
born about the year B.C. 586, and lived during the time of Cyrus and
Darius Hystaspes, of Crœsus, of Pisistratus, of Polycrates, and
Amasis King of Egypt. He was renowned not only as a philosopher but as
a leader and politician, and was learned in all branches of science
then known. The early part of his life was spent in Egypt, but he also
travelled in order to gather experience and knowledge until he reached
the age of forty years.
Afterwards he founded a school, where he lectured and instructed
a large number of followers who were attracted by his wisdom and
learning. He divided his pupils into two classes: the neophytes, to
whom were explained the elementary and general principles of his
philosophy, while the advanced were admitted into his entire confidence
and formed a brotherhood, who threw their property into a common stock
and lived together.
During the latter part of his life he is said to have lived in Magna
Græcia, where he carried on his studies and made some of his great
discoveries. He was a profound geometrician, and two great theorems,
one still known as the Pythagorean, are ascribed to him. He propounded
the doctrine that the earth is a planet of spherical form, and the sun
the centre of the planetary system.
His philosophy prescribed and taught a total abstinence from everything
which had animal life, and temperance in all things, together with the
subjection of the appetites of the body. By this strict discipline,
he seems to have obtained almost complete control over the wills and
minds of his followers, from whom he demanded the utmost docility.
Preparatory to entering on his novitiate, the pupil was strictly
examined by the master as to his principles, habits, and intentions.
The tone of his voice, his manner of speaking, his walk, gestures,
and the lines of his face and the expression of his eyes, were all
carefully observed, and only if all these features were satisfactory
was he admitted as a probationer. After this interview the master
withdrew from the sight of the pupil, who could then enter on his
novitiate of three and five, in all eight years, during which time he
was not permitted to look on the master, but only hear him speak from
behind a curtain, and he was enjoined to preserve the strictest silence.
To add to his mystery and authority, Pythagoras is said to have hid
himself during the day from his pupils, and was only visible to them
after the night had come on. He is described as having a most imposing
and majestic appearance, with a grave and awe-inspiring countenance.
When he came forth he appeared in a long garment of the purest white,
with his long beard flowing, and a garland upon his head.
He allowed his followers to believe he was one of the gods, and he is
said to have told Abaris that he resumed human form so that he might
win the confidence of man.
Doubtless, owing to his great attainments and his superiority to
the men of his time, he considered himself more divine than human,
and he claimed to have miraculous endowments. Those who were not of
his followers ascribed the stories related of him to magic, which
probably, like other philosophers, he studied.
Among other stories which tradition has handed down concerning
Pythagoras are the following: He professed to have appeared in
different ages in various human forms—first as Æthalides, the son of
Mercury, and then as Euphorbu, who slew Patroclus at the siege of Troy,
and as other individuals also.
He is said to have tamed a bear by whispering in its ear, and prevailed
on it to feed on vegetables alone. He called also an eagle down from
its flight, causing it to sit on his hand as if quite tame. When Abaris
addressed him as one of the heavenly host, he convinced him that he was
indeed a celestial being by showing him his thigh of gold, which also
he exhibited to sceptical pupils. At another period he absented himself
from his associates in Italy for a year: when he re-appeared he stated
he had been sojourning in the infernal regions, and gave them wonderful
descriptions of the strange things he had seen there.
These and many other fabulous stories are related of this singular man,
which prove him to have been as wily as he was wise.
One curious rule by which he bound his pupils is worth mentioning.
At the end of their novitiate, if it was discovered that their
intellectual faculties were too weak to grapple with the intricacies
of his theories and problems, they were expelled the community; the
double of the property they had contributed to the common stock was
refunded to them; a monument inscribed with their names was placed in
the meeting-place of the community, and they were considered as dead by
the brotherhood.
It is easy to imagine with what feelings these measures would be
regarded by some who were called to submit to them, and so they
eventually proved the cause of the break-up of the Pythagorean school.
Cylon, a man of great wealth of Crotona, conceived a great partiality
for Pythagoras, and became a novice with Perialus, and submitted to
all the severities of the school. They passed through the three years
of probation and five years of silence, and were received into the
familiarity of the master. But after they had delivered their wealth
into the common stock, Pythagoras pronounced them to be deficient in
intellectual power, or for some other reason most probably they were
expelled. A tablet inscribed with their names was set up, and they were
pronounced dead to the school.
Cylon, who was a man of excitable and violent temperament, became
highly incensed at this treatment, and resolved on vengeance.
Collecting a band of followers, which probably included a large number
of rejected students, they surrounded the school of the master and set
it on fire. Forty people are said to have perished in the flames, but
Pythagoras with two of his pupils escaped to Metapontum, where he took
refuge in the Temple of the Muses. The strife fomented by Cylon broke
out afresh, and he was closely besieged in the temple by his enemies.
The rioting continued, and as no provisions could be conveyed to him,
he finally perished with hunger, according to Laertius, after forty
days’ abstinence.
Thus ended Pythagoras, a man of undoubted genius, and in knowledge
much in advance of his time. Although his teachings were mixed up with
considerable artifice and deception, he ranks, as one of the greatest
of the Greek philosophers.
Epimenides was a native of Crete, and probably lived before the time of
Pythagoras. He was credited with marvellous performances from a very
early age, and is said when quite a lad to have retired to a cave and
slept for fifty-seven years. He then returned to his father’s house,
which he found in the possession of a new tenant, and the family
disappeared. At length he came across his brother, who had grown into
an old man, who after some time acknowledged him.
On this story becoming known, he was accounted a favourite of the gods,
and he professed to be endowed with supernatural gifts.
He made it known that he was supplied with food by the nymphs, and that
he was exempt from the usual necessities imposed on the body by Nature.
He boasted that he could separate his soul from his body and recall it
as he thought fit. He professed to have dealings with the unseen world,
and would exorcise evil spirits or work spells. He had great renown as
a seer, and his prophecies were regarded as direct messages from the
gods. But the great act of his life was his delivery of Athens from
a great pestilence after the rebellion of Cylon. The plague, which
had almost decimated the city, could not be stopped, and the Athenian
Senate, after much deliberation, resolved to send for Epimenides,
who was at that time in Crete. A special vessel was placed under the
command of one of the first citizens of the State, who was commissioned
to bring the wise magician.
On his arrival at Athens he at once set to work with solemn rites
and ceremonials. He commanded that a number of black and white sheep
should be led to the Areopagus, then be let loose and allowed to wander
whither they wished. Certain persons were instructed to follow them
and mark the spot where they lay down, on which place the animal was
sacrificed to the local deity. In this manner, it is recorded, the
plague was stayed. According to some writers he also sacrificed human
victims. Although pressed by the Athenian Senate to take a recompense
for his services, Epimenides is said to have refused all gifts,
stipulating only that there should be perpetual peace between the
Athenians and the people of Gnossus, his native city. He died shortly
afterwards, at the reputed age of 157 years.
Empedocles was a distinguished magician, orator, and poet, and was
born in Agrigentum, Sicily. He was a follower of Pythagoras, and
probably received instruction from his successors. He was credited
with miraculous powers, and to have been able to restore the dead to
life. He was skilled in medicine and the use of herbs, and was indeed
a general benefactor to the citizens of his native place, where he was
almost worshipped as a god. Like other philosophers of his time, he was
inordinately vain, but was undoubtedly a man of great intelligence,
and conferred immense benefits on his fellow-creatures. His belief
in the power of magic is shown in the following words he was wont to
address to his students: “By my instructions you shall learn medicines
that are powerful to cure disease and reanimate old age; you shall be
able to calm the savage winds which lay waste the labours of all the
husbandmen, and, when you will, shall send forth the tempest again; you
shall cause the skies to be fair and serene; or, once more, shall draw
down refreshing showers, reanimating the fruits of the earth; nay, you
shall recall the strength of the dead man when he has already become
the victim of Pluto”.
Of himself he said: “I mix with you a god, no longer a mortal, and
am everywhere honoured by you, as is just; crowned with fillets and
fragrant garlands, adorned with which, when I visit populous cities,
I am revered by both men and women, who follow me by ten thousands,
inquiring the road to boundless wealth, seeking the gift of prophecy
and who would learn the marvellous skill to cure all kinds of diseases”.
Of other wizards of early Greece, Herodotus mentions Aristras, a poet
of Proconnesus, who is said to have mysteriously disappeared from
the earth for 340 years, and then appeared again at Metapontum and
commanded the citizens to erect a statue to him. Also Hermotimus, who
was reputed to have the power of separating his soul from his body
at will. But little is known beyond the merest tradition of these
worthies.
CHAPTER III.
THE WIZARDS OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.
The Roman philosophers, like the Greeks, claimed to possess occult
powers, and the practitioners of magic and sorcery were numerous
during the time of the Empire. We have a graphic description of the
incantations of a Roman sorceress in the story of Dido. Deserted by
Æneas, she resolves on self-destruction. To delude her sister as to
her secret purpose she sends for a priestess from the gardens of the
Hesperides, pretending that her object is to effect the return of her
lover by means of certain magical incantations. The priestess, who is
invested with magical powers, can call up the spirits of the dead,
cause the solid earth to rock and quake, and the trees of the forest
to descend from the mountains. On the arrival of the sorceress, she
commands that a funeral pyre shall be erected in the interior court of
the palace, and that the arms of Æneas, what remains of his attire, and
the marriage bed in which Dido had received him, shall be placed upon
it. The pyre is to be hung round with garlands and branches of cypress,
and the whole crowned with a picture of Æneas and his sword.
Altars were placed around, and the priestess, with dishevelled hair,
cried aloud with terrible charms upon her three hundred gods, upon
Erebus, Chaos, and the three-faced Hecate. The waters of Avernus were
then sprinkled about, and certain magical herbs that had been cut
by moonlight with a sickle of brass. The priestess had with her the
excrescence which is found upon the forehead of a new-cast foal, of the
size of a dried fig, a talisman of great power.
Dido is then called upon to approach, and, with her robe drawn up
exposing one bare foot, she makes the circle of the altars, embracing
them successively, and breaks over each a consecrated cake. The pyre is
lit, and the charm is supposed to be complete.
But all the power and the elaborate ritual prescribed by the sorceress
were of no avail. Æneas returns not, and the broken-hearted Dido
finally stabs herself and dies.
Many prodigies are interspersed throughout the early history of Rome,
and most of the acts of these people were surrounded with a halo of
superstition natural at the time, and doubtless largely exaggerated.
Virgil, Horace, Ovid, and Lucan all allude to the belief in and the
practice of sorcery and magic by the Romans.
In the eighth eclogue of Virgil we have a detailed description of a
Roman sorceress. She is introduced by the poet as giving directions to
her assistant as to the working of certain charms. Her object (a common
one apparently at that time) is to recall Daphnis, whom she calls her
husband, to return once more to her arms. The assistant is directed to
burn vervain and frankincense, and the highest efficacy is ascribed
to a solemn chant, which is capable of calling down the moon from its
sphere or making the cold-blooded snake burst in the field, and was the
means by which Circe turned the companions of Ulysses into beasts. The
image of Daphnis is then ordered to be thrice bound round with fillets
of three colours, the assistant at the same time repeating the words,
“Thus I bind the fillets of Venus,” and then paraded about a prepared
altar.
An image of clay and one of wax are placed before the same fire; and as
the image of clay hardens, so does the heart of Daphnis harden towards
his new mistress; and as the figure of wax softens, so is the heart
of the ex-lover made tender towards the sorceress. A sacred cake is
then broken over the image, and crackling laurels burnt before it.
She prays that as the wanton heifer pursues the steer through woods
and glens till at length, worn out with fatigue, she lies down on the
oozy reeds by the banks of the stream, and the night dew will not
even drive her away, so Daphnis may be led on after her for ever with
inextinguishable love. The relics of his belongings are then buried
beneath the threshold. She bruises poisonous herbs of resistless
virtue, which had been gathered in the kingdom of Pontus, herbs which
enabled him who gave them to turn himself into a hungry wolf prowling
amidst the forests, to call up ghosts from the grave, and to translate
the ripened harvest from the field where it grew to the lands of
another. The ashes of these herbs are cast over her head into the
running stream, while she must not look behind her.
At length the sorceress begins to despair and cries, “Daphnis heeds not
my incantations, heeds not the gods”. She looks again, and perceives
the ashes on the altar are glowing and emitting sparks of fire. Her
faithful house dog barks before the door. “Can these things be,” she
exclaims, “or do lovers dream what they desire? It is not so! The real
Daphnis comes; I hear his steps; he has left the deluding town; he
hastens to my longing arms!”
In the works of Horace an interesting description of a witches’
incantation is also given, the details of which it is instructive to
compare with those given by other writers.
Four sorceresses are assembled in conclave, the chief being Canidia,
with three assistants, in order to work a charm by means of which a
youth named Varus, for whom Canidia had conceived a passion, may be
compelled to reciprocate her affections.
Canidia, with the locks of her dishevelled hair twined round with
venomous and deadly serpents, orders the wild fig tree and the funeral
cypress to be rooted up from the sepulchres on which they grew, and
these, together with the egg of a toad smeared with blood, the plumage
of the screech owl, various herbs brought from Thessaly and Georgia,
and bones torn from the jaws of a famished dog, to be burnt in flames
fed with perfumes from Colchis. One assistant, whose hair stands stiff
and erect like the quills of the sea-hedgehog or the bristles of a
hunted boar, sprinkles the ground with drops from the Avernus, while
another, who is reputed to have had the faculty of conjuring the stars
and moon down from heaven, assists in other ways.
The fourth witch is busy digging a hole with a spade, in which is to
be plunged up to his chin the beardless youth stripped of his purple
robe—the emblem of his noble descent—and naked, that from his marrow,
already dry, and his liver (when at length his eyeballs, long fixed on
the still renovated food which is withheld from his famished jaws, have
no longer the power to discern), may be concreted the love potion from
which the witches promise themselves the most wonderful results.
Canidia, unmoved by his sufferings, works herself into a great
rage, and calls upon the night and the morn to help in her infamous
incantation. But her victim manages to evade destruction by means
of some magical antidote. She then resolves to prepare a still more
powerful charm, exclaiming, “Sooner shall the sky be swallowed up in
the sea and the earth be stretched a covering over both, than thou,
my enemy, shalt not be wrapped in the flames of love as subtle and
tenacious as those of burning pitch”.
CHAPTER IV.
THE FATHERS OF MEDICINE.
Though Æsculapius is said to have lived so near to the time of the
Trojan war, yet the Greeks knew very little about him. The superstition
of the time gave him a position among the gods, and as he was adored
under the character of the genius of physic, it came at last to be
doubted whether he was ever a mortal; consequently his priests were
obliged for their own sakes to make themselves masters of all the
physic that the master could teach, that they might be qualified to
give advice to those who applied to them; their prescriptions passed
for the suggestions of the gods, the cures for the miraculous. But both
diseases and remedies were carefully recorded. Strabo tells us that
from these registers in the temple of Æsculapius at Cos, Hippocrates
formed his plan for a proper diet.
Hippocrates, the wise physician and father of medicine, was according
to Soranus the son of Heraclides and Phænaretes, descended from
Hercules and Æsculapius. He was a Coan by birth, and was first
instructed by his father, and then by Herodicus, and Democritus of
Abdua, the philosopher. He flourished at the time of the Peloponnesian
war, and after being instructed in physic and the arts, left his own
country for Thessaly, where his fame soon became known, even as far
as Persia. He was sent for by Perdiccás, King of Macedonia, who was
then thought to be consumptive, but Hippocrates diagnosed it to be a
disease of the mind, and soon cured the king. He is also said to have
delivered his own country from a war with the Athenians by prevailing
upon the Thessalians to come to their assistance, for which he received
great honours from the Coans. He taught his art with great candour and
liberality to those who were desirous to learn, and at length died full
of honours, it is said, in his ninetieth year, and was buried between
Gyrton and Larissa. A quaint old tradition states that at his tomb a
swarm of bees settled and made their honey for a long time, with which
children troubled with aphthas, anointed by their nurses at the grave,
were easily cured.
He was by no means covetous of money, but grave in his behaviour and a
lover of Greece, as appears from his curing those of that nation with
the utmost diligence, and freeing many of their cities from the plague,
for which he acquired great honours.
At first the art of healing was accounted a branch of philosophy, so
that the cure of diseases and the study of nature owed their rise
to the same persons. Among the many philosophers skilled in the art
the most celebrated were Pythagoras, Empedocles, Democritus, and
Hippocrates of Cos. After them came Diodes the Carystian, Praxagoras,
and Chrysippus, with Hierphilus and Erasistratus, many of whom
practised their art in entirely different ways. At this period physic
was divided into three schools; the first cured by diet, the second
by medicines, the third by manual operations. Those who treated by
dietetic methods endeavoured to extend their views farther with the
assistance of natural philosophy. Then came Serapion, the apostle of
practice and experience, and afterwards Asclepiades, who worked a
revolution in medical science as then practised.
The knowledge of both surgery and medicine even in the time of Celsus
is very remarkable, and many of the forms of administration of medicine
are employed at the present day. The enema was largely used by the
ancients, a common one being hydromel, described by Dioscorides as
being made by mixing two parts of water to one of honey; sea-water was
also employed for the same purpose, and Celsus recommends the copious
drinking of hot water as a laxative remedy.
Asclepiades was the originator of massage and friction, and in his
book of general remedies describes his treatment, which is similar to
that performed to-day. Poultices of meal of various descriptions were
commonly employed, linseed or fenugreek being the favourite media.
Asclepiades studied in Alexandria, and after practising in Greece
and Asia Minor, finally settled in Rome in the early part of the
first century B.C. Here he soon met with success, and established
a reputation for great skill. He was the physician and friend of
Cicero, and probably also the instructor of Lucretius in the Epicurean
philosophy, of which he was an enthusiastic advocate.
He believed the body to be composed of atoms or particles, with spaces
between, through which, like a sieve, various atoms of other shapes
were continually passing in and out of the body.
In practice he believed in curing his patients with as little
discomfort as possible, which doubtless helped to make him popular. He
was averse to the employment of violent remedies and the excessive use
of emetics and purgatives so much favoured by his fellow-practitioners.
He advocated the use of music as a soothing agent, and was strongly in
favour of bathing frequently and of massage.
He strongly believed in wine as a remedial agent, which it has been
said may have accounted for his popularity with the Roman ladies, with
whom as a physician he was in great demand. He lived to a very advanced
age, and died it is stated from the effects of a fall.
Galen, born at Pergamus in the year A.D. 131, studied in the school
of Alexandria, which then had a considerable reputation, and there he
formulated his system of treatment founded on his knowledge of anatomy
and on observation. His fame having spread abroad, he travelled to
Rome and became physician to the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. According to
Galen, the health of the body depended on an equal and uniform mixture
of solids and liquids, and its sickness arose from their inequality;
consequently, the physician should foresee illness. He was a profound
student of anatomy in his early career, and afterwards turned his
attention to physiology. His views as to inflammation, intermittent
fevers, and his system of antipathies and sympathies, place him very
much above his predecessors.
“In the beginning of the fifth century,” says Lacroix, “the practice of
medicine, like that of surgery, which was not yet a distinct branch,
continued to be free without any authorisation being required. There
were even women who, like the Druidesses of the Gauls, treated the
sick.” Charmers, unconscious, no doubt, of the occult forces which they
set to work, attempted to cure neuralgic pains, country bone-setters to
mend fractured limbs, while oculists and impostors of the worst kind
travelled the country.
It was not until the close of the eighth century that a regular course
of medical instruction was founded, the first of the kind being
organised at Salerno, in the kingdom of Naples.
Alexander of Tralles, a noted physician, flourished in the middle of
the sixth century. No Greek doctor equalled him since the days of
Hippocrates in regard to his knowledge of his art in those primitive
days. He is said to have possessed to a high degree the art of
diagnosis, and he laid down as a principle, that no decision should
be arrived at as to the treatment of a case until the specific causes
of disease had been carefully considered. His depreciation of violent
aperients, his views on melancholia and gout, and his generally
common-sense treatment, stamped him as a man of superior attainments
and ability. He was the first to resort to bleeding from the jugular
vein, and to use iron in certain diseases affecting the blood.
It must not be imagined that the Roman practitioners of medicine were
ill-paid, for it is recorded that Stertimus made some £6500 a year, and
Canie, a surgeon, is said to have received £2000 for one operation,
which contrasts well with fees of modern times. Votive offerings for
health to the Roman deities were frequent, and sometimes consisted of
land, animals, coin, jewellery, and other articles. Other bribes which
have been discovered near ancient shrines are terra-cotta figures of
deities, human beings, animals, and also portions of human anatomy,
such as the liver or stomach. This superstition still exists, and is
practised in many parts of Italy, the peasants making votive offerings
similar to those of two thousand years ago.
The object of offering models of various portions of the body to
special deities, was doubtless to propitiate the god to heal that
special part in which the patient believed his complaint originated.
This custom of making offerings to the gods, called _donaria_ by the
Romans, originated at a very early period. They often took the form
of land, buildings, cattle, tools of trade, jewellery, and cast-off
clothes. Thus the temple of Artemis Brauronia was filled with women’s
clothing. In the temples of the healing gods, instruments of surgery,
pharmaceutical appliances, painted tablets representing miraculous
healings, and great numbers of models of various parts of the human
frame, composed of metal, stone, and terra-cotta, were deposited.
Many of these ancient temples of healing were magnificent buildings
with richly-decorated interiors, while others were simply shrines
or grottos at the source of some hot spring or mineral water, where
hundreds of those afflicted with various ailments flocked to bathe or
drink the water. The priests in charge regulated the use of the waters
and prescribed for the patients. After completing the course it was
customary for the patient to throw an offering into the water, in the
form of a silver cup, a coin, or some terra-cotta model of a limb, and
then drag himself off, muttering a prayer. Others would hang their
gifts on the walls, or deposit them at the feet of the statues of the
gods placed around.
Magnificent offerings, such as goblets of valuable metal with votive
inscriptions, have been occasionally found, and other ornaments of gold
and silver. It is said, however, that _donaria_ of precious metals
were after a time melted down and disposed of by the priests.
Grateful patients or surgeons sometimes offered surgical instruments as
a thanksgiving for a successful surgical operation; thus it is stated
Erostratus offered to Apollo in the Temple of Delphus a forceps of
lead, to show how little he approved of the fingers as a medium for
extracting teeth. Drs. Sambon, Allaire, and others, who have discovered
a large number of _donaria_ of the Etruscan and Roman period, found
among the pottery, invalid feeding-cups and feeding-bottles for
infants. Many of the latter were modelled in the form of the female
breast, and others in the shapes of animals. These articles were often
placed in the tombs of young children who had died in babyhood, instead
of the dishes of various foods which were deposited in the tombs of
adults.
Among other _donaria_ discovered, are models of the limbs and viscera
of the human body in clay, showing upon them the marks of the various
diseases from which the votaries had suffered. Thus the ancient temples
must have presented a curious appearance, festooned on walls and
ceilings with these numerous models, all of which told a tale of human
suffering.
CHAPTER V.
THE EARLY AGE OF GREEK AND ROMAN PHARMACY.
Rome at an early period gave birth to several philosophers and
practitioners in the art of healing. Cornelius Celsus, who is thought
to have been a Roman, was a much esteemed writer of the time, and his
works on medicine show the advanced state of surgery and medicine
during the Roman Empire.
His work on medicine gives a considerable insight into the pharmacy of
the Romans in his day. With reference to their weights, he says: “I
would have it understood that in an ounce is contained the weight of
seven denarii; next, that I divide each denarius into six parts, that
is, sextantes, so that I have the same quantity in the sextans of a
denarius that the Greeks have in their obolus”.
Of the methods of administration employed in early Roman pharmacy,
the malagma was commonly used. It was a kind of soft mass composed of
herbs and grass beaten up to the consistency of a thick paste, and
applied to the skin. Numerous formulæ for malagmas are given, in which
pellitory, myrrh, resin, cardamoms, ammoniacum, galbanum, etc., are
included. Their malagmas corresponded with our ointments. They also
used plasters, of which the basilicon, of galbanum, pitch, resin, and
oil, in an improved form, has survived two thousand years. Troches, for
healing wounds, were composed of dry medicines held in suspension by
some liquid such as wine or oil. Pessaries (vaginal) were originated
by the Greeks, who called them pessi. The ingredients were placed in
a piece of wool, and thus used. Powders and snuffs were also common
methods of administration.
Antidotes for bruises, bites, and poisons were regarded as extremely
important. One was called ambrosia, which Zopyrus is said to have
compounded for the King Ptolemy; another was the celebrated antidote of
King Mithridates.
The Greeks called their embrocations or ointments euchrista. The
catapotia was the method used for internal administration in liquid
form, for which many recipes are given by Celsus. The following will
serve as an example:—
_Athenio’s Catapotia for a Cough._
Myrrh, pepper, each p. ♓ i.
Castor, poppy tears, each p. ♓ i.
which are bruised separately and afterwards mixed.
For venomous bites, the treatment of the ancients, if the wound was
severe, was first cupping, or, if slight, the plaster of Diogenes
was applied, or a salt fish bound over the wound. A curious remedy
practised by the Greeks for hydrophobia was to throw the patient
suddenly into a pond, and “if he could not swim let him sink several
times, and thus drink; if he can swim, keep him down at times until he
may be satiated with water, for thus at once,” writes Celsus, “is both
the thirst and the dread of water removed”.
Their antidote for nearly all poisons was warm oil, given in order to
induce vomiting.
The word collyrium, now applied to a lotion for the eyes, was also used
by the ancients; but they gave it a greater latitude, and also employed
it to describe a composition of powders wrought to a pasty consistence
with a liquid, and formed into something like a tent for insertion into
cavities.
Of the chemical bodies and drugs known both to the Greeks and the
Romans, the number is not a few.
Cinnabar, which seems to have been known from a very remote period, was
the name applied to the red sulphide of mercury, and also to dragon’s
blood. It is doubtless of the latter Pliny says “he believed to be the
gore of a dragon crushed by the weight of a dying elephant, with a
mixture of the blood of these animals”. Copperas, lead, alum, copper,
and iron were used as styptics.
Myrrh, frankincense, cardamoms, linseed, isinglass, and cobwebs were
used as astringents.
Galbanum, storax, bitumen, are recommended for promoting suppuration,
while pennyroyal, sulphur, pellitory, stavesacre, ox-gall, scammony,
rue, and opium were all included in their medical recipes.
Dioscorides was the first to attempt to record in anything like a
methodical manner the many drugs and chemical substances used by the
early Greeks.
Pedacion Dioscorides, born in Anazaba in Cilicia, was a Greek
physician, who lived in or about the second century. He gathered a
great portion of his information on _materia medica_ during his travels
with the Roman army, which he accompanied on several expeditions in the
capacity of physician. Afterwards he wrote his great work _Peri Hules
Iatrikes_ (about _materia medica_), which for fifteen centuries or
more remained one of the chief authorities on that science. It treats
of all the medicines then in use, with their preparations and action
as then known. The work of this early physician first appeared in a
Latin translation in 1478; the first Greek edition being published in
1499. The work was afterwards translated into Spanish, Italian, French,
German, and Arabic.
[Illustration: PEDACION DIOSCORIDES.
From a drawing, 1598.]
In describing the _Papaver sativum_ and its virtues in this work, he
says: “It is not improper to subjoin the method in which the opus or
juice of it is collected. Some, then, cutting the poppy heads with the
leaves, squeeze them through a press, and rubbing them in a mortar,
form them into troches. This is called meconium, and is weaker than the
opus. But whoever desires to gather the juice must proceed thus: After
the heads are moistened with dew, let him cut round the * (asterisk)
with a knife, but not penetrate through them, and from the sides cut
straight lines in the surface, and draw off the tear that flows with
his finger into a shell. And come again, not long after, for it will
be found standing upon it; and the day following it will be found in
the same manner.” Hence the old name poppy tears. Dioscorides was also
learned in the preparation of wool fat, which he calls œsypum, known
to modern pharmacists as lanoline. He says: “Œsypum is the oily part
collected from sordid wool, thus: The wool was washed in warm water
and all its sordes expressed; the fat floated with a froth, and upon
throwing in some sea-water it subsided; and when all the œsypum was
obtained from it in this manner, it was purified by repeated affusions
of water. When pure it had no sharp taste, and was in some degree
astringent and appeared white, and was emollient and filled up ulcers.”
Recent excavations made at Pompeii and Herculaneum have thrown some
further light on various articles of _materia medica_ as it existed in
the days just preceding the destruction of those cities. Aloe seems to
have been held in high esteem by the practitioners of the time, and was
employed, we learn from the historian, in twenty-nine diseases. It was
prescribed in doses from 1 to 111 drachmas (about 68 grains), and mixed
with wine was employed to stimulate the growth of the hair. Aconite, we
find, was used in four diseases; and was supposed to be an antidote to
any poison which might exist in the system. Other remedies mentioned
include gum acacia, colocynth, elaterium, gold, silver, copper, and
elecampane. It is further recorded of the latter drug, that Julia
Augusta, daughter of Augustus Cæsar, used to eat the root daily.
Of the vegetable remedies about 150 are enumerated, and of these the
cabbage seems to have held a prominent place. Other favourite medicines
were rye, garlic, anise, mallow, rose, and lily.
In the animal kingdom, the remedies contributed were numerous, being
mainly the various parts of man and beast. Among some of the least
disgusting, hair, blood, and saliva may be mentioned.
Scrapings from the bodies of athletes, mixed with the oil with which
they anointed themselves, were used as a tonic. The hair of a man
torn from the cross was used as a remedy for quartan fever. The hyæna
was employed as a medicinal agent in seventy-nine diseases; and the
crocodile, chameleon, lion, elephant, camel, and the hippopotamus all
contributed certain curative agents. Wool fat was held in great esteem.
Of minerals, iron, lead, nitrum, salt, gold, tin, silver, realgar,
copper, and misy (a combination of the sulphates of copper and iron)
are enumerated. Most of these articles are mentioned by the second
Pliny, who was killed during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius which
buried Pompeii.
CHAPTER VI.
ALCHEMY—THE ALCHEMISTS.
The word chemistry was used for the first time by Suidas, a
lexicographer of the tenth century, and at that time meant an alloy
of gold and silver. It is alluded to in connection with the Emperor
Diocletian, of whom it is said, that irritated by a revolt of the
Egyptians against the laws of the empire, he had all their books of
chemistry committed to the flames, so as to punish them for their
rebellion by preventing them from carrying on the lucrative business
arising out of the melting and working of precious metals. There is
little doubt the Egyptians and Greeks were acquainted with certain
chemical operations, or what was termed the hermetic science, which was
afterwards called alchemy in the first century of the Christian era.
The first two great lights that appeared were Al-Chindus, and Geber
who discovered the red oxide and bichloride of mercury, nitric acid,
hydrochloric acid, and nitrate of silver. Geber’s _Summa Perfectionis_
and _Liber Philisophorum_ embody his researches on the purification
and malleability of metals. In the ninth century, the Arab alchemist
Rhazes flourished. In his great work entitled _El Hharvi_, he
alludes to realgar, orpiment, borax, mixtures of sulphur and iron
with copper, and of mercury with acids, and arsenic. He further
recommends physicians to use alcoholic preparations and animal oils,
etc. He states: “The secret art of chemistry is nearer possible than
impossible; the mysteries do not reveal themselves except by force of
labour and perseverance. But what a triumph it is when man can raise
a corner of the veil which conceals the works of God!” The knowledge
displayed of chemistry and its application to the arts at that early
period is wonderful, but books were few. The chief evidence of this
knowledge is exhibited in the many specimens and art monuments in the
museums of Spain, showing the skill of the Saracens and of the Moors.
A little later Mesué states, “certain principles had been recognised as
to the analytical classification of the bodies which compose organic
matter”.
Of the ancient necromancers who have figured in history and romance,
Merlin was perhaps the most extraordinary. The earliest mention of
his name is in records of the eleventh century, although he appears to
have flourished about the time of the Saxon invasion of Britain, in the
latter part of the fifth century.
He is first mentioned in connection with the fortune of Vortigern,
who is represented by Geoffrey of Monmouth, as at that time King of
England. Vortigern having lost all his strongholds in his struggle
with the Saxons, at length consulted his magicians as to how he was
to defend himself from his troublesome foe. They advised him to build
an impregnable tower, and chose a suitable site for its erection. The
builders set to work with might and main, but were astonished to find,
that as fast as they built in one day, the next morning the earth had
swallowed it up, and not a vestige remained. So the king called the
wise men together again, when they arrived at the conclusion that the
only way to remedy the matter was to cement the walls of the tower with
the blood of a human being who was born of no human father.
Vortigern at once sent forth emissaries to scour the country in search
of this _rara avis_, and at length by good fortune they came across
Merlin, near the town of Caermarthen in Wales, who claimed that his
mother was the daughter of a king but his father was an angelic being.
The king’s emissaries evidently took his word for it, as they speedily
carried him before Vortigern. A great meeting of the magicians was
called, at which the king presided, and Merlin, instead of being
condemned as the victim, confounded the wise men, and told the king
the ground they had chosen for his tower had a lake beneath it, at
the bottom of which, on being drained, they would find two dragons of
inextinguishable hostility. Under the form of dragons he appears to
have figured the Britons and Saxons in his speech, “all of which,” the
historian tells us, “proved to be true”.
But the greatest exploit with which Merlin is credited, according to
tradition, is the erection of Stonehenge as a lasting monument to the
300 British nobles massacred by the Saxons. It is supposed that these
mighty stones had been originally set up in Africa, and from thence
were transported to Ireland. Merlin commanded that they should be
carried over the sea, and erected on Salisbury Plain; but no workman
could be found to move them. He therefore brought his magical power to
bear on the huge stones, and by this means they were caused to take the
form in which they now stand.
Of the other wonderful stories which romance has woven round the career
of this strange individual, we can only say they are interesting, if
not exactly true. As 600 years elapsed between the time of Merlin and
the earliest known records of his achievements, it is impossible to
pronounce on their veracity.
Among the more famous of the early alchemists was St. Dunstan, who
flourished in the tenth century; but, if tradition speaks truly, he
was anything but a saint in character. He is said to have been a man
of distinguished birth, who in his young days lived a life of great
self-indulgence, even for that period of peculiar morality. At length,
he was seized with a dangerous illness which threatened to terminate
his career; but at the last extremity an angel appeared, bringing
a medicine which speedily restored him to health. Hastening to the
nearest church to return thanks, he was stopped by the devil with a
pack of black dogs, whom however he speedily put to flight. In order to
expiate his former irregularities, he now secluded himself in the abbey
of Glastonbury, where he occupied a cell in which he could neither
stand upright nor stretch his limbs in repose, and mortified his flesh
exceedingly. Here he studied alchemy and magic, in which arts he soon
became well versed. While in this cell, he is said to have had the most
extraordinary visitations, and among others the devil was constantly
thrusting his head in at the window and taunting the saint, while
immersed in his studies. At length, one day, wearied out, Dunstan lost
all patience, and seizing his red-hot tongs from the little furnace in
which he conducted his chemical operations, caught the devil by the
nose, and held him firmly, “while the bellowings of Satan,” says the
historian, “filled the whole neighbourhood for many miles round”. This
incident is frequently represented in ancient carvings.
Dunstan was a Benedictine monk, and next came forth and took a
prominent part in political and religious matters. He seems to have
been the king-maker of his time, and took a prominent part in the
ruling of the kingdom during the reigns of Edwy and Edgar.
In the accompanying illustration the alchemist, with uplifted torch, is
repeating the specified incantation over the still, under which he has
just kindled a fire, having commenced the preparation of the “Elixir of
Life”.
[Illustration: AN ALCHEMIST.
From an engraving dated 1576.]
In the year A.D. 1260, Albertus Magnus, formerly a Dominican monk, was
made master of the sacred palace at the court of Rome, and afterwards
Bishop of Ratisbon. This great philosophical student was learned in
all the then known arts of chemistry, and his manuscripts and works
were copied by the thousand. All kinds of extraordinary powers were
attributed to him, and it was commonly stated that he could make gold,
and that he was a magician. Accused of “having dealings” with the evil
one, he resigned his high position and returned to his cloistered cell
to carry on his favourite researches and end his days. Next we come to
Vincent de Beauvais, often called the Pliny of the middle ages. He,
too, was accused of sorcery, and it is said that “at midnight people
would creep along the quays of the Seine towards his laboratory in St.
Chapelle yard, to see if they could get a glimpse reflected in the
river of the magic furnaces in which De Beauvais was supposed to evoke
his familiar spirit”.
About the same time Raymond Lulli became known to fame. He also
was a monk, and born in the island of Majorca, but having a roving
disposition he wandered over Europe. He wrote several works on alchemy,
among others _Libilli Aliquot Chemici_, etc. Fabulous stories are
related of his adventures; and he was cruelly stoned to death by
the populace in Tunis, in 1315. He left behind him a following of
believers, who called themselves Lullists and spread all over Europe.
The genius of the West at this time was Arnauld de Villeneuve, who
made several important discoveries in chemistry. His researches were
particularly directed to the relation of chemistry to medicine. He is
credited with having discovered sulphuric and other acids, and is said
to have been the first to distil alcohol or spirit of wine.
Contemporary with these men of learning was our own Roger Bacon, whose
love for his art nearly cost him his life, besides many years in
prison. The discoverer of gunpowder and the telescope spent most of his
life in experimental researches, with the result that he revolutionised
the art of war, and gave to astronomers the power of exploring the
heavens. He was a man of great ability, never justly appreciated by his
contemporaries, and has been rightly named the father of experimental
physics. He described most of the laws which regulate matter, and the
regular motion of the planets. Although a man of undoubted knowledge
and great power of conception, he was bitten with the mania of
endeavouring to discover the philosopher’s stone, his views respecting
which he set forth in his work entitled _Radix Mundi_. Following Bacon
came Antonio Quainer, of Pavia, who was the first to manufacture
artificial mineral waters.
It has been said by some that the discoveries made by the alchemists
were mainly the result of chance, and they were mostly ignorant
charlatans; but although they had little method in their research,
and a great deal of their knowledge was wrapped up in absurd and
superstitious theories, when we look at the result of their discoveries
up to the fifteenth century, the most prejudiced must admit that
their labours were not spent entirely in vain. They demonstrated the
existence of bismuth, liver of sulphur, and regulus of antimony, the
distillation of alcohol, volatilisation of mercury, and preparation of
aqua regia, sulphuric and other mineral acids, and the purification
of alkalies. They had the scarlet dye for cloth, the secret of which
has now been lost and cannot be equalled, and their processes of
glass-staining cannot be approached by those employed at the present
day. It is said that Eck, a German alchemist of Sultzbach, ascertained
the existence of oxygen 300 years before it was demonstrated by
Priestly. For these and other discoveries we have to thank the early
alchemists.
During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries alchemy began to shake
itself free from the wild theories and absurd practices which had
impeded its progress. Henry VII. issued a severe edict against
alchemical practices, which put a stop to the impositions of a number
of charlatans. About this period John Baptist Porta discovered the
means of reducing the metallic oxides and of colouring silver, and
Isaac and Jean Hollandus made great improvements in enamelling, and
demonstrated the manufacture of artificial gems.
From the time of Paracelsus and the introduction of printing, the
science received a fresh impetus, and a new order of chemists came into
being, whose conflict with the old order for many years is a matter of
history.
The old theories of the alchemists were gradually exploded and
superseded, and many were driven to the most flagrant quackery to earn
a living.
Cornelius Agrippa, who was one of the leaders of the new order, says:
“It would take too much time to recount all the follies, the idle
secrets, and the enigmas of this trade, of the green lion, the fugitive
stag, the flying eagle, the inflated toad, the crow’s head of the black
blacker than the black, of the seal of Mercury, of the mud of wisdom,
and other countless absurdities of the time. Many of them travelled
from fair to fair in order to make a little money by the sale of white
lead, vermilion, antimony, and other drugs used by women for painting
the face, and drugs which the Scripture calls ointments of lust.”
Meanwhile the efforts of the practical workers were encouraged by
administrators and princes, with the result that the application of
chemistry and the technical arts became predominant, and metallurgy the
leading spirit of the science.
A notable character in the time of Queen Elizabeth was Dr. Dee,
alchemist and astrologer. The career of this man, who was more a
charlatan than aught else, was one of extraordinary vicissitude. A
Welshman by birth, he was educated at Oxford, and then travelled
throughout Europe, claiming that he had discovered the elixir of life
and the philosopher’s stone. He was a man of overweening ambition,
and delighted to hear himself called “Most Excellent”. In company
with a man named Kelly, it is said he discovered a quantity of the
elixir in the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey; this they at once annexed
and carried off to Poland, accompanied by a nobleman of that country.
After travelling from one Court to another, where he is said to have
performed wonderful feats with his elixir, he returned to England and
settled at Mortlake, where Elizabeth often visited him to consult him
on astrology, and he even ventured to predict her death.[3] He was a
great favourite at Court in 1595, and the Queen made him Chancellor of
Paul’s and Warden of Manchester, but he died in great poverty.
[3] Lilly’s _Autobiography_, 1774.
[Illustration: AN ALCHEMIST.
From an engraving dated 1576.]
The illustration represents an alchemist of the sixteenth century in
an ante-room of his laboratory, engaged in fixing a portion of his
apparatus. On the table is his luting box and knife. Through one window
a view of the laboratory with stills of varied size is obtained, while
through the other the sun looks with becoming gravity on the operation.
THE SYMBOLS OF THE ALCHEMISTS.
As in modern science chemists write their formulæ and work out their
processes by means of symbols, so the alchemists used signs and
hieroglyphics to represent the then known elements, metals, and other
articles in common use. The so-called elements—fire, air, water,
earth—were represented by special symbols, here represented. The
metals were supposed to be influenced by the planets to a certain
degree, and were represented by their corresponding signs. Various
other articles also had their symbols, which served as a means of
shorthand at a period when caligraphy was little known or employed.
[Illustration: Symbols for: Fire. Air. Water. Earth. Lead. Tin. Iron.
Gold. Copper. Mercury. Silver. Antimony. Arsenic. Aqua Vitæ. Borax.
To Purify. Cinnabar. Caput Mortuum. An Oil. Saltpetre. A Magnet. Sal
Ammoniac. Sulphur. Tartar. A Covered Pot. To Sublime. To Precipitate.]
[Illustration: Symbols for: Spirit of Wine. Roman Symbol for Denarius.
To Digest. To Distil. Aqua Fortis. Aqua Regalis. A Brick. To Calcine.
Camphire. Ashes. Cerusse. Lime. Quicklime. Cinnabar. Wax. Hartshorn.
A Crucible. Crystal. A Gum. Oil. Steel Filings. Litharge.]
[Illustration: Symbols for: To Lute. Sublimated Mercury. Precipitated
Mercury. Nitre. Realgar. Sand. Soap. Sal Alkali. Sal Ammoniac. Salt.
Talc. Vinegar. Verdigris. Vitriol. Urine. Day. Night.]
CHAPTER VII.
THE PHILOSOPHER’S STONE.
The dominating ambition of the early alchemists was to discover the
unknown. In the same spirit the modern worker in science gropes
onward, and dreams of discovering some contribution towards solving
the elixir of life, in the form, it may be, of conquering at least one
fell disease. The ancient workers in alchemy confined their researches
almost exclusively to metals; they believed that all natural things
were composed of four elements, which they termed Fire, Air, Earth, and
Water. “When these four elements are conjoined,” says Roger Bacon, in
his _Radix Mundi_, “they become another thing, whereas it is evident
that all things in Nature are composed of the said elements being
altered and changed.”
But the patient researches of the alchemists were not so much due to a
love for scientific investigation as to the overwhelming desire to gain
wealth.
[Illustration: A STILL FOR DYSTILLING THE WATER OF LYFE.
1576.]
The majority had two fixed objects in view as the goals of their
ambition, one being the discovery of some body that would be capable of
transmuting the baser metals into gold and silver; and the other, the
discovery of an elixir which would prolong the span of human life to
an indefinite period. Both these objects seem to have been sought for
by man from prehistoric times, and their origin is lost in antiquity.
Berthelot remarks that the term “Philosopher’s Stone” does not occur in
writings earlier than the seventh century, although the central idea is
much more ancient.
The philosopher’s stone was sought for by the Chinese philosophers at a
very remote period, afterwards by the Greeks, Arabs, and others down to
the seventeenth century.
Men of undoubted ability and genius wasted both their lives and
their fortunes over the search for this illusive chimera, and others
condescended to fraud and trickery of the meanest description in
its pursuit. Apparently no alchemist of any repute thought it right
to die until he had at least claimed to have solved one of these
great problems. Thus claimants to the discovery were numerous. The
descriptions given of the various processes in ancient manuscripts
and works for producing the philosopher’s stone are usually of a very
elaborate description, and couched in the most fantastic language.
Failure to produce the desired result was invariably accounted for by
the omission to carry out some minute detail. Some who professed to
have discovered the secret demanded large sums of money to reveal it,
and several visited the various courts of Europe to demonstrate it by
means of trickery and conjuring.
The notorious Dr. Dee, who flourished in the time of Queen Elizabeth,
was one of the last claimants to the discovery, and is said to have
received immense sums of money from dupes for imparting the coveted
secret, which he demonstrated by means of an ingenious trick.
Realgar, mercury, sulphur, and many other substances were credited with
the magical property of transmutation.
In the illustration (p. 65), which is taken from an authentic
engraving of the sixteenth century, we have a figure of the apparatus
used for distilling the “Water of Life,” the process for which is
described by Gesnerus in the _Newe Jewell of Health_, printed in 1576.
The alchemist, arrayed in his imposing robes, is depicted giving
instructions to his assistant as to certain precautions to be taken in
conducting the process.
Bacon states that sulphur and mercury are the mineral roots and natural
principles upon which Nature herself acts and works in the mines and
caverns of the earth; the latter metal he believed to be the true
elixir of the philosopher’s stone; others, including Rhazes and Merlin,
believed it to be an amalgam of gold and mercury, fantastically called
the Red man and his White wife.
Concerning the vessels for producing this “Citrine body,” as Bacon
calls it, the most exact precautions were taken. Special apparatus was
used, and a special heat, which was not to exceed the heat of the body.
For this purpose horse-dung was employed. Senier, the philosopher,
says: “Dig a sepulchre and bury the woman (mercury) with her man (gold)
in horse-dung, the fire of the philosopher, until such time as they be
conjoined”.
Bacon’s definition of alchemy was: “Alchymie is the art or science
teaching how to make or generate a certain kind of medicine which is
called the elixir. It teaches how to transmute all kinds of metals, one
with another; and this by a proper medicine.” George Ripley, a monk,
in 1476, thought that he had discovered the much-coveted stone in pure
sulphur. He says: “Let the two sulphurs, _viz._, the white and the red,
be mingled with the oil of the white elixir that they may work the more
strongly, and you shall have the highest medicine in the world to heal
and cure human bodies, and to transmute the bodies of metals into the
most pure fine gold and silver”. Berthelot, who has made an exhaustive
study of the subject, comes to the conclusion that the doctrines of
alchemy concerning the transmutation of metals, did not originate in
the philosophical views of the constitution of matter as generally
supposed, but in the practical experiments of goldsmiths occupied in
making fraudulent substitutes for the precious metals. One cannot but
think with pity of the immense labour expended and lost in the attempt
made by many of these pioneers of science in their pursuit after this
chemical chimera.
Paracelsus, as well as his predecessors, laboured studiously to
discover some method for prolonging life. Like Bacon and Verulam, he
maintained that the human body could be rejuvenated to a certain extent
by a fresh supply of vitality, and it was his aim to find means by
which such a supply could be obtained. In one of his works he gives the
following reasons for this belief: “Metals may be preserved from rust
and wood may be protected against rot. Blood may be preserved a long
time if the air is excluded. Egyptian mummies have kept their form for
centuries without undergoing putrefaction. Animals awaken from their
winter sleep, and flies having become torpid from cold become nimble
again when they are warmed. Therefore, if inanimate objects can be kept
from destruction, why should there be no possibility to preserve the
life-essence of animate forms?” For this purpose he prepared a remedy
he called _Primum Ens Melissæ_, which was made by dissolving pure
carbonate of potass, and macerating in the liquid the fresh leaves of
the _melissa_ plant. On this absolute alcohol was poured several times
in successive portions to absorb the colouring matter, after which it
was collected, distilled, and evaporated to the thickness of a syrup.
The second great secret elixir of Paracelsus was his _Primum Ens
Sanguinis_. This was prepared by mixing blood from the medium vein of a
healthy young person, and digesting it in a warm place with twice its
quantity of _alcahest_, after which the red fluid was to be separated
from the sediment, filtered, and preserved.
The alcahest was his celebrated universal medicine, and was considered
the greatest mystery of all. It was made with freshly prepared caustic
lime and absolute alcohol. These were distilled together ten times. The
residue left in the retort was mixed with pure carbonate of potass and
dried. This was again distilled with alcohol. It was then placed in a
dish and set on fire, and the residue that remained was the alcahest.
The following lines were found inscribed on the fly-leaf of an old work
on alchemy, printed in 1550, and signed “PHILO VERITAS”:—
ELIXIR VITÆ.
When fire and water, earth and air
In love’s true bond united are,
For all diseases then be sure
You have a safe and certain cure.
I will affirm it’s here alone
Exists the Philosophic Stone.
This is fair nature’s virgin root,
Thrice blest are they who reap the fruit:
But oh! where one true adept’s found,
Ten thousand thousand cheats abound.
In an ancient work in the library of York Minster, the writer came
across the following in manuscript, signed “RAYMUND LULLI”:—
Remember man that is the most noble creature in composition that
ever God wrought;
In whom be four elements proportioned by nature,
A neutral mercuriallyte which costeth right naught,
Out of his monie by manie it is bought;
And our monie be not all but our oxtalle towe,
Of the sun and the moon; which Raymund Said So.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE BLACK ART AND OCCULT SCIENCES.
To make a thorough analysis of this interesting subject, and trace
the origin of magic, would take much more space than we have at our
command; and we can only mention a few of the many forms which may be
grouped under the head of the occult sciences, and those especially
which had any connection with the alchemists. There is little doubt
that most of the alchemists were students, if not practitioners, of
magic or some of its branches.
The antiquity of magic is very great; and we have record of magicians
and wise men in early Jewish times, as well as the magic formulæ of the
Vedas in India, as handed down to us in the religion of the Hindoos.
Moreover, magic was practised by the Chaldeans, of whom a certain tribe
devoted their energies to studying the occult sciences. Pliny tells us
of the dealings in the supernatural in the time of Homer, and other
writers record that magic was also known to the Etruscans and Assyrians
at a very early period. As time rolled on, the different forms of
magic practised became specialised, according to their several natures.
For instance, there were Astrology and Oneiromancy, which comprised the
various forms of divination; Theurgy and Goetry, the art of evoking
good or evil spirits; Necromancy, by means of which communication was
held with the dead; and Sorcery, which exercised its power by the
influence of dreams.
The longings after the supernatural and unknown felt by the great
ignorant masses brought forth individuals in plenty to take advantage
of their credulity. During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the
occult sciences were openly taught in the universities and schools,
and 200 years later reached the zenith of their influence; and
practitioners of astrology and the black arts abounded and flourished
throughout Europe.
The professors of Oneiromancy were those who divined or interpreted
dreams, and founded their traditions in the art from its being in
accordance with the Scriptures. The explanation of dreams also did
not go counter to the doctrines of the Church, and so the cult found
many believers among all classes of society. It was denounced by Pope
Gregory II. as a detestable practice; but this did not prevent it being
largely employed in forecasting the future.
Arnauld de Villeneuve, who wrote a work on the subject in the
thirteenth century, gives a certain code by which those who practised
it worked.
Whoever dreamt that his hair was thick and carefully curled would
soon become wealthy. If anything was wrong with the hair, evil was
betokened. It also foreshadowed harm if a wreath was worn composed of
flowers that were not in season. Other codes signified that to dream
of the eyes, related to children; the head, to a father; the arms, to
brothers; the feet, to servants; the right hand, to the mother, to
sons, and to friends; and the left hand, to the wife and daughter.
Another method was founded on the theory that whatever was dreamt of,
the antithesis or opposite would follow in life. From this we have
probably the saying common to-day, “dream of a wedding and it is a sign
of a funeral”. According to many old writers there was scarcely any
important event in the middle ages which was not announced by a dream.
The day before Henry II. was struck by the blow of a lance during a
tournament, Catherine de Medicis, his wife, dreamt that she saw him
lose one of his eyes. Three days before he fell by the knife of Jacques
Clément, Henry III. dreamt he saw the royal insignia stained with
blood and trodden under foot by monks and people of the lower orders.
Henry IV. also, before he was murdered by Raveillac, it is said, heard
during the night his wife Marie de Medicis say to herself as she woke,
“Dreams are but falsehoods!” and when he asked her what she had dreamt,
she replied, “That you were stabbed upon the steps of the little
Louvre!” “Thank God it is but a dream,” rejoined the king.
The necromancers, who were supposed to be able to conjure up spirits
and raise the dead, were accounted on a somewhat higher plane than the
interpreters of dreams. They also based their authority on the Old
Testament. The nature of the art was gruesome and awe-inspiring, and
there is little doubt many dark deeds were perpetrated by those who
practised it. One method of evocation was to kill a child and place
its head upon a dish surrounded by lighted candles; the desired spirit
was supposed to enter this ghastly object and speak through its mouth.
Sometimes the spirit simply consisted of some muttered words from
behind a curtain in a dark cellar; another method was to cause the
appearance of a sepulchral figure out of smoke or vapour, which would
indicate by gesture and reply to questions asked. To evoke a dead
man’s spirit, it was necessary to go to the grave at midnight with a
companion who bore a candle in the left hand and a crystal stone in the
right, the conjurer holding a hazel wand with the name of God written
on it, and repeating the words:—
“Tetragrammaton + Adonai + Agla + Craton +”
Then striking three times on the ground, with a prayer he commanded the
spirit into the stone, when it appeared in the shape of a child.
The conjurer often wore a girdle of lion’s skin with the name of God
written on it, and the Solomon’s circle he described with a bright
knife, on the blade of which were written certain mystic words.
Necromancy gradually merged into sorcery, which has occasionally come
to the surface in comparatively recent years.
Chiromancy, the art of divining or foretelling future events from
marks on the palm of the hand, was also practised in antiquity,
but in mediæval times it was strongly opposed by the Church. The
practice is supposed to have been brought into Europe from the East
by the Bohemians in the early part of the fifteenth century. This art
eventually merged into astrology, which exerted the greatest influence
of all the occult sciences.
The antiquity of astrology is very great, it having been originated
by the Chaldeans, and was thought by some of the Jews to have been a
method by which the Creator could communicate with His people. The art
itself was based on astronomy, and, like alchemy, was the beginning of
the study of real natural science. The teller of the stars was not only
supposed to foretell forthcoming misfortunes to individuals, but also
to forecast the destinies of kings and empires.
The belief in its power was so great that it became the fashion among
royal personages of the sixteenth century to keep their own special
astrologers, who were lodged easy of access and loaded with honours and
wealth. These men were mostly astute Jews well versed in the science
of their time, and by means of their supposed powers they often played
a very important part in the political affairs of the nation. Thus in
the fifteenth century Rovigo, an astrologer of eminence, who is said
to have perfected the astrolabe, was attached to the Court of King
John II. of Portugal; and Simon Pharès figured at the Court of France
in the time of Charles VIII. We must not forget to mention Cosmo
Ruggieri, the Florentine astrologer and the confidant of Catherine
de Medicis; also the celebrated Nostradamus, astrologer and trusted
adviser of Charles IX. This extraordinary man played a prominent part
in the history of his time, and was supposed to practise magic and
alchemy as well as the healing art. He was consulted by the king in all
positions of difficulty, and it is said became immensely wealthy. He
died in 1566 at Salon, after having written several notable works.
CHAPTER IX.
THE ART OF FORETELLING.
The early theory of the art of foretelling by means of the stars, and
casting horoscopes, was as follows: The seven planets then known,
including the Sun, with the twelve figures of the Zodiac, comprised
the astrological system. Each unit or body or nation was supposed to
be governed or influenced by a certain star or constellation, and this
power extended to all things connected with the person or nation.
Thus, Saturn was supposed to influence life, sciences, and buildings;
Jupiter—honour, wishes, and wealth; Mars—wars, persons, marriages,
and quarrels; the Sun—hope, gain, and happiness; Venus—love
and friendship; Mercury—fear, disease, debts, and commerce; the
Moon—robberies, wounds, and dreams. The intrinsic quality was denoted
by the planet. The Sun was regarded as favourable; Saturn, cold;
Jupiter, temperate; Mars, ardent; Venus, fruitful; Mercury, inconstant;
the Moon, melancholy. The days, colours, and metals also came under
the same influences.
In casting a horoscope, the astronomer had first to observe if the time
was propitious, and what planet was dominant in the heavens. Then, by
means of calculations and diagrams, he would deduce the consequences
from the position and bearing of the stars. The day was divided into
four equal parts—the ascendant of the sun, the middle of the sky,
the descending of the sun, and the lower part of the sky. These four
parts of the day were subdivided into twelve distinct parts, which
were called the twelve houses of the sun. It was of the greatest
importance in drawing a horoscope to tell exactly in which “house” the
star appeared. One can easily trace the connection of the influence
attributed to the planets with the old Egyptian and Greek mythologies,
and it can hardly be wondered at that the same system should have been
brought to bear on medicine.
A favourite method of divination, especially with the sorcerers, was
that of gazing into a beryl or crystal. For the proper performance of
this ceremony a pure virgin or equally pure youth should be the gazer.
The sorcerer, having repeated the necessary charms and adjurations,
with the invocation suitable to the spirits he wished to consult,
looked into a large beryl or crystal, wherein he saw the answer
represented either by types or by figures, and sometimes it is said he
might hear the spirit speak to him.
Vallancey states that in the Highlands of Scotland large crystals of
somewhat oval shape were kept by the priests to work charms with,
and that water poured on them was given to cattle as a preventive of
disease. Dr. Dee was a famous conjurer with the crystal in the time of
Queen Elizabeth.
Lilly describes these crystals as being the size of an orange, set in
silver, surmounted with a cross, and engraved all round with the names
of the angels—Raphael, Gabriel, and Uriel.
Among other charms practised was Dactylomancy, which was performed by
means of a ring suspended by a thread in the centre of an earthenware
or metal pitcher. The ring, which was supposed to have been made under
the influence of a certain constellation, was swung from side to
side of the vessel, and the sounds it made on touching were taken as
predictions and oracles.
The art of divination by fire was called Pyromancy, and was performed
by allowing a certain body to burn, the smoke from which, by its
density and colour, forecast the future. A favourite medium for
consulting this oracle was a donkey’s head roasted on hot coals.
Popular belief in mediæval times attributed anything unusual or
beyond its understanding, to magic; so most of the early alchemists
were believed to be magicians. Both Albertus Magnus and Roger Bacon
were accused of dealing in the black arts, one having to resign his
bishopric of Cologne and retire to a monastery, and the other to the
Franciscan cells in Paris, to free themselves from the charges of their
accusers.
CHAPTER X.
BLACK MAGIC.
Geber, an alchemist of great repute in Arabia, was believed to possess
the power of creating gold by magic. He was a man of undoubted learning
and a skilful practitioner of his time, yet he was dubbed a sorcerer.
He was said to possess all kinds of extraordinary implements; among
others, a book of black magic which gave him full power over demons,
and a brass idol which spoke oracles. On the day of his death, in
1003, the Evil One is supposed to have carried him off. James Iodoc,
an Englishman, achieved considerable notoriety by claiming that he had
succeeded in setting the demon in a magic ring. These men should not be
confounded with the host of impostors and charlatans who simply preyed
on the credulity of the people, but in those days all were judged
alike. Most of the great mediæval alchemists dabbled in magic, and all
agreed that to obtain the intervention of Satan in human affairs it was
necessary to enter into a pact with him. Those who went to this length
and became exponents of demonology, or the black art, were initiated
with much solemnity.
TAKING THE OATH.
The oath to the demon had to be pronounced in the centre of a circle
traced upon the ground, accompanied by the offer of some pledge, such
as a garment of the noviciate. The edge of the circle was supposed to
establish a mark which the demon could not cross. Heavy perfumes such
as vervain, with burning incense and lighted tapers, always formed part
of the ceremonial. The smoking brazier, which entered largely into
the ritual, was believed to act upon the demons, and was constantly
fed with all kinds of mysterious vegetable and animal substances,
those that would produce most smoke being preferred. It is said that
belladonna and opium were always used as ingredients in the incense, in
order to produce a state of semi-stupor and influence the imagination.
The perfumes employed by the professors of the art had each a special
significance, and were offered to some planet to form a link with the
earth. A mixture of saffron, amber, musk, cloves and incense, together
with the brain of an eagle and the blood of a cock, was offered to the
Sun.
The white poppy and camphor burnt in the head of a frog, with the eyes
of a bull and the blood of a goose, were dedicated to the Moon; while
to Mars, sulphur was mixed with hellebore and euphorbium, together with
the blood of a black cat and the brain of a crow, and then burnt.
One can imagine the horrible odour that would be caused by burning
such articles as these; and, as the columns of smoke ascended, the
half-stupefied and scared spectator fancied he saw the forms of
writhing demons in the air.
Very curious properties were attributed to certain articles when thrown
on live coals. Thus, if thunder and rain were required, the liver of
a chameleon was said to produce it; while the gall of a cuttle-fish
burnt with roses and aloes-wood was all that was necessary to induce an
earthquake.
By burning coriander, parsley, hemlock, liquor of black poppy, giant
fennel, red sandal-wood and henbane, almost any number of demons could
be raised. Sorcerers of this class were called tempest-raisers.
With the witchcraft practised largely by women in mediæval times, we
have not much to do; although belief in its influence was widespread
during the middle ages. To bewitch an individual was to cause him
gradually to die a mysterious death.
The process commenced at first with great secrecy, by modelling a
figure of the intended victim in wax or clay. This having been done,
a swallow was killed, and the heart placed under the right arm of
the figure and the liver under the left. The effigy was next pricked
all over with new needles, each prick being accompanied by the most
terrible imprecations against the victim.
Another method was to make the figure of earth taken from a graveyard
and mixed with dead bones. Certain mystic signs were then inscribed on
it, which were said eventually to cause the death of the victim. So
general did the practice of witchcraft become that no class of society
was safe from accusation and suspicion, thousands perishing by the
faggot and torture.
From the fourteenth to the sixteenth century, supernatural beliefs
exerted a great influence on the people. One of the most celebrated
trials of the time was that of the Duchess of Gloucester, who was
accused of bewitching Henry VI. It transpired at the trial that she
had instructed a priest, named Bolingbroke who practised necromancy,
to bewitch the king; a sorceress named Marie Gardimain being also
implicated. An effigy of the king in wax was discovered half-melted in
front of a fire of dry plants, which had been gathered by moonlight in
a graveyard. Bolingbroke the necromancer was hanged, Gardimain burnt,
and the Duchess of Gloucester condemned to imprisonment for life.
The “evil eye” was another form of witchcraft, mostly practised by
women. Visions or apparitions in the sky, foretelling some war or
disaster, were firmly believed in by the Church, and caused great
consternation. Fiery dragons appearing in the heavens were said to
predict civil war; and we also read of pigs bearing royal crowns, and
gory stars, all of which were doubtless caused by ordinary phenomena
not understood at that time.
The appearance of the devil presiding at a sabbath or meeting of
sorcerers is thus described by De Lancre: “He is seated in a black
chair with a crown of black horns, two horns in his neck, and one on
the forehead, which sheds light on the assembly; the hair bristling,
the face pale and exhibiting signs of uneasiness, the eyes round,
large, and fully opened, inflamed and hideous, with a goat’s beard. The
neck and the rest of the body deformed, and in the shape of a man and
a goat; the hands and the feet of a human being.”
The word witch is thought by some authorities to be derived from
_chausaph_, which means a user of pharmaceutic enchantments, or an
applier of drugs to magical purposes.
Witches sent storms and barrenness, drowned children, brought on ague,
could kill with evil eye, slay with lightning, pass through key-holes,
ride through the air on broom-sticks, and perform many other weird and
wondrous things.
“They were generally old, blear-eyed, wrinkled dames,” says Scott,
“ugly and crippled, frequently papists, and sometimes atheists; of
cross-grained tempers and cynical dispositions.” They were often
poisoners, and generally monomaniacs. Epilepsy and all diseases not
understood by the physicians were set down to the influence of witches.
They were said to make two covenants with the devil, one public and
one private. Then the novices were presented to the devil in person,
and instructed to renounce the Christian faith, tread on the Cross,
break the fasts, joining hands with Satan, paying him homage, and
yielding him body and soul. Some witches sold themselves for a term of
years, and some for ever; then they kissed the devil, and signed their
bond with blood, and a banquet ended the meeting; their dances being
accompanied with shouts of “Ha, ha! devil, devil! Dance here, dance
here! Play here, play here! Sabbath, sabbath!” Before they departed
the devil was said to give them philtres and amulets. These women were
usually hypochondriacs, often driven by despair and misfortune to
confess any charge made against them.
CHAPTER XI.
SUPERSTITION AND ITS INFLUENCE ON MEDICINE.
Superstition is a belief in what is wholly opposite to the laws of
the physical and moral world, and yet supposed to be attainable by
supernatural agency.
The words incantation and charm seem to have been derived from the
ancient practice of curing diseases by poetry and music. Democritus
says that many diseases are capable of being cured by the sound of a
flute when properly played. Marianus Capellus assures us also that
fevers may be cured by suitable songs. Galen believed the sound of the
flute efficacious in gout and epilepsy. Asclepiades actually employed
the trumpet for the relief of sciatica, and tells us it is to be
continued until the fibres of the part begin to palpitate, when the
pain will vanish. What terrible visions might be conjured up if such
remedies were used to-day.
The influence of superstition on medicine may be accounted for by
the fact, that from the very first, ideas with regard to the action
of drugs must have been combined with those concerning supernatural
agencies, for the phenomena of nature in very early times were
attributed to spirits. Diseases were supposed to be due to an evil
spirit, therefore to cast the disease out was equivalent to curing
it, and the methods used for this purpose were by no means always
ineffective in curing disease.
Incantations and spells were generally used in addition to a real
remedial agent, but the incantations usually got the credit for
effecting the cure.
In early times superstition played an important part in the cure of
disease, and it prevails to a certain extent to-day. “In the opinion of
the ignorant multitude,” says Lord Bacon, “witches and impostors have
always held a competition with physicians.”
There has ever been a peculiar propensity in the human mind to foster a
belief in the supernatural, and perhaps more especially in respect to
medicine on account of the obscurity and ignorance with which it was
once surrounded. In early times almost every disease was attributed to
punishment for evil-doing, the working of some demon, or the influence
of the stars; hence the use of any article that was strange or rare as
a remedy.
“The employment of precious stones for medicinal purposes,” writes
De Boot, “arises from an Arab superstition which supposed them to be
the residence of spirits.” They were first used as amulets, and then
gradually came to be administered inwardly for various ailments.
“Mystery is the very soul of empiricism,” says Paris; “withdraw
the veil, and the confidence of the patient instantly languishes.”
A propensity to attribute every ordinary and natural effect
to extraordinary and unnatural causes, is one of the striking
characteristics of medical superstition.
The properties that herbs possessed were attributed by the old
physicians to the planets which were supposed to influence them, and
our medical men to this day head their prescriptions with a sign
that originally meant an invocation to Jupiter, which is a surviving
relic of this old superstitious practice. Another very curious fact
with respect to medical superstition is, that many of the greatest
philosophers were firm believers in it. Lord Bacon is said to have
believed in the existence of a panacea that would prolong life beyond
its natural term. He considered that the principal cause of death
was the action of the external air in drying and exhausting the
body, which he thought might be prevented by nitre; but although he
took three grains of his favourite salt every morning for the last
thirty years of his life, he died at the age of sixty-six. We have
many customs at the present day which are a survival of the days of
superstition, and few have any idea of their origin. The mother, when
she hangs round the neck of her child the plaything known as a coral
and bells, little imagines she is perpetuating an ancient superstitious
practice. The soothsayers attributed many mystic properties to coral,
and it was believed to ward off the evil eye, and drive away devils and
evil spirits. For this purpose it was suspended from a child’s neck
as an amulet. Pliny and Dioscorides greatly esteemed the medicinal
properties of coral, and Paracelsus recommends that it should be worn
around the necks of infants to keep away fits, sorcery, charms, and to
serve as an antidote to poisons. The bells usually suspended to it were
originally intended to frighten away evil spirits, and not to amuse the
child alone.
Paris mentions a curious circumstance, _viz._, that the same
superstitious belief should exist among the negroes of the West Indies,
who affirm that the colour of coral is always affected by the state of
health of the wearer, it becoming paler in disease.
But all the remedies that originated in superstition were not entirely
useless. Some, whether by accident or not, had a natural power of
efficacy, and led to discoveries of importance. In the time of
James I., a powder known as the sympathetic powder of Sir Kenelm Digby
had a great reputation for healing wounds. Whenever a wound had been
inflicted, this powder was applied to the weapon which had caused it,
which was also smeared with ointment and dressed two or three times a
day. The wound itself was directed to be brought together and carefully
bound up with clean linen rags, but above all to be let alone for seven
days, at the end of which time it was generally found to be healed.
This was, of course, said to be due to the wonderful properties of
the sympathetic powder, instead of the fact of excluding the air from
the part and not interfering with nature’s own healing powers. The
mysterious sympathetic healing powder was afterwards said to be simply
calcined green vitriol. The rust of the spear of Telephus, alluded to
by Homer as a cure for the wounds which that weapon inflicted, was
probably verdigris, and led to the discovery of its use as a surgical
dressing.
The cures supposed to be performed by royal touch show the power
of faith over desire, or mind over matter. The royal surgeons who
introduced the patients to be touched for scrofula, doubtless took care
to choose those who had a tendency to recover, and who, if left to
nature, would probably have gradually recovered. Boswell says that Dr.
Johnson, when thirty months old, was taken by his mother to London to
be touched by Queen Anne, on the advice of Sir John Floyer, a physician
of Lichfield.
From time immemorial the ignorant have had the most unbounded
confidence in nauseous remedies, and it would seem as if the nastier
and more disgusting the medicines were, the greater faith they had in
them. The larger the price asked, the more implicit the faith seemed to
be. The Collyrium of Danares, a famous quack eye lotion, was sold at
Constantinople for £9 a bottle, and the elixirs sold by Paracelsus and
Van Helmont brought extortionate prices. The doctrine of Signatories,
as it was called, is of very great antiquity. It implied that every
natural substance which possesses any medicinal virtues, indicates, by
an obvious and well-marked external character, the disease for which it
is a remedy. Thus the bloodstone was used to stop bleeding, on account
of its marks resembling drops of blood. The root of the mandrake, on
account of its resemblance to the human form, was used as a remedy
for sterility. Turmeric was administered for jaundice, and poppies
for diseases of the head. Another belief of the ancients was that all
poisonous bodies possessed a powerful attraction for one another, and
that “like would cure like”. The hair of a mad dog was worn as a charm
to prevent hydrophobia, and the foot of the ape was used as a remedy
for its bite. On the same principle we are solemnly assured that three
scruples of the ashes of a witch, after she has been well and carefully
burnt at the stake, is a sure protection against the evil effects of
witchcraft.
Many ancient superstitions are so deeply rooted that they find
believers among the educated at the present day. Take, for instance,
the belief that many people have in the efficacy of red flannel. For
sore throat, rheumatism, or swelling, they believe it will cure when
flannel of no other colour will. This belief may be traced to the
colour of the cloth often used in incantations, which was always red.
In some parts of the country a wedding-ring is still believed to be a
universal cure for sore eyes.
A curious superstition is still practised in some parts of Wales for
the cure of the complaint called shingles. The term for shingles in
Welsh means “The Eagle.” It was supposed in ancient times that if
a person ate of the flesh of the eagle he would never suffer from
shingles, and his direct descendants down to the ninth generation could
not contract it, and furthermore had the power transmitted to them of
curing others so afflicted by blowing on them.
CHAPTER XII.
LOVE PHILTRES.
Love Philtres were administered for the purpose of inspiring affection
or hatred. In very early times they were frequently used, concocted,
and sold by the magicians or sorcerers, who often obtained large sums
of money in exchange, from amorously-inclined gallants and maidens.
They were composed of various extraordinary ingredients used in
medicine at the time, and were either in the form of a powder, which
was to be surreptitiously slipped into an article of food to be
swallowed, or in a liquid for anointing the clothes or hands, and by
things to be held in the mouth.
It is recorded that some sorcerers even used the Host, upon which
they traced letters of blood. The following were also used in the
preparation of philtres: the entrails of animals, feathers of birds,
scales of fishes, parings of nails, powdered loadstones, and human
blood.
It is little wonder they excited hatred. The _poculum amatorium_ or
love philtre of the Romans, and the _philtron_ of the Greeks, were
venerated with superstitious awe in early times. They became used to
such an extent by the former nation under the first emperors, that
a decree was promulgated under the Roman criminal law whereby love
philtres were deemed as poison, and the punishment inflicted on those
using them was very severe. Hairs from a wolf’s tail, the bones of the
left side of a toad which had been eaten by ants (those of the right
side were used to cause hatred), the blood of pigeons, skeletons of
snakes, the entrails of animals, and other equally disgusting things,
were included as ingredients in Roman love philtres.
Pliny states, that there were also philtres for quenching love. Thus,
“if a nest of young swallows is placed in a box and buried, on being
dug up after a few days it will be found that some of the birds have
died with their beaks closed, while others die as if gasping for
breath”. The latter were used for exciting love, and the former for
producing the opposite effect.
Horace recommends a bone torn from a hungry and voracious dog, and
Virgil describes a complete apparatus wherewith a maiden seeks to
recover the affections of a faithless lover.
The early Greek and Roman magicians used “hippomanes,” which was
the lump of flesh found in the head of a colt newly foaled, as an
ingredient in their philtres.
About the sixteenth century philtres came to be compounded and sold
by the apothecaries, who doubtless derived from them a lucrative
profit. Favourite ingredients with these later practitioners were
mandragora, cantharides, and vervain, which were supposed to have
Satanic properties. They were mixed with other herbs said to have an
aphrodisiac effect; also man’s gall, the eyes of a black cat, and the
blood of a lapwing, bat, or goat.
In Gay’s _Shepherds’ Week_ reference is thus made to love philtres:—
“Strait to the ’pothecary’s shop I went,
And in love powder all my money spent;
Behap what will next Sunday after prayers
When to the alehouse Lubberkin repairs,
These flies into his mug I’ll throw,
And soon the swain with fervent love shall glow”.
“Botanomancy,” Ferrand states, “which is done by the noise or crackling
that kneeholme, box, or bay leaves make when they are crushed betwixt
one’s hands or cast into the fire, was of old in use among the pagans,
who were wont to bruise poppy flowers betwixt their hands, and by this
means thinking to know their loves.”
A CHARME OR AN ALLAY FOR LOVE.
“If so be a toad be laid
In a sheepskin newly flaid,
And that ty’d to man ’twill sever
Him and his affections ever.”—Herrick’s _Hesperides_.
The winged ant was another favourite ingredient in love philtres, and
was first used by Rhazes, who prepared the winged ant in the form
of tincture by maceration in alcohol. This tincture, dropped in the
homœopathic manner into wine or mixed with food, was supposed to have
a wonderful action in producing symptoms of the tender passion in the
coldest hearts. The winged ants alone were used in this preparation,
which enjoyed a long reputation, and was subsequently known as
“Hoffmann’s Water of Magnanimity,” and largely used in the seventeenth
century as an aphrodisiac.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE PIONEERS OF PHARMACY AND BOTANY—PHYSIC GARDENS.
The operation of distillation was unknown to the ancient Greeks and
Romans, although Dioscorides and Pliny describe a process which may
be considered that of distillation in its infancy. The process was
not known in England until the time of Henry II. To the Arabs we are
indebted for the discovery of manna, cassia, senna, and rhubarb, also
aromatics, such as musk, nutmeg, mace, and cloves. Blisters were known
and used by the Arabs, who are the first also on record to mention
sugar extracted from the cane, and sugar-candy, which they called honey
of cane.
Rhazes and Avicenna were the first physicians to introduce improvements
in pharmaceutical preparations. The latter was the first to mention
the three mineral acids, and distinguish between vegetable and mineral
alkalies.
In the year 1226, Roger Bacon, a native of Ilchester, in Somersetshire,
and a Franciscan monk, may be said to have laid the foundation of
chemical science in Europe. He was excommunicated by Pope Nicholas,
and imprisoned for ten years for supposed dealings with the devil.
He professed to have discovered an elixir of life, which he affirmed
prevented corruption of any constitution and the infirmities of age for
many years. Following Bacon, at the end of the thirteenth century, came
Arnoldas de Villa Nova, or Villeneuve, who was the first to recommend
the distilled spirit of wine impregnated with certain herbs, from which
we date our use of tinctures in medicine.
Basil Valentine followed as a pioneer in the administration of metallic
medicines; he made volatile alkali from sal-ammoniac, and noticed the
production of ether from alcohol.
In the year 1493, Phillipus Theophrastus, Bombast of Hohenheim,
afterwards known as Paracelsus, was born near Zurich in Switzerland, a
man of extraordinary conceit and boldness, but who wrought a greater
change and influence in _materia medica_ than any physician since
the time of Galen. He travelled all over Europe, and so obtained an
extensive knowledge of chemistry and medicine.
This genius of science and quackery, for such Paracelsus must be
termed, who scoffed at all the doctrines believed in since the time of
Hippocrates, professed to have received his knowledge from the Divine
Being Himself. His sheer impudence carried the sympathies of the public
with him, and they kissed the skirts of his gown as he passed through
the streets, whilst he had among his followers many princes and nobles.
He denounced the apothecaries, who, he said, “could only compose
insipid syrups and repulsive concoctions, when they have ready to hand
at the bottom of their stills, extracts and dyes derived from the best
vegetables and minerals”. He disagreed with the doctors also, whose
prescriptions he stigmatised as barbarous, and was much against the
use of correctives being added to pharmaceutical recipes when they
had no natural relation to the preparation itself. He believed in the
existence of an active principle in plants, which he termed the “Ether
of Aristotle,” that could be isolated and used to avert the various
disorders of the human body—an idea which is now the leading spirit
in pharmaceutical research. His labours did much to stimulate the
practical side of chemistry, though his language was mysterious, as,
like other alchemists, he wrapped up all his wisdom and his ignorance
in the garb of allegory. He was reported to carry about a familiar
spirit in the pommel of a long sword that always hung at his side.
Paracelsus is said to have been the first to use mercury internally;
he also employed opium, antimony, and lead largely in his treatment;
and devised a process for the preparation of red oxide of mercury. He
was sent for to many of the European Courts, and by the interest of
Erasmus was made Professor of Chemistry at Bale, the first chair that
was established in Europe. It was here while seated in his chair, that
with arrogant impudence he burnt with great solemnity the writings of
Galen and Avicenna, saying that “if God would not impart the secrets of
physic, it was not only allowable, but was justifiable, to consult the
devil”.
He had the greatest contempt for his fellow physicians, and said he had
more knowledge in the very down on his bald pate than was in all their
writings, and in the buckles of his shoes there was more learning than
in Galen and Avicenna, and in his beard more experience than all their
universities. The man was a mass of conceit and egotism, yet feared and
liked by the people for his boldness.
Latterly he took to drinking heavily, seldom taking off his clothes for
many nights together. At length he broke down, and the end came at
the age of forty-eight, when this singular man died after a few hours’
illness at Saltzburg, in Austria, a bottle of his boasted panacea for
all ills being found in his pocket. He believed the human body to be
composed of salt, sulphur, and mercury, and that in these “three fast
substances” health and disease consist. To give Paracelsus his due,
although empiricism and quackery were the chief elements in his career,
he exerted an undoubted influence on the medical practice of his time,
and with all his egotism did his best to advance the science and art of
medicine.
The next pioneer was Van Helmont, who flourished some hundred years
later. He was the first to notice the existence of gases, also to
use alum in uterine hæmorrhage, through which he acquired a great
reputation.
Little was known of _materia medica_ by the nations of the West from
the eighth to the tenth century. The chief cultivation of medicinal
herbs took place in the monasteries, each having its own botanical
garden, which contributed much to the progress of medicine. At this
time the knowledge of the medicinal value of herbs and roots was
much more advanced in the East, and we find that during the reign
of Almansour, in the eighth century, a large school was founded at
Bagdad, which became a refuge for scientists when exiled from Athens
and Alexandria. The works of Aristotle and Galen were translated into
Syriac, and the greatest generosity and encouragement were shown to
_savants_ who settled there. Before this the Arabs had considerable
knowledge of the use of plants in medicine, and had made some valuable
discoveries. Their physicians recommended the use of senna, tamarinds,
and cassia in place of the violent purgatives used by the Greek
physicians, and a number of new plants were introduced by Rhazes from
India, Persia, and Syria. Mesué wrote his treatise on medicine (_De
Remedica_), which, on being translated into Latin, was used as a manual
in all the schools up to the Renaissance.
Constantine was the first to introduce the most noted Arabic works
into Europe, himself a writer of no little repute. Then several Arab
travellers added to the store of knowledge; among these, Ebor-Taitor,
a native of Malaga, travelled in Asia to study plants, and eventually
became minister of the Caliph at Cairo.
Otho, of Cremona, in a poem of 1500 lines, contributed his knowledge
of plants, and John of Milan, in his _Code of the School of Salerno_,
compiled the discoveries of a century in medical botany.
Coming to the twelfth century, scientific progress was not so rapid,
yet all the investigation that was made originated in the study of
medicine. Most of the monasteries and convents besides their botanical
gardens, had collections of minerals and animals, which were carefully
watched and tended, and the monks and nuns would not only administer
to the sick of their own orders, but also to the suffering who claimed
their charity. Once lodged there, the treatment was good and wholesome,
and consisted mostly of decoctions of simples, backed up by good
kitchen medicine, quietness, and rest. One or two monks who had a
special knowledge of herbs were usually allotted to this department.
It can then hardly be wondered at, that during the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries most of the records we have of medicine are from
works by the brethren of the monasteries. An excellent collection of
recipes, comprising also a summary of plants, animals, and minerals was
compiled by Hildegarde, Abbess of Bingen, and called the _Jardin de
Santé_.
This good lady, like many other abbesses of her time, was much
interested in the art of healing. She cultivated her own medicinal
plants, and carefully noted down their properties for the use of
others, and thus left a valuable record.
In the thirteenth century an advance was made in _materia medica_ by
Gilbert and Hernicus Arviell, two Englishmen who travelled through Asia
to study plants and their uses. Simon de Cordo, called Simon of Genoa,
also took a botanising exploration into Sicily and the islands of the
Archipelago, and afterwards wrote a botanic dictionary.
Another eminent botanist of this period was Peter de Crescenzi, a man
of good birth and fortune, who was born at Bologna in 1330, and who
greatly interested himself in botany and horticulture. His great work,
which was translated into several languages, was called _Opus Rubarium
Commodorum_. Contemporary with Peter were three names we must not omit,
_viz._, Vincent de Beauvais, Albertus Magnus, and Arnaud de Villeneuve,
who professed a knowledge of alchemy, astrology, and physic. Vincent
de Beauvais was a Dominican monk, and his great work, the _Speculum
Naturale_, is saturated with the superstition of the time. In this book
he states, “the mandragora is of the same shape as the human body; the
winged dragon is capable of carrying off an ox, and devouring the same
whilst flying”. He also describes the scythion lamb, a sort of animal
plant which had roots and grew in the ground, and other fearsome
creatures, and declared that “in Scotland the fruits of certain trees,
when they fall into the water, produce the birds called black divers”.
Villeneuve wrote many treatises on plants and animals, and eventually
became teacher of medicine and botany at the University of Paris. He
was undoubtedly a man in advance of his time, and boldly declared “that
the most solemn mysteries of the Catholic faith could be explained by
the teachings of natural history and experimental physics”.
He was therefore accused by the magistrates of sorcery and magic, but
escaped through the special protection of Charles of Anjou into Italy,
where he settled for a long time.
The fourteenth century saw little advance in the medical art, but it
was enriched by one or two great works. One of these, written in Latin
by Bartholomew Glanvil, an English monk, was a kind of encyclopædia of
immense size, and was called _Liber de Proprietatibus Rerum_, and had a
great reputation for centuries afterwards.
The advent of printing about the middle of the fifteenth century
rapidly spread the knowledge of more recent discoveries throughout
Europe, and many large works on botany and herbalism, illustrated
with woodcuts, were published at Mayence and Louvain. At Venice
many of the works of the old Arab physicians, Avicenna, Mesué, and
others, were printed and eagerly purchased. The discovery of America
in 1492 heralded the introduction of numerous fresh additions to
_materia medica_, which were brought to this country by explorers and
naturalists.
In the sixteenth century, by the labours and researches of George
Agricola, a German, and Conrad Gesner, a Swiss, a considerable advance
was made in the knowledge of what was called chemical medicine and
botany. Agricola, who was the greatest mineralogist the world had then
seen, explored and spent much time in the mines of Bohemia and Saxony,
and thus obtained a practical knowledge of the then known methods of
the working of metals. His contemporary, Conrad Gesner, born at Zurich
in 1516, has been called the originator of scientific botany, as he was
the first to discover a method of recognising each genus and kind by
examining the organs of fructification, and in this way discovered 1800
new varieties. A famous physic garden was planted in Paris in the early
part of the seventeenth century by Jacques Gohory, an enthusiastic
pharmacist, and this garden eventually became part of the _Jardin des
Plantes_. In connection with this garden a school of medicine was
founded, the first occupant of the chair of chemistry being William
Davisson, a Scotchman, and predecessor to Lefebvre, who afterwards
became a chemist at St. James’s.
The practice of the teachers of this time was to dictate to their
students, and in order to save themselves the trouble of dictating
and the students the trouble of writing, which was a very laborious
matter in those days, the lecturer would write a book. Thus Jean Beguin
wrote a chemical text-book in 1612, which passed through no fewer than
fifty-three editions.
We must not omit to mention two other pioneers of this period, who
made important discoveries in botany; they were Matthias of Lille,
who eventually settled in England, and Andrew Cesalpin, professor of
botany at Pisa. The former first formulated the true principles of
classification of plants and arrangement into families, such as the
orchids, palms, and mosses; and to the latter belongs the honour of
having devised the first system of botany. Having compared the process
of generation in animals to the seeds of plants, he distinguished male
plants by their stamens, and those which yielded seed as female.
The next era is marked by the publication of the first pharmacopœia
at Nuremberg in 1542. “For this act,” says Paris, “we are indebted
to Valerius Cordus, a young student, who, during a transient visit at
that place, accidentally produced a collection of medical receipts
which he had selected from the works of the past esteemed writers, and
with which the physicians of Nuremberg were so highly pleased that
they urged him to print it for the benefit of the apothecaries, and
obtained the sanction of the Senate to the undertaking.” To this slight
circumstance we owe the institution of pharmacopœias. The first
_London Pharmacopœia_ was, however, not published until the reign
of James I., in 1618, of which there were twelve subsequent editions,
the last being in 1841. The _Dublin Pharmacopœia_ first appeared
in 1807, the last edition being published in 1850. Until the Medical
Act passed in 1858, the right of publishing the _Pharmacopœia_ for
England, Scotland, and Ireland was vested in the College of Physicians
of London, Edinburgh, and Ireland respectively; and as these books
contained several preparations similar in name and different in
strength, such obvious danger arose for travellers that the _British
Pharmacopœia_, published in 1864, became, by Act of Parliament, the
standard for Great Britain and Ireland.
The Chelsea Physic Garden is the oldest public botanical garden in
Great Britain, but there were private ones of older date, such as that
of Gerard, the author of _The Herbal_, which was situated in Holborn,
and that of Tradescant, the famous Dutch traveller, gardener to
James I., who had an extensive garden of exotic plants in Lambeth.
The founders of the Chelsea Garden were the members of the Society of
Apothecaries, who have maintained it for over two centuries entirely
for scientific purposes, as was stipulated in the deed of gift,
executed by Sir Hans Sloane, in which the growing or cultivation of
plants for purely pharmaceutical purposes, or for trade, was strictly
forbidden. The origin of this so-called Physic Garden was somewhat
amusing, and anything but scientific. The ground was first fixed upon
as an eligible spot for building a boathouse for the state barge of
the Apothecaries’ Company. This ground was walled in about 1674, and
planted with trees in 1678, and herbs were grown in it for use in the
company’s laboratories, some of these plants being from time to time
exchanged for others from the University of Leyden. Sir Hans (then Dr.)
Sloane bought the estate in 1712; and, as might have been expected of
a man of his parts, a pupil of the chemist Stahl and of the botanist
Tournefort, and a friend of the great Ray, a new era of usefulness was
begun in the Chelsea Garden. In 1722 he handed over the land to the
Apothecaries’ Society, at a yearly rental of £5, and an undertaking
that fifty specimens of fifty species of distinct plants, well dried
and mounted as herbarium specimens and properly named, should be
handed over to the Royal Society each year until 2000 had been duly
delivered. In a catalogue issued in 1730, written by Miller, the head
gardener, are enumerated 499 plants, mostly medicinal, so one may judge
of the extent of the gardens at that time. Exotics were cultivated in
hothouses in 1732, and in 1736 Linnæus paid a visit to the garden.
Thomas Dover, the originator of Dover’s powder, was born in England in
the year 1660. He settled and practised medicine for a time in Bristol;
left there for a period, and returned again. He lived with, and was
contemporaneous with Sydenham. He gained much professional reputation
on the occasion of a severe epidemic of fever. This may have suggested
to him the use of ipecacuanha and opium in a compound.
In Dover’s day and time, the apothecaries were in the ascendancy, being
the medical practitioners, whilst the physicians were chiefly called in
to attend in childbirth and protracted illness. Indeed, it is naïvely
stated that the apothecary surgeons rode in their chaises, while the
doctors _walked_, and that the former were generally first consulted
when the choice of a family physician was to be made. Mercury had
at this time an unrestrained use—perhaps _abuse_ would be a better
word,—and much severe public stricture was made upon the fact. Crude
quicksilver was administered, and Dover was a warm advocate of its
use—in fact, he was called the _quicksilver doctor_. One Captain
Henry Coit, a patient of Dover’s, took an ounce and a quarter of crude
mercury daily, until he had used more than two pounds weight! Dover
professed to believe that mercury freed the patient from all vermicular
diseases, opened all obstructions, and made a pure balsam of the blood.
The doctors and apothecaries were at loggerheads. Dover said the best
way to affront the latter was to order too little physic—each patient
being deemed to be worth a certain sum to the dispenser.
In 1708 Dover joined the company of a group of Bristol merchants
in a scheme to fit out two vessels for privateering in the South
Seas. Dover, it seems, went as captain, and the voyage was eminently
successful in booty. They took in various reprisals from the
Spaniards—the hoards of treasure and gold which they in turn had
obtained from the native Indians—the principle of _might_ applied to
_right_. The expedition returned to Britain enriched with spoil, the
treasure amounting to £170,000 sterling. It was during this memorable
voyage that Dover, landing with some of his crew on the island of Juan
Fernandez, discovered the existence of Alexander Selkirk—Robinson
Crusoe—in his dreary solitude on this desert shore.
CHAPTER XIV.
AMULETS, TALISMANS AND CHARMS.
From very remote times a somewhat curious link has existed between the
art of healing and religion, and those who proposed the cure of the
body or the soul have ever sought to work upon that uncanny chord we
call superstition, which pervades more or less all classes of mankind.
The influence of superstition manifested itself in many ways, and
among others the belief in amulets, talismans and charms survives even
to-day. Two thousand years ago they were dispensed by the priests, and
afterwards by those who practised medicine, alchemy, and astrology,
during the middle ages, when medical practice was mainly composed of a
mixture of white magic, witchcraft, and religion.
An amulet consisted of an object in wood, stone, or metal, carved or
painted; also certain words or signs, written or spoken, which were
supposed to possess some mysterious virtue or hidden property, and
avert disease and death from the wearer. The word means something
that is suspended from the neck, or bound round a part of the body,
to strengthen it; to drive off disease or poison, bringing about
certain results of a peculiar character, and invested with supernatural
virtues. Portions of animals and herbs were also used for this purpose.
Talismans were objects, usually of metal or one of the precious stones,
worn about the person to ward off danger, ill-luck, or the evil eye, as
well as for their supposed medicinal virtues.
By their means it was thought possible to hold commune with the world
of spirits. Their origin is lost in antiquity, but they were used by
the Assyrians, Egyptians, Persians, and Jews hundreds of years before
the Christian era, and afterwards by the Greeks and Romans. It is
probable the Jews learned the use of amulets from the Egyptians at
the time of the captivity, by whom they were very generally worn.
Egyptian amulets were mostly composed of stone or porcelain objects,
fashioned in various forms. Some were emblematic of deities, such as
the nilometer, which was a symbol of Osiris, while others represented
human heads or the figures of animals. Many were engraved with zodiacal
symbols which had special significance. The crab was worn to ward off
fevers, the bull to guard against the evil-doing of others, fishes
kept away gout and kindred diseases, and the scorpion rendered the
wearer invulnerable to the bites or stings of venomous reptiles. It was
customary with the Egyptians to attach certain amulets to the bodies
of the dead to protect them from evil spirits, and they are frequently
found suspended from the necks of mummies. Amulets are worn in Egypt
to-day, and also in most Mohammedan countries. They usually take the
form of a small strip of parchment, on which is written some cabalistic
sign or a few lines from the Koran, the whole being enclosed in a small
leather or tin case, and hung around the neck. Amulets were also known
and much used by the early Greeks. Pliny mentions their virtue, while
Galen, Dioscorides, Cardamus, and other ancient writers on medicine,
speak of their value in warding off disease. Galen tells us that the
Egyptian king, Nechepsus, who lived 630 years B.C., wore a green
jasper cut into the form of a dragon, surrounded with rays, which,
applied externally to the region of the digestive organs, was said to
wonderfully strengthen that part. The Romans were also great believers
in the power of the amulet, and in the declining era of the great
empire the custom of wearing them became so general that the Emperor
Caracalla made a public edict, that no man should wear an amulet about
his person, under heavy penalties.
Amulets have been known to that curious nation the Chinese from the
earliest period of their history, and are still worn by them. They are
sold by the priests in the form of small pieces of metal, chains, or
characters written on a piece of skin or parchment, and worn as a charm
against accident, sickness, etc.
To enumerate all the extraordinary objects used as amulets in early
times, and the wonderful virtues attached to them, would fill a volume,
so we must be content to mention a few of the most curious.
The amulets and talismans probably held in the highest esteem were
those in the form of precious stones. They were supposed to be
influenced in some mysterious way by the planets, and to be the abode
of spirits. Five or six hundred years ago a lady would present her
knight with a talisman on his departure on some adventurous or warlike
expedition; this often took the form of a jewel set in the hilt of his
sword. The diamond was thus supposed to endow the wearer with courage,
and make him more fearless than careful. A jacinth had the reputation
of being able to strengthen the heart, and was often worn close to
the region of that organ, fashioned into the form of some animal or
saint. The sapphire was supposed to possess a Divine gift of sharpening
the intellect, and was also worn as a preventive against the bites of
venomous animals. A wearer of this stone was also said to have the
power of resisting “necromantick apparitions”. The emerald was worn
in a ring to prevent giddiness and strengthen the memory. Garcious
quaintly states: “It takes away vain and foolish fears as of devils
and hobgoblins, folly and anger, and causeth good conditions; if it do
so being worn about one, reason will tell him, that being beaten into
powder and taken inwardly it will do much more”. Great faith was placed
in the ruby as an amulet to ward off plagues and pestilences. Cardamus
says: “It has the power of making the wearer cheerful, and banishing
idle and foolish thoughts”. The amethyst was supposed to promote
temperance and sobriety, and cause the wearer to abstain from strong
drinks and from taking too much sleep. By other writers it is also
said to quicken the wit and repel vapours from the head—altogether
a very useful kind of amulet to have about. The chrysolite was said
to ward off fevers; while the onyx, worn round the neck, was supposed
to prevent an attack of epilepsy. The opal was believed to cure weak
eyes, and the topaz to cure inflammation and keep the wearer from
sleep-walking. Lapis-lazuli, worn as a jewel, was said to make the
wearer fortunate and rich, while amulets of jasper resisted fevers
and dropsy. Ancient warriors often carried an amulet composed of
bloodstone, which was supposed to stop bleeding when applied to a
wound. The old Egyptian amulets were mostly carved in stone, porcelain,
carnelian, or lapis-lazuli, etc. They were fashioned in many forms, the
most common being the heart, the symbolic eye, two fingers, disc and
horns, snakes, the tat, and the papyrus sceptre.
[Illustration: The Tat. The Heart. The Pillow. The Eye. Two Fingers.
Papyrus Sceptre.
ANCIENT EGYPTIAN AMULETS OF GOLD AND CLAY FOUND IN MUMMY CASES.]
Coming to those fashioned in metal, amulets of gold were also highly
esteemed. The precious metal was supposed to strengthen the heart,
drive away melancholy, fever, and other infirmities. Silver was
attributed with the possession of similar properties, but in a lesser
degree. Zoroaster and Paracelsus advocated the use of metallic amulets.
Special value was attached to those made from a peculiar metal called
_electron_, which was composed of seven metals fused together in fixed
proportions. Amulet rings were always worn on the third finger, which
was called the medicine-finger by alchemists, through which they
believed the heart was most susceptible to influence. Written amulets
usually consisted of some cabalistic character, or a few words written
on a small piece of skin or parchment. This was either enclosed in
a tiny case and suspended from the neck, or bound against the body.
It was not uncommon for the physician of the fifteenth century to
write his prescription in mysterious characters, and hang it round
the neck of the patient, or bind it over the part nearest the seat
of the complaint. Of written amulets perhaps the most famous formula
was Abracadabra, which, when written on a piece of parchment in the
following manner, was said to protect the wearer from most diseases:—
A B R A C A D A B R A
A B R A C A D A B R
A B R A C A D A B
A B R A C A D A
A B R A C A D
A B R A C A
A B R A C
A B R A
A B R
A B
A
Another common formula was the sign A II, which, inscribed on
parchment, was worn round the neck to prevent sore eyes. Others were
composed of astrological signs and certain numbers. A favourite
inscription was A B R A X A S, supposed to ward off fever and
pestilence.
The Jews used the fifth and sixth verses of the sixteenth Psalm as
an amulet to discover hidden thieves, it being supposed that on
repeating these words they would be compelled to come forth from their
hiding-places. The modern burglar requires an amulet of a somewhat
stronger nature in these prosaic days. A curious charm for warts,
used some 400 years ago, was to write on seven little wafers the
following words: Maximanus, Walchus, Johannes, Martinianus, Dionysius,
Constantius, Serapion, and sing a prescribed incantation first into
one ear, then into the other, and then above the patient’s poll, after
which a virgin was to hang the incantation around the patient’s neck,
when the warts would disappear. Another amulet to charm away warts was
an iron ring made from the chain of a gibbet. The following incantation
was supposed to stop bleeding from the nose: Make the sign of the Cross
thrice, repeat the Lord’s Prayer thrice; then say the _Ave Maria_, and
repeat the words Max, Hackx, Lyacx, Iseus, Christus. Among the many
strange and curious articles worn as amulets the old philosophers seem
to have had the greatest veneration for certain mysterious stones, such
as bezoar, the origin of which in most cases is exceedingly doubtful.
Dark and weird are the legends relating to the power of the toadstone,
that amulet so highly prized by witches and astrologers. Among other
properties it was supposed to protect its owner from the bites of
venomous animals. Lemnius tells us of “a stone of the bigness of a
bean, to be found in the gizzard of an old cock, which makes him that
wears it beloved, constant, bold, and valiant in fighting and sports”.
Such amulets brought big prices, and were eagerly sought after. The
toadstone was much esteemed as a charm against the bites of snakes and
reptiles; it also had a reputation for curing weak eyes and headache.
Orpheus believed that when this amulet was worn by a public speaker he
could always compel and hold the attention of his audience. A charm
against the evil eye consisted of a quill filled with mercury, sealed
at each end, and worn bound to the body. A small portion of the plant
called St. John’s Wort was carried about the person as a preventive
from harm by witches or devils. A toad, well dried in the sun, put into
a bag and hung round the neck, low enough to touch the region of the
heart, was used to allay hæmorrhage; and a very well salted herring
split open and applied to the soles of the feet was a noted remedy for
ague. An emerald suspended from the neck was worn as an amulet to ward
off the same complaint. _Aqua divina_, a famous remedy, supposed to
possess “magnetick power,” was prepared by macerating a human body in
water and distilling it twice or thrice. Human bones, various parts
of a mummy, and other equally gruesome objects, were supposed to be
endowed with some mysterious power to ward off accident, disease, and
death. In some parts of the country, especially in Cornwall, eel skins
were and are still used, tied round the legs to prevent cramp; and
two sticks laid crosswise on the bedroom floor were supposed to charm
away the same painful complaint. It is still a common custom in other
country districts to pass a weakly child through the split branch of a
tree in order to make it grow stronger; and a certain class have the
strongest belief in a charm of a romantic nature that is worked with
the gum called dragon’s blood.
A famous amulet, the remarkable history of which inspired Sir Walter
Scott to write _The Talisman_, was “The Lee Penny,” which we believe is
still in existence, and held in veneration in some parts of Scotland.
The singular history attached to this coin was as follows: Sir Simon
Lockhart, of Lee and Cartland, was a well-known knight in the time of
Robert the Bruce and his son David. He was one of the chief Scottish
knights who accompanied Lord Douglas on his expedition to the Holy
Land with the heart of King Robert Bruce, and was there engaged in the
war with the Saracens. Tradition goes on to state that he captured in
battle an emir of great rank and wealth, and fixed a price at which
he should be ransomed. The aged mother of the prisoner came to the
Christian camp to redeem her son, and on pulling out a large purse
which contained the ransom, a peculiar pebble inserted in a coin fell
to the ground. The old woman, it is said, showed such haste and anxiety
to recover it, that it gave the Scottish knight a high idea of its
value—on which he refused to set the emir at liberty till the amulet
was added to the ransom. This the woman consented to do, and also
explained to Sir Simon the use of the talisman, which was of great
repute. When dipped in water the liquid assumed the properties of a
styptic and a febrifuge, etc. Sir Simon Lockhart, after much experience
of its value, brought it home, and left it to his heirs, and it is
known as the “Lee penny” from the name of his native place. The coin
is said to be of the early Byzantine period. The most remarkable part
of its history, as stated in the introduction to _The Talisman_, was,
that it escaped condemnation in an extraordinary manner when the Church
of Scotland impeached many other cures of the kind which savoured of
the miraculous, as occasioned by sorcery, and censured the appeal to
them; “excepting only that to the amulet called the ‘Lee penny,’ to
which it had pleased God to annex certain healing virtues which the
Church did not presume to condemn”. It still exists, and its powers are
sometimes yet resorted to.
For epilepsy, a curious custom was to take the sick man by the hand and
whisper softly in his ear, “I conjure thee by the sun and moon, and by
the Gospel of the day delivered by God to Hubert, Giles, Cornelius, and
John, that thou rise and fall no more”.
When picking simples for burns the following charm was repeated:—
“Hail to the holy herb,
Growing on the ground,
All in the Mount Calvary,
First wert thou found.
Thou art good for many a sore,
And heal’st many a wound;
In the name of Sweet Jesus,
I take thee from the ground.”
To produce sleep, the following is recommended to be repeated:—
“In nomine Patris up and down,
Et filii et spiritus sancte upon my crown,
Dear Christ upon my breast,
Sweet Lady, send me eternal rest”.
The following was supposed to stop the flux:—
“In the blood of Adam death was taken,
In the blood of Christ it was all to slaken,
And by the same blood I do thee charge
That thou do run no longer at large”.
Singular virtues were supposed to be attached to a “dead man’s hand”.
In a Roman Catholic chapel in Ashton-in-Mackerfield, there is preserved
with great care in a white silk bag, a hand, which is still held in
veneration, and wonderful cures are said to have been wrought by this
ghastly relic.
The hand is said to have been that of one Father Edmund Arrowsmith, who
was executed at Lancaster in 1628, for apparently no greater offence
than that of being true to his faith. After his execution one of his
friends cut off his right hand, which was preserved for many years at
Bryn Hall, in Lancashire, and afterwards removed to Ashton.
This “Holy hand” was formerly held in great esteem in Lancashire, and
pilgrims came from all parts of the country to receive its touch,
which was reputed to cure various diseases. It was believed to remove
tumours when rubbed over the part, and restore health to the paralysed.
There is a curious superstition still prevalent in some parts of
Lancashire, that when cat’s hair gets into the stomach it causes
sickness, which may be cured by eating a piece of egg-shell once a day.
Consumption was believed by the ignorant to be produced by drinking
water which had been boiled too long. The cure was to dig a hole in
the earth, lie in it face downwards, and breathe into the soil. This
extraordinary remedy was also largely used for coughs, asthma, and
those suffering from hysteria.
A curious charm is still practised in Devonshire as a cure for the
complaint called a white swelling or white leg. Bandages are used
to tie round the afflicted limb, over which the following charm is
repeated nine times, and each time followed by the Lord’s Prayer:—
“As Christ was walking, He saw the Virgin Mary sitting on a cold
marble stone. He said unto her, ‘If it is a white ill thing, or a red
ill thing, or a black ill thing, or a sticking, crackling, pricking,
stabbing, bone ill thing, or a sore ill thing, or a swelling ill thing,
or a rotten ill thing, or a cold creeping ill thing, or a smarting ill
thing, let it fall from thee to the earth in My name, and the name of
the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.’”
This comprehensive charm would seem to cover a multitude of ills indeed.
The following charms are taken from a MS. of the year 1475:—
_A Charme to Staunch Blood._
“Jesus, that was in Bethlehem born, and baptyzed was in the flumen
Jordane, as stente the water at hys comyng, so stente the blood of thys
man N, thy serwaunt, throw the virtu of thy holy name + Jesu + and of
thy Cosyn swete Sent Jon. And sey thys Charme fyve tymes with fyve
Pater nostirs, in the worshep of the fyve woundys.”
_For Fever._
“Wryt thys wordys on a lorell lef + Ysmael + Ysmael + adjuro vos per
angelum ut soporetetur iste Homo N. and ley thys lef under hys head
that he wote not thereof, and let hym ete Letuse oft and drynk Ip’e
seed small grounden in a morter, and temper yt with ale.”
It is said that the inhabitants of Colonsay had an ancient custom of
fanning the face of the sick with the leaves of the Bible.
Many and varied are the charms for curing warts. “For warts,” says
Sir Thomas Brown, “we rub our hands before the moon and commit any
maculated part to the touch of the dead.” Grose tells us to “steal a
piece of beef from a butcher’s shop and rub your warts with it; then
throw it down the ‘necessary house,’ or bury it; and as the beef rots
your warts will decay”.
The leaf of the castor-oil plant worn round the neck was believed to
ward away devils, because the leaf is like an open hand.
In Bale’s _Interlude_ the following charms are given:—
“For the coughe take Judas Eare
With the parynge of a Peare,
And drynke them without feare
If ye will have remedy:
Thre syppes are for the hyckocke,
And six more for the chyckocke;
Thus my pretty pyckocke
Recover by and by.
If ye cannot slepe but slumber,
Geve Otes unto Saynt Uncumber,
And Beanes in a certen number
Unto Saynt Blase and Saynt Blythe.
Give Onyons to Saynt Cutlake
And Garlycke to Saynt Cyoyake,
If ye wyll spurne the heade ake.
Ye shall have them at Quene hyth.”
Amulet rings were made from various metals, and worn to ward off
disease and misfortune.
In Berkshire there is a popular superstition that a ring made from a
piece of silver collected at the communion is a cure for convulsions
and fits.
Rings were also made from coffin-nails dug out of a grave, and
coffin-hinges, and used to cure cramp. Boorde, in his _Introduction to
Knowledge_ (1542), says: “The kynges of Englande doth halowe every yere
Crampe Rynges, ye which Rynges worne on one’s Fynger doth helpe them
whych hath the crampe”.
One of the favourite charms of the early Britons was the _anguineum_,
or snake’s egg, which was supposed to be produced from the saliva of
serpents, and besides its healing properties it got the credit of being
able to float against the current.
Many of the ancient writers believed that all charms were impotent
without the repetition of certain words. Thus the following words
are recommended by Barrett to be repeated as a charm against flux of
blood:—
“In the blood of Adam arose death,
In the blood of Christ death is extinguished.
In the name of Christ I command thee, O blood,
That thou stop fluxing.”
A piece of clean new vellum bearing the letters
יהרה
was considered a powerful amulet against ague.
Pliny makes several allusions to the poison of toads, and Juvenal tells
us of the lady
“Who squeezed a toad into her husband’s wine”.
The life of James VI. of Scotland was once attempted by a woman named
Agnes Sampson, who confessed on her trial, that in order to compass
the king’s death, she had hung up a black toad for nine days and
collected the juice that fell from it. The toadstone was greatly valued
as an amulet against a great variety of diseases. It was often set in
valuable rings, which were handed down from generation to generation.
Some are said to have borne a figure resembling a toad on their
surface. They varied in colour, some being dark-grey, and others of a
brownish fawn colour. These stones were supposed to grow only in very
old toads, and to be extracted when they were dying. In reality, they
were manufactured of fused borax and many other materials.
The toadstone was supposed to be specially powerful against witchcraft
and poison. When placed in proximity to the latter, or applied to
one bewitched, the stone was believed to sweat or change colour. It
was sometimes given internally as a remedy for fever or the bites of
reptiles. The toad itself was also credited with medicinal virtues,
and was given in plague and small-pox. Aubrey gives a process for
preparing the toad for internal use, in which “twenty great fatt toads
are directed to be stewed slowly, while alive, in a pipkin on the fire.
The calcined remains are again heated, and then finely powdered.” Sir
Kenhelm Digby speaks of their virtues, and recommends toads for quinsy,
bleeding at the nose, and, above all, a most valuable remedy in king’s
evil and scrofula. Within the last fifty years “toad doctors” visited
most country fairs, often selling bags containing the legs torn from
the body of a living toad for six or seven shillings each.
Among other curious charms used by the Romans to prolong life,
especially among the aged, was the singular practice of being breathed
upon by young girls. This custom is frequently mentioned by ancient
writers, and was believed to be efficacious also in prolonging life
in certain diseases. A reference to this singular charm is recorded
by Kohansen in an inscription which was discovered at Rome, cut in a
marble tablet, and which ran as follows:—
“TO ÆSCULAPIUS AND HEALTH,
this is erected by
L. CLODIUS HERMIPPUS,
who by the breath of young girls lived 115 years and 5
days
at which physicians were no little surprised.
------
Successive generations lead such a life.”
------
In later times amulets in civilised countries merged into the wearing
of images of saints, or consecrated objects, and the use of scapularies
by Roman Catholics at the present time. There is little doubt that
the custom of wearing precious stones in rings, and the charms worn
as pendants to watch chains, originated in the amulet and talisman.
Who can say that the belief in such charms has even yet died out? How
many people are there at the present day who do not carry about them
some coin, token, or object, to which they would probably be ashamed
to confess, they attach some mysterious virtue? The belief in keeping
a crooked sixpence or a broken ring is evidence of that peculiar vein
of superstition that runs through most of us, which, strange though
it may seem, the advance of science and education has not altogether
dispelled.
CHAPTER XV.
MONK PHYSICIANS—ITINERANT DOCTORS—SURGERY IN THE MIDDLE AGES.
The treatment prescribed by the monks, who were ready to cure the
body as well as the soul, consisted mainly of holy water, prayer, the
touching of relics, and a number of decoctions of herbs, the properties
of which they were acquainted with. Many of these physician monks
wandered about the country devoting themselves to the wants of the sick.
During the eleventh century hospitals began to spring up in various
parts of the country and over Europe. They seem to have originated
at the time of the crusades. Lacroix says: “The Johannists, and
the brotherhoods of St. Mary and St. Lazarus devoted themselves to
missions of charity in the East; in France, there were the brothers
of St. Antony and of the Holy Ghost; and throughout the world the
heroic chevaliers of St. John of Jerusalem or of the Templars, whose
countless establishments combined the triple character of conventual
church, almshouse, and fortress, and who, attired in a dress both
military and monastic, wore a mantle similar to that seen in the
statues of Æsculapius, as a sign of the double mission—beneficent and
warlike—which they had sworn to fulfil”.
Each of these orders had a special form of treatment, and took charge
of specific diseases. Thus, the Templars paid special attention to
those pilgrim soldiers and travellers particularly troubled with
ophthalmia, scurvy, or those suffering from wounds. The Johannists
professed the cure of epidemical disease and pestilence. The order
of St. Antony looked after those stricken with dysenteries and those
complaints known as St. Anthony’s fire, while the Lazarists treated
leprosy, small-pox, and pustular fevers. The first school of nurses
of which we have record, is one organised by Hildegarde, Abbess of
Rupertsberg, who died 1180. These nuns gave great assistance in
the hospitals. Thus the monks about the twelfth century tended the
bodies as well as the souls, and even accompanied armies on military
expeditions in that capacity.
In the thirteenth century faculties were established at Montpellier,
Salerno, and Paris, by the order of papal bulls, to grant degrees
in medicine. In order to obtain the title of master physician, the
candidate had first to become a clerk, then pass an examination before
masters or doctors selected from the staff of the college by the Bishop
of Maguelonne.
The barbers at this time came to occupy an important position in
medicine, and were promoted to the rank of subordinate surgeons,
chiefly for blood-letting and minor accidents.
In the fourteenth century medicine had rapidly progressed in Europe,
and the celebrated physician and surgeon Lanfranc founded the St.
Cosmo College at Paris, the examinations of which all surgeons were
obliged to pass. A decree was also passed by the King of France in 1352
prohibiting any one who was not an apothecary, student, or mendicant
monk from practising medicine. The king, we find, also exempted
the master barbers from doing duty as watchmen, as “the barbers
being nearly all of them in the habit of practising surgery, great
inconvenience might arise if they were absent from their houses when
sent for during the night”.
In France, the little barbers, as they were called, travelled about
on foot from village to village with a bag containing their drugs
and remedies, while the great barbers, or sworn surgeons, astride
their hacks with tinkling bells to announce their approach, wore long
robes trimmed with fur, and other rich apparel. They were usually
accompanied by an assistant and several servants, who carried their
cases of instruments, which always included scissors, nippers, a probe
or _éprouvette_, razors, lances, and needles. He also carried five
kinds of ointments, _viz._, basilicon, apostles’ ointment, the white
ointment, yellow ointment, and the dialtœa ointment for subduing
local pain.
Guy de Chauliac, who was physician to three successive popes, stated
“he never went out on his visits without taking several clysters and
plain remedies, besides gathering herbs in the field, so as to treat
diseases in a proper manner”.
Even at that early time the credulity of the public became imposed upon
by quacks, and Lacroix tells us of an English surgeon, one Goddesden,
who had two sorts of prescriptions, one for the rich and another for
the poor; he sold at a high price to the barbers a so-called panacea,
which the latter sold at a large profit, and this was simply a mixture
of frogs pounded in a mortar. In one of his books there is a short
chapter on _disagreeable_ diseases, as he terms them, “which work their
own cure, and bring no grist to the doctor’s mill”.
In the fifteenth century the practice of medicine became more and
more influenced and dominated by the occult sciences, and especially
astrology. All mankind was ruled by the stars, and the cause of
various diseases was attributed to the conjunction of certain planets.
“They believed the blood rose during the daytime towards the sun, and
descended into the lower extremities at night; that at the third hour
the bile subsided, so that its acid properties might not be mixed with
the course of the blood; and that at the second hour the atrabilis,
and in the evening the phlegm, subsided.” Such illusions and erroneous
beliefs stopped the progress of science, and threatened to turn a
noble art into mere charlatanry. In this country the surgeons mostly
practised as apothecaries; and we are told that when Henry V. invaded
France in 1415, the only surgeon he had in his camp was one Thomas
Morstede, who was with difficulty induced to accompany the army,
bringing with him twelve assistants.
The sixteenth century saw an effort to throw off some of these errors
which had grown round the art. The invention of printing helped largely
in disseminating knowledge throughout Europe, and the followers of
medicine assumed a higher position.
[Illustration: AN APOTHECARY’S SHOP. FIFTEENTH CENTURY.]
Towards the end of the fifteenth century Tachenius wrote: “There
is no new thing under the sun whatsoever, therefore the followers
of Hippocrates have handed out, and as it were midwifed into the
world, the same was from the beginning though our eyes were not so
clear-sighted as to discern it”. To which Stephen Pasquier replied in
the following rhyme:—
“Some Paracelse of novelty implead,
For which, judged crime, he erst was banished,
So Hippocrates, Chrysippus, and at Rome
Asclepiade, too, were new. They’d all one doom.
They who condemn new things condemn the old,
Or else do both misjudge and are o’er bold.”
During the crusades the surgeons naturally acquired a very large
experience in the treatment of wounds—incised, lacerated, and
contused. Baldwin was severely wounded before Jerusalem, having
received a spear-thrust “through the thigh and the loins”. He fell
fainting from his horse, but the most skilful leeches were summoned,
“by whose art and skill the king and valiant athlete was enabled to
recover from this deadly wound”. Baldwin was also wounded in the foot
before Antioch, and the surgical talent available was baffled by the
injury to such a degree that it was proposed to kill a Saracen after
wounding him in the same part, so as to learn the proper course to
pursue. Baldwin, however, refused to allow this crude attempt at
experimental surgery to be made. There seem to be no medical records of
the second crusade. In the third, the French king, Philippe Auguste,
and our own Cœur de Lion suffered grievously from a disease, the
symptomatology of which included extensive exfoliation of the skin,
shedding of the nails, and loss of the hair. The disease is called
_Arnoldia_ by the chroniclers, and is variously conjectured to have
been leprosy or syphilis. It could hardly have been leprosy, for both
the royal sufferers recovered, Cœur de Lion being killed eight years
later at the siege of Chalus, and Philippe Auguste dying of quartan
ague twenty-four years after Richard. Of the fourth crusade we have no
medical details. In the fifth, St. Louis of France was accompanied by
his private physician Dudon and other leeches; among them was a lady
doctor or _phisicienne_ named Hernandis, who probably attended the
queen in her confinement, which took place at Damietta. The expedition
suffered terribly from scurvy, typhus, and other pestilences. The
part played by water in the diffusion of disease would seem to have
been recognised, though the methods of water examination would hardly
satisfy a modern chemist. A piece of white linen was dipped in the
water to be tested, and then dried; if there were any stains on the
linen the water was condemned, but if not it was pronounced pure.
The addition of four crushed almonds or beans was believed to make
the water of the Nile safe for drinking. The method of disinfection
adopted for the king’s tent was to fumigate it with a mixture of amber,
chick peas, or lupine, which were macerated in wine, and then placed
on live charcoal. In the sixth crusade, which took place twenty-two
years later, vast numbers, including St. Louis himself, fell victims to
ignorance of the elements of sanitation.
CHAPTER XVI.
PLANT LORE, DRUG CHARMS, AND FOLK MEDICINE.
A curious survival of the age of superstition and romance attaches to
the red resin known as dragon’s blood, and is still largely practised
by a certain class of uneducated women in many parts of the country.
The resin is the product of the _Pterocarpus Indicus_ growing in the
East Indies, and now chiefly used as a colouring agent in varnishes and
stains, etc. It was formerly employed in medicine for its astringent
properties, but has now entirely gone out of use for that purpose.[4]
[4] The Egyptian magical texts show that hair, feathers, the
serpent’s skin, and “_the blood of the mystic eye_,” were used
as charms of protecting or destroying power. This very probably
denotes what is known as the charm of dragon’s blood, which is
still employed as a potent love charm or philtre, the blood
being now typified by the red resin of this name.
The secret of its use as a charm is shrouded in some mystery, and
those who use it are very reticent in giving particulars; but it has
been gathered, that several charms of a romantic nature are worked
with this otherwise very commonplace article of commerce. The most
common of these seems to be practised by young girls who are jealous of
their lovers and seek to win back their affection. A small quantity of
dragon’s blood is procured, wrapped in paper, and thrown on the fire
whilst the following couplet or incantation is repeated:—
“May he no pleasure or profit see,
Till he comes back again to me”.
Another method much believed in by women of a certain class, and
used by them to attract the opposite sex, is to mix dragon’s blood,
quicksilver, saltpetre, and sulphur, and throw them on the fire,
repeating a similar incantation.
A chemist in the north of England, giving his experience on the sale
of dragon’s blood, says: “I have had great difficulty in finding out
for what purpose it was used. It was not for medicine, but for a kind
of witchcraft. The women burn it upon a bright fire, while wishing
for their affection to be returned by some one of the opposite sex;
also those who have quarrelled with their husbands and desire to be
friends again; girls who have fallen out with their young men, and
want to win them back; as well as young women wanting sweethearts. A
working man recently came to me for a small quantity, and I inquired
for what purpose it was required. He was very reluctant to mention
anything about it, but at length said, a man had made him lose three
sovereigns, and he wished, as he had been swindled out of the money, to
have his revenge, and make him suffer for it. He was going to turn the
dragon’s blood on a clear fire, and he believed that the ill wishes of
the person thus burning it would have a dire effect on the individual
thought of.”
Another charm said to be worked with this drug, in which an inverted
teacup plays a prominent part, has reference to the sex of expected
offspring.
Altogether, considerable romantic properties seem to be associated with
this resin, but there seems to be no authentic record of the same,
the only probable explanation being, that it was used and sold, like
other innocent articles, by those who were supposed to have dealings
in the black art, for working charms, which have thus been handed
down from mediæval times. Coles states: “The early Greeks called
dragon’s blood _Cinnabaris_, not knowing whether it was of vegetable
or mineral origin; and that Pliny, Solinus, and Monardus have set it
down for truth that it was the blood of a dragon or serpent, crushed
to death by the weight of the dying elephant falling upon him; but he
thinks it was certainly so called from the bloody colour that it is
of, being nothing else but a mere gum”. It was used medicinally as an
emmenagogue, and in the arts 300 years ago by goldsmiths and painters
in glass, by the former as a base for enamel to set a foil under
precious stones to give them greater lustre, and the latter by fire, to
strike a crimson colour into glass for stained windows.
That a belief in charms and witchcraft is still fostered by ignorant
people in some parts of the country, is manifest from cases reported
in the newspapers from time to time. Two practitioners of the occult
sciences were haled before the magistrates but recently. One, an old
crone, who confessed to using dragon’s blood in working her love
charms, was rewarded with seven days with hard labour.
The other, which came to light in Cornwall, was a middle-aged
individual who practised as a wizard. His treatment consisted of
writing an amulet to be worn near the body. Money was then required to
remove the spell from the bewitched patient to some one else. To this
victim was to be lent neither “cock, pin, or pan,” and by the aid of
the planets the patient would be cured. But these are hard times truly
for the wizard and magician, and this professor was rewarded with
seven months’ incarceration in one of her Majesty’s gaols.
Singular superstitious properties are attributed to certain plants. The
walnut was formerly employed in medicine as an application to wounds
and an antidote to poisons; and the following old riddle, says William
Coles in 1657, “almost every one knows”:—
“As high as a house,
As little as a mouse,
As round as a ball,
As bitter as gall,
As white as milk,
As soft as silk”.
There is an old tradition that the more the branches are beaten, the
more prolific the fruit will be. There is a fable in Æsop of a woman
who asked the walnut tree growing by the wayside, which was pelted at
with stones and sticks by them that passed by, why it was so foolish
as to bring forth fruit seeing that it was so beaten for its pains, to
which the tree rehearsed these two proverbial verses:—
“Nux, Asinus, Mulier, Simili suret lege legati,
Haes tria nil recte faciunt si verbera cessent”.
“The English whereof,” the chronicler quaintly continues, “I could
tell you, but that I fear the women of this preposterous age would
be angry.” True it is that this tree, the more it is beaten the more
nuts it bears. The walnut was one of the chief ingredients in the
celebrated antidote against poison which was attributed to the wise
king Mithridates. The formula ran as follows: “Two (wall) nuttes and
two figges and twenty rewe beans, stamped together with a little suet
and eaten fasting, doth defende a man from poison and pestilence that
day”.[5]
[5] Bullen’s _Governmente of Health_. 1558.
Sage was much esteemed by the housewife for simple ailments, and its
properties are embodied in the following lines, which are of great
antiquity:—
“Sage helpes the nerves, and by its powerfull might
Palsies and Feavers, sharp it puts to flight”.[6]
An old writer says, “Be sure you wash your sage for fear the Toades,
who as I conceive come to it to discharge their poyson, should leave
some of their venom upon the Leaves”.
[6] William Coles, _Adam in Eden_. 1657.
Of rue, which was largely used as a carminative, the following couplet
has been handed down:—
“Rue maketh chast, and eke preserveth sight,
Infuseth wit, and Fleas doth put to flight”.
Tradition says that a weasel, going to fight with a serpent, eateth
rue, and rubbeth herself therewith to avoid his poison. Crollius
states: “The sign of the cross upon the seed of the rue, drives away
all phantoms and evil spirits by signature”.
Henbane, the Latins called Apollinaris, either from Apollo, the
inventor of physic, or because it makes men mad like unto Apollo’s
creatures when they deliver his oracles. “It was called in English
henbane, because the seeds are hurtful to hens,” says William Coles.
“The fumes of the dryed herb when burnt, will make Hens fall from their
roosting place as though they were dead.”
Of the moonwort, a simple used to allay bleeding and applied to
fractures, an old tradition says that it can be used to open locks,
fetters, and shoes from those horses feet that go on the places where
it groweth, and of this opinion was Culpepper, who, though he railed
against superstition in others, tells a story of a troop of horse of
the Earl of Essex, which being drawn up in a body, many of them lost
their shoes upon White Downe in Devonshire, near Tiverton, because
moonwort grows upon the heaths.
The root of the _Polygonatum angulosum_, commonly called Solomon’s
Seal, has a popular reputation for removing the congealed blood from
a bruise after a blow or fall, for which property it appears to have
been used 800 years ago. Coles states: “The bruised roots soddereth
and gleweth together broken bones very speedily and strangely, the
roots being stamped and outwardly applied as a pultis. The same also
is available for outward bruises, falls, or blowes, both to dispel the
congealed blood and to take away the paines, and the black and blew
markes that abide after the hurt.” The origin of the name Solomon’s
Seal is doubtless due to the dark marks seen on cutting the root
transversely, which somewhat resemble an ancient seal engraved with
characters.
Of Solomon’s Seal, Dioscorides says that “the root pounded and laid on
fresh wounds heals and seals them up”; and it is on this account that
Gerard considers its name to have originated.
An old author quaintly remarks with respect to its properties: “The
roots of Solomon’s Seale stamped while it is fresh and greene and
applied, taketh away in one night, or two at the most, any bruse,
blacke or blew spots gotten by fals, or woman’s wilfulness in stumbling
upon their hastie husband’s fists or such like”.
The anemone was regarded by the ancients as an emblem of sickness,
and Pliny tells us that the physicians and wise men ordered every
person to gather the first anemone he saw in the year, repeating at
the same time, “I gather thee for a remedy against disease”. It was
then devoutly placed in scarlet cloth and kept undisturbed unless the
gatherer became unwell, when it was tied either around the neck or the
arm of the patient.
The trefoil, vervain, St. John’s wort, and dill were supposed to
possess the power of protecting the wearer from the evil eye or
witchcraft, hence the old rhyme called Saint Colme’s charm:—
“Trefoil, vervain, John’s wort, dill,
Hinders witches of their will;
Well is them, that well may
Fast upon St. Andrew’s Day.
Saint Bride and her brat,
Saint Colme and his cat,
Saint Michael and his spear,
Keep the home frae reif and wear.”
There is an old tradition that the white veins of the variety of
thistle known as the _Carduus Marianus_ was caused originally by a drop
of the milk of the Virgin Mary having fallen thereon, and for this
cause the plant was in early times much revered.
The house leek, with its pretty rose-coloured flowers, often seen
growing along the tops of walls and on the roofs of cottages in
country places, was formerly known by the imposing name of the thunder
plant, from the power it was supposed to possess of averting lightning
from the house or building on which it was planted. Hence the custom of
planting it on the roof.
St. John’s wort was a noted herb in magical arts, and was also esteemed
as a repellant of spectres and to drive away demons, and was called
_Fuga Dæmonum_ by the old botanists. French and German peasants still
gather the plant with great ceremony on St. John’s Day.
That charming little wild flower the scarlet pimpernell, which grows in
our fields and hedges, ranked among the simples of ancient times. It
was used as a remedy against the plague, and an antidote against the
bites and stings of venomous insects, and to stop bleeding. This latter
attribute was doubtless more mythical than correct, being founded on
what the ancients called having the signature, which meant that if
a substance was of blood colour it signified it would stop bleeding
because of the same. Hung over the door or porch of a house, it was
believed to defend the inmates from witchcraft.
Josephus states in his _History of the Jews_[7] that Solomon
discovered a plant efficacious in the cure of epilepsy, and that he
employed the aid of a charm or spell for the purpose of assisting
its virtues. The root of the herb was concealed in a ring, which was
applied to the nostrils of the demoniac; and Josephus himself declares
that he saw a Jewish priest practice the art of Solomon, with complete
success, in the presence of Vespasian, his sons, and the tribune of the
Roman army.
[7] Lib. viii., c. ii., 5.
From this art, exhibited through the medium of a ring or seal, we have
the Eastern stories which celebrate the seal of Solomon and record its
wonderful sway over the various orders of genii, who were supposed to
be the invisible tormentors or benefactors of the human race.
“Vervain,” says Coles, “was reported to be effectual against all
poisons and the venom of dangerous beasts and serpents, and also
against bewitched drinks and the like, so that it is not only used in,
but against witchcraft. That this herb is used by witches may appear
from the story of Anne Bodenham, the witch of Salisbury, who sent her
ruffian-like spirits to gather vervain and dill, which was to be given
to one whom she desired to bewitch.”
The magi of the ancient Elamites or Persians made use of vervain in
their worship or adoration of the sun, always carrying branches of it
in their hands when they approached the altar.
They also believed that by smearing the body over with the juice of
this plant, the individual could have whatever he wished, be able to
reconcile his most inveterate enemies, cure diseases, and perform other
magical operations. They always gathered the plant when neither sun nor
moon was visible, and poured honey and honeycomb on the earth as an
atonement for robbing it of this precious herb.
The Greeks called it the Sacred Herb, and used it to cleanse the
festival table of Jupiter before any great ceremony took place.
The Romans also employed it in the performance of their religious
rites, for cleansing their altars, and sprinkling holy water.
It was hung in their dwellings to ward off evil spirits.
Vervain was also one of the sacred plants of the Druids, both in Gaul
and Britain. They cut it with much ceremony in the spring of the year,
and made offerings to the earth for so doing. They also used it to
anoint the body to cure disease.
The ancient Greeks and Romans dedicated it to the god of war, and in
Scandinavia it was deemed sacred to Thor. The eye anointed with an
ointment of vervain was supposed to possess second sight. Its influence
over Venus has doubtless to do with its use as a love token. It is said
that the custom is still practised in Germany of presenting a bride
with a wreath of vervain.
Other magic wreaths worn by lovers when they wished to see their fate,
were composed of rue, crane’s bill, and willow.
The hawkweed commonly seen in our fields was regarded by the Greeks
as the emblem of quick-sightedness, believing that the hawk, a bird
renowned for its bright eye and quick sight, sharpened its visual
organs with the juice of this plant. Thus it became famed in early
medical practice as a remedy for dimness of sight, and was employed to
feed the hawks used in the old art of falconry.
In Scotland, a twig of the rowan tree or mountain ash is often sewed up
in the cow’s tail, to protect the animal from witches and warlocks.
The squill was used by the Egyptians for dropsy, under the mystic name
of the “Eye of Typhon”.
An old name for the fruit of the mandrake was “love apples”. They were
frequently used in ancient times in philtres and love potions. This
plant belongs to the natural order _Solanaceæ_, which also includes
the potato and the tobacco plant. Its leaves spring directly from
the root similarly to those of the lettuce, before it shoots into
flower, and its purple-coloured blossoms are succeeded by a yellow
berry or “apple,” which still ripens in Palestine at the time of the
wheat harvest. An overdose of the fruit is said to produce a sort
of temporary insanity. From the earliest times it has been credited
with magical virtues, and supposed to confer superhuman powers on its
possessor. The most valued specimens were those which grew under a
gibbet where a malefactor hung in chains. It was believed that on being
torn from the earth the mandrake uttered a groan, and that whosoever
heard it, dropped dead on the spot. The approved method of gathering
it was to fasten the plant to a dog’s tail, and beat the animal till
his struggles pulled the root up. The dog heard the groan and died, but
those who directed the proceedings escaped by having their ears stopped
with pitch or wax.
It was customary in Germany in mediæval times to form or carve small
figures out of the mandrake root, which were called _abrunes_. “These
images,” says Phillips, “they dressed regularly every day, consulted as
oracles, and their repute was such that they were manufactured in great
numbers and sold in cases.”
They appear to have been brought over to England in the time of
Henry VIII., and met with ready purchasers, it being pretended that
they would, with the assistance of certain mystic words, be able to
increase whatever money was placed near them. These roots were said to
have been taken from plants which had grown underneath gibbets, and had
been influenced by the flesh of the criminals hung thereon.
It is singular how the willow has ever been associated with sorrow
and sadness, even from the time the daughters of Israel hung their
harps on its branches. Among heathen nations the tree was regarded as
an evil omen, and was used as torches at funerals. “The early poets,”
says Johns, “made the willow of despairing woe,” and Shakespeare
frequently alludes to it as being used to weave garlands for jilted and
sorrow-stricken lovers. Benedick says:—
“I offered him my company to a willow tree, either to make him a
garland, as being forsaken, or to bind him up a rod as being worthy
to be whipped”.
And Bona, in _Henry VI._, remarks:—
“Tell him, in hope he’ll prove a widower shortly,
I’ll wear the willow garland for his sake”.
It seems to have been customary to wear it twined round the head as a
symbol of sorrow and mourning, but the origin of the custom is unknown.
A peculiar virtue was supposed to be attached to the eating of almonds,
which is still believed in some parts of the country, _viz._, that it
protects the eater from drunkenness.
Gerard says, “Five or six being taken fasting keepe a man from being
drunke”.
The pretty flower called the bachelor’s button, which is common in
our hedgerows, is said to possess the following peculiar property of
divination. “When carried in the pocket by men, and under the apron by
women, it will retain or lose its freshness according to the good or
bad success of the wearer’s amatory prospects.”
A considerable amount of romantic lore lingers about the bean and nut.
The bean was regarded with veneration by both the Greeks and Romans,
and on account of its sacred associations became the instrument for
voting by ballot in early times. Nuts of various kinds have long been
associated with certain love charms, and some of these old customs,
such as the cracking of nuts, still survive and are practised on All
Hallow Eve. An old charm for nut-testing runs as follows:—
“Two hazel nuts I threw into the flame,
And to each nut I gave a sweetheart’s name;
_This_ with the loudest bounce me sore amazed,
_That_ in a flame of brightest colour blazed;
As blazed the nut, so may thy passion glow,
For ’twas _thy_ nut that did so brightly glow”.
There is an old tradition that the white hawthorn was used to plait the
sacred crown of thorns, and that from that time the tree was endowed
with special virtues.
An old writer says: “He that beareth a branch on hym thereof, no
thundre, ne, no maner of tempest may dere hym; ne, in the howse that it
is ynne may none evil ghost enter”.
A great amount of superstition was associated with various ferns in
mediæval times, and fern seed was supposed to possess the wonderful
property of rendering those who swallowed it invisible.
According to the doctrine of Signatures, various shaped leaves were
used for special diseases. A liver-shaped leaf was used to cure
complaints of that organ, and a heart-shaped leaf was used for diseases
of the heart, and so on.
The black hellebore was employed by the ancients to purify their
dwellings, and they believed that its presence in their rooms drove
away evil spirits. It was also customary to bless the cattle with
hellebore to keep them free from spells wrought by the wicked.
When dug up for these purposes, certain religious ceremonies were
observed. First a circle was drawn round the plant with a sword, and
then, turning to the east, a humble prayer was made by the devotee
to Apollo and Æsculapius, for permission to dig up the root. If an
eagle approached the spot during the performance of the rites, it was
supposed to predict the certain death of the person who took up the
plant in the course of the year.
It is related by Dioscorides that Carneades, the Cyrenaic philosopher
who undertook to answer the books of Zeno, sharpened his wit and
quickened his spirit by purging his head with powdered hellebore.
The peony owes its name to Pæon, a famous physician of ancient Greece,
who is said to have cured, by the aid of this plant, the wounds which
the Greeks received during the Trojan war. It was largely used as an
amulet, and demons were supposed to fly from the spot where it was
planted. A small piece was worn round the neck to protect the wearer
from enchantment.
There is a curious tradition connected with that charming little
flower the forget-me-not. It is, that the juice, or decoction of the
plant, has the peculiar property of hardening steel, and that if edged
tools of that metal be made red hot and then quenched in the juice or
decoction, and this be repeated several times, the steel will become
so hard as to cut iron without turning the edge.
The elder had a great reputation as an amulet. An old writer states,
“if one ride with two little sticks of elder in his pockets he shall
not fret nor pant let the horse go never so hard”.
According to the _Anatomie of the Elder_ (1655), “The common people
keep as a great secret in curing wounds the leaves of the elder, which
they have gathered the last day of April, which, to disappoint the
charms of witches, they had applied to their doors and windows”.
A piece cut out between two knots was worn as an amulet against
erysipelas.
Lupton says: “Make powder of the flowers of elder gathered on Midsummer
Day, being before well dryed, and use a spoonful thereof in a good
draught of Borage water, morning and evening, first and last, for the
space of a month, and it will make you seem young a great while”.
The elder is still believed in the south of Germany to drive away evil
spi
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