CHARMS
"With the charmes that she saide, A fire down fro' the sky alight."—Gower.
"She drew a splinter from the wound, And with a charm she staunch'd the blood."—Scott.
"Thrice on my breast I spit to guard me safe From fascinating Charms."—Theocritus.
"Mennes fortunes she can tell; She can by sayenge her Ave Marye, And by other Charmes of Sorcerye, Ease men of the Toth ake by and bye Yea, and fatche the Devyll from Hell."—Bale.
"I clawed her by the backe in way of a charme,
To do me not the more good, but the less harme."—Heywood
Charms, as already noticed, are not unlike amulets in significance and similarity of power. The amulet must consist of some material substance so as to be suspended when employed, but the charm may be a word, gesture, look, or condition, as well as a material substance, and does not need to be attached to the body. The word "charm" is derived from the Latin word "carmen," signifying a verse in which the charms were sometimes written, examples of which will be given later. The medical term "carminative," a comforting medicine, really means a charm medicine, and has the same derivation.
A charm has been defined as "a form of words or letters, repeated or written, whereby strange things are pretended to be done, beyond the ordinary power of nature." It can be seen, though, that this definition is not sufficiently comprehensive.
For ages, people have had great faith in odd numbers. They have often been used as charms and for medicine. Some one says: "Some philosophers are of opinion that all things are composed of number, prefer the odd before the other, and attribute to it a great efficacy and perfection, especially in matters of physic: wherefore it is that many doctors prescribed always an odd pill, an odd draught, or drop to be taken by their patients. For the perfection thereof they allege these following numbers: as 7 Planets, 7 wonders of the World, 9 Muses, 3 Graces, God is 3 in 1, &c." Ravenscroft, in his comedy of "Mammamouchi or the Citizen Turned Gentleman," makes Trickmore as a physician say: "Let the number of his bleedings and purgations be odd, numero Deus impare gaudet" [God delights in an odd number].
Nine is the number consecrated by Buddhism; three is sacred among Brahminical and Christian people. Pythagoras held that the unit or monad is the principle and end of all. One is a good principle. Two, or the dyad, is the origin of contrasts and separation, and is an evil principle. Three, or the triad, is the image of the attributes of God. Four, or the tetrad, is the most perfect of numbers and the root of all things. It is holy by nature. Five, or the pentad, is everything; it stops the power of poisons, and is dreaded by evil spirits. Six is a fortunate number. Seven is powerful for good or evil, and is a sacred number. Eight is the first cube, so is man four-square or perfect. Nine, as the multiple of three, is sacred. Ten, or the decade, is the measure of all it contains, all the numerical relations and harmonies.[122]
Cornelius Agrippa wrote on the power of numbers, which he declares is asserted by nature herself; thus the herb called cinquefoil, or five-leafed grass, resists poison, and bans devils by virtue of the number five; one leaf of it taken in wine twice a day cures the quotidian, three the tertian, four the quartan fever.[123]
The seventh son of a seventh son was supposed to be an infallible physician as the following quotations would indicate: "The seventh son of a seventh son is born a physician; having an intuitive knowledge of the art of curing all disorders, and sometimes the faculty of performing wonderful cures by touching only." "Plusieurs croyent qu'en France, les septièmes garçons, nez de légitimes mariages, sans que la suitte des sept ait esté interrompue par la naissance d'aucune fille, peuvent aussi guérir des fièvres tierces, des fièvres quartes, at mesme des écrouelles, après avoir jeûné trois ou neuf jours avant que de toucher les malades. Mais ils font trop de fond sur le nombre septenaire, en attribuant au septième garçon, préférablement à tous autres, une puissance qu'il y a autant de raison d'attribuer au sixième ou au huitième, sur le nombre de trois, et sur celuy de neuf, pour ne pas s'engager dans la superstition. Joint que de trois que je connois de ces septième garçons il y en a deux qui ne guérissent de rien, et que le troisieme m'a avoué de bonne foy, qu'il avoit eu autrefois la reputation de guérir de quantité des maux, quoique en effet il n'ait jamais guery d'aucun. C'est pourquoy Monsieur du Laurent a grande raison de rejetter ce prétendu pouvoir, et de la mettre au rang des fables, en ce qui concerne la guérison des écrouelles."[124]
Charms were used to avert evil and counteract supposed malignant influences of all kinds, but it is in their connection with diseases of the body that we are chiefly interested. There is scarcely a disease for which a charm has not been given, but it will be seen that those which are most affected by charms are principally derangements of the nervous system, or those periodical in character—diseases, in fact, which have proved to be most easily influenced by suggestion.
Charms might be of the most varied composition. The material was selected from the animal, vegetable, or mineral kingdom, and might consist of anything to which any magical property was considered to belong. Rags, old clothes, pins, and needles were frequently employed in this way. Sir Walter Scott had in his possession a pretended charm taken from an old woman who was said to charm and injure her neighbor's cattle. It consisted of feathers, parings of nails, hair, and similar material, wrapped in a lump of clay.
The theory of similia similibus curantur seems to have entered into mediæval medicine, and especially into the manufacture of charms. The following prescriptions are examples: "The skin of a Raven's heel is good against gout, but the right heel skin must be laid upon the right foot if that be gouty, and the left upon the left.... If you would have man become bold or impudent let him carry about with him the skin or eyes of a Lion or Cock, and he will be fearless of his enemies, nay, he will be very terrible unto them. If you would have him talkative, give him tongues, and seek out those of water frogs and ducks and such creatures notorious for their continuall noise making."[125]
King also tells us that "Hartes fete, Does Fete, Bulles fete, or any ruder beastes fete should ofte be eaten; the same confort the sinewes. The elder these beastes be, the more they strengthen." It is noticeable that not age but youth is now honored, and to-day only calves' feet are accorded medicinal value.
Fort[126] gives the following account of the origin of cabbalism: "Towards the close of the fourth century an unknown scholiast collected the exegetical elucidations, explanations and interpretations produced by the Gemara, and united them to the Mishna, as a commentary out of which arose the Talmud. The word 'cabbala,' whose original significance was used in the sense of reception, or transmission, obtained at a later period the meaning of secret lore, because the metaphysical and theosophic idealities which had been developed in the Rabbinical schools, were communicated only to a few, and consequently remained the undisputed property of a limited and close organization." From this there developed a varied and complicated system of words and numbers which showed their power in all forms of magical marvels. Not the least common or puissant of these was the healing of the sick.
Knots were sometimes used as charms, and Cockayne gives us an example in the preface of Saxon Leechdoms: "As soon as a man gets pain in his eyes, tie in unwrought flax as many knots as there are letters in his name, pronouncing them as you go, and tie it round his neck."
Long before and long after New Testament days when Jesus used spittle on the blind, and the time when Vespasian healed the blind by the same means, spittle was considered a most efficacious remedy for various diseases. Levinus Lemnius tells us: "Divers experiments shew what power and quality there is in Man's fasting Spittle, when he hath neither eat nor drunk before the use of it: for it cures all tetters, itch, scabs, pushes, and creeping sores: and if venomous little beasts have fastened on any part of the body, as hornets, beetles, toads, spiders, and such like, that by their venome cause tumours and great pains and inflammations, do but rub the place with fasting Spittle, and all those effects will be gone and dispersed. Since the qualities and effects of Spittle come from the humours, (for out of them is it drawn by the faculty of Nature, as Fire draws distilled Water from hearbs) the reason may be easily understood why Spittle should do such strange things, and destroy some creatures."[127]
In Saxon Leechdoms a cure for gout runs thus: "Before getting out of bed in the morning, spit on your hand, rub all your sinuews, and say, 'Flee, gout, flee,' etc." Sir Thomas Browne, however, is not quite sure that fasting spittle really is poisonous to snakes and vipers.
Alexander of Tralles tells us that even Galen did homage to incantations, and quotes him as saying: "Some think that incantations are like old wives' tales; as I did for a long while. But at last I was convinced that there is virtue in them by plain proofs before my eyes. For I had trial of their beneficial operations in the case of those scorpion-stung, nor less in the case of bones stuck fast in the throat, immediately, by an incantation thrown up. And many of them are excellent, severally, and they reach their mark."
Even before our day, however, there were some sceptics. Andrews, quoting Reginald Scot, says: "The Stories which our facetious author relates of ridiculous Charms which, by the help of credulity, operated Wonders, are extremely laughable. In one of them a poor Woman is commemorated who cured all diseases by muttering a certain form of Words over the party afflicted; for which service she always received one penny and a loaf of bread. At length, terrified by menaces of flames both in this world and the next, she owned that her whole conjuration consisted in these potent lines, which she always repeated in a low voice near the head of her patient:
'Thy loaf in my hand, And thy penny in my purse, Thou art never the better— And I am never the worse.'"
Lord Northampton quite fittingly inquires: "What godly reason can any Man alyve alledge why Mother Joane of Stowe, speaking these wordes, and neyther more nor lesse,
'Our Lord was the fyrst Man, That ever Thorne prick'd upon: It never blysted nor it never belted, And I pray God, nor this not may,'
should cure either Beasts, or Men and Women from Diseases?"[128]
Perhaps it would be well for us to treat the subject of charms as we have that of amulets, and present the different charms under the heading of the diseases which they were supposed to cure.
Ague.—Many charms were given for this disease, some of which seem to us to-day most ridiculous. Brand gives a quotation from the Life of Nicholas Mooney who was a notorious highwayman, executed with others at Bristol, in 1752. It is as follows: "After the cart drew away, the hangman very deservedly had his head broke for attempting to pull off Mooney's shoes; and a fellow had like to have been killed in mounting the gallows to take away the ropes that were left after the malefactors were cut down. A young woman came fifteen miles for the sake of the rope from Mooney's neck, which was given to her, it being by many apprehended that the halter of an executed person will charm away the ague and perform many other cures."
Pettigrew relates that "In Skippon's account of a 'Journey through the Low Countries,' he makes mention of the lectures of Ferrarius and his narrative of the cure of the ague of a Spanish lieutenant, by writing the words FEBRA FUGE, and cutting off a letter from the paper every day, and he observed the distemper to abate accordingly; when he cut the letter F last of all the ague left him. In the same year, he says, fifty more were reported to be cured in the same manner."
Another charm for ague was only effective when said up the chimney on St. Agnes Eve, by the eldest female of the family. It was as follows:
"Tremble and go! First day shiver and burn. Tremble and quake! Second day shiver and learn: Tremble and die! Third day never return."[129]
Pliny said: "Any plant gathered from the bank of a brook or river before sunrise, provided that no one sees the person who gathers it, is considered as a remedy for tertian ague." Lodge, in glancing at the superstitious creed with respect to charms, says: "Bring him but a Table of Lead, with Crosses (and 'Adonai,' or 'Elohim,' written in it), and he thinks it will heal his ague."
Mr. Marsden, while among the Sumatrans, accidentally met with the following charm for the ague: "(Sign of the cross.) When Christ saw the cross he trembled and shaked and they said unto him, hast thou ague? and he said unto them, I have neither ague nor fever; and whosoever bears these words, either in writing or in mind, shall never be troubled with ague or fever. So help thy servants, O Lord, who put their trust in thee!"
From Douce's notes, Mr. Brand informs us that it was usual with many persons about Exeter who had ague "to visit at dead of night the nearest cross road five different times, and there bury a new-laid egg. The visit is paid about an hour before the cold fit is expected; and they are persuaded that with the Egg they shall bury the Ague. If the experiment fail, (and the agitation it occasions may often render it successful) they attribute it to some unlucky accident that may have befallen them on the way. In the execution of this matter they observe the strictest silence, taking care not to speak to anyone, whom they may happen to meet. I shall here note another Remedy against the Ague mentioned as above, viz., by breaking a salted Cake of Bran and giving it to a Dog, when the fit comes on, by which means they suppose the malady to be transferred from them to the Animal."[130] This and similar methods were designated transplantation.
Bites of Venomous Animals.—It is an old medical superstition that every animal whose bite is poisonous carries the cure within itself, but external charms were also used. It was thought that the poison of the Spanish fly existed in the body, while the head and wings contained the antidote. "A hair of the dog that bites you" is the cure for hydrophobia, the fat of the viper was the remedy for its bite, and "three scruples of the ashes of the witch, when she had been well and carefully burnt at a stake, is a sure catholicon against all the evil effects of witchcraft."[131]
Serpents' bites, which were always considered very dangerous, were said to be healed by people called sauveurs, who had a mark of St. Catharine's wheel upon their palates. Snake stones, originally brought from Java, were supposed to absorb the poison by being simply placed over the bite. Russel mentions a charm against mosquitoes, used in Aleppo. It consisted of certain unintelligible characters inscribed on a little slip of paper, which was pasted over the windows or upon the lintel of the door. One family has obtained, through heredity, the power of making these charms, and they distribute them on a certain day of the year without remuneration.
Navarette was told that the best remedy against scorpions was to make a commemoration of St. George when going to bed. This, he says, never failed, but he also rubbed the bed with garlic. The following is given as a cure for the sting of the scorpion: "The patient is to sit on an ass, with his face to the tail of the animal, by which the pain will be transmitted from the man to the beast." Or again, a person who was bitten by either a tarantulla or a mad dog must go nine times round the town on the Sabbath, calling upon and imploring the assistance of the saint. On the third night—the prayers being heard and granted, and the health restored—the madness was removed. The prayer was as follows:
"Thou who presidest over the Apulian shores, Thou who curest the bites of mad dogs, Thou, O Sacred One, ward off this cruel plague, Get thee far hence, O madness, O fury."[132]
Burns.—The following is "A Charme for a burning":
"There came three angels out of the east; The one brought fire, the two brought frost— Out fire; in frost; In the name of the Father, and Son, and Holy Ghost. —Amen."[133]
Childbirth.—Many superstitious practices have grown up around this condition. In 1554, Bonner, Bishop of London, forbade "a mydwife of his diocese to exercise any witchecrafte, charmes, sorcerye, invocations, or praiers, other than such as be allowable and may stand with the lawes and ordinances of the Catholike Church." In 1559, the first year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, an inquiry was instituted "whether you knowe any that doe use charmes, sorcery, enchauntementes, invocations, circles, witchecraftes, southsayinge, or any lyke craftes or imaginacions invented by the devyl, and specially in the tyme of woman's travaylle." Two years before this, the midwives took an oath among themselves, so Strype tells us, not to "suffer any other bodies' child to be set, brought, or laid before any woman delivered of child in the place of her natural child, so far forth as I can know and understand. Also I will not use any kind of sorcerye or incantation in the time of the travail of any woman."
The eagle stone and iris were supposed to promote an easy delivery, and the sardonyx was laid inter mammas to procure an easy birth; a sardonyx formerly belonged to the monastery of St. Albans to be used for this purpose. In some countries, during childbirth, the men lie in, keep their beds, and are attended as if really sick, sometimes as long as six weeks.[134]
Chorea.—Of all the charms against this disease, St. Vitus' dance, none seemed so effectual as an application to the saint. In the translation of Naogeorgus, Barnabe Googe says:
"The nexte is VITUS sodde in oyle, before whose ymage faire Both men and women bringing hennes for offring doe repaire: The cause whereof I doe not know, I think, for some disease Which he is thought to drive away from such as him doe please."
Colic.—This disorder was cured by a person drinking the water in which he had washed his feet; we might well consider the cure worse than the disease.
Consumption.—Shaw[135] speaks of a cure for consumptive diseases used in his time in Moray. "They pared the Nails of the Fingers and Toes of the Patient, put these Parings into a Rag cut from his clothes, then waved their Hand with the Rag thrice round his head crying Deas soil, after which they buried the Rag in some unknown place." Dr. Baas[136] declares that natural pills of rabbit's dung were in use on the Rhine as a cure for consumption.
"There is a disease," says the minister of Logierait, writing in 1795, "called Glacach by the Highlanders, which, as it affects the chest and lungs, is evidently of a consumptive nature. It is called Macdonald's disease, 'because there are particular tribes of Macdonalds, who were believed to cure it with the Charms of their touch, and the use of a certain set of words. There must be no fee given of any kind. Their faith in the touch of a Macdonald is very great.'"[137]
Cramp.—Among the many charms for cramp, the following is taken from Pepys' Diary:[138]
"Cramp be thou faintless, As our Lady was sinless When she bare Jesus."
Demoniacal Possession.—To know when a person is possessed, try the following, says King: "Take the harte and liver of a fysshe called a Pyck, and put them into a pot wyth glowynge hot coles, and hold the same to the patient so that the smoke may entre into hym. If he is possessed he cannot abyde that smoke, but rageth and is angry." "It is good also to make a fyre in hys chamber of Juniper wood, and caste into the fire Franckincense and S. John's wort, for the evill spirits cannot abyde thys sent, and Waxe angry, whereby may be perceived whether a man be possessed or not."[139] I am afraid that possession would be sadly common if either of these tests were applied.
Dislocation.—Among the oldest charms we have is one given by Cato the Censor for the reduction of a dislocated limb, and passed on to us by Pettigrew.
"A dislocation may be cured by this charm. Take a reed four or five feet long; cut it in the middle, and let two men hold the points towards each other for insertion. While this is doing repeat these words: In Alio S. F. Motas vœta, Daries Dardaries Astataries Dissunapitur. Now jerk a piece of iron upon the reeds at their juncture, and cut right and left. Bind them to the dislocation or fracture, and it will effect a cure."[140]
Dropsy.—Toads were formed into a powder called Pulvis Æthiopicus, the mode of preparation being given in Bates's Pharmacopœia. This powder was used externally, and also given internally in cases of dropsy and other diseases.
Epilepsy.—The liver of a dead athlete was a sovereign remedy against epilepsy in early days. In Lincolnshire a portion of a human skull taken from a grave was grated and given to epileptics as a cure for fits, and the water in which a corpse had been washed was given to a man in Glasgow for the same purpose.[141] Another remedy was also proposed: "If a man be greved wyth the fallinge sicknesse, let him take a he-Wolves harte and make it to pouder and use it: but if it be a woman, let her take a she-Wolves harte."[142]
John of Gladdesden, who was court physician from 1305-1317, spoke thus concerning epilepsy: "Because there are many children and others afflicted with the epilepsy, who cannot take medicines, let the following experiment be tried, which I have found to be effectual, whether the patient was a demoniac, a lunatic, or an epileptic. When the patient and his parents have fasted three days, let them conduct him to church. If he be of a proper age, and of his right senses, let him confess. Then let him hear Mass on Friday, and also on Saturday. On Sunday let a good and religious priest read over the head of the patient, in the church, the gospel which is read in September, in the time of vintage, after the feast of the Holy Cross. After this, let the priest write the same gospel devoutly, and let the patient wear it about his neck, and he shall be cured. The gospel is, 'This kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.'"[143]
Among some African tribes the foot of an elk is considered a splendid remedy against epilepsy. One foot only of each animal possesses virtue, and the way to ascertain the valuable foot is to "knock the beast down, when he will immediately lift up that leg which is most efficacious to scratch his ear. Then you must be ready with a sharp scymitar to lop off the medicinal limb, and you shall find an infallible remedy against the falling sickness treasured up in his claws." The American Indians and mediæval Norwegians also considered this a sure remedy. The person afflicted, however, must apply it to his heart, hold it in his left hand, and rub his ear with it.[144]
Evil-eye.—Children were supposed to be most susceptible to the evil-eye. Charms and amulets were furnished against fascination in general. Certain figures in bronze, coral, ivory, etc., representing a closed hand with the thumb thrust out between the first and second fingers called the fig, were common. In Henry IV, Part II, Pistol says:
"When Pistol lies, do this; and fig me, like The bragging Spaniard."
Eye Diseases.—Among the early Germans, ambulatory female medicists were not uncommon, and they cured largely through charms. The following is a charm used for eye diseases:
"Three maidens once going On a verdant highway; One could cure blindness, Another cured cataract, Third cured inflammation; But all cured by one means."[145]
Fevers.—This charm was used for fever: "Wryt thys Wordys on a lorell lef♰Ysmael♰Ysmael♰ adjuro vos per Angelum ut soporetur iste Homo N. and ley thys lef under hys head that he wete not therof, and let hym ete Letuse oft and drynk Ip'e seed smal grounden in a morter, and temper yt with Ale."[146]
"The fever," says Werenfels, "he will not drive away by medicines, but, what is a more certain remedy, having pared his nails and tied them to a crayfish, he will turn his back, and as Deucalion did the stones from which a new progeny of men arose, throw them behind him into the next river."[147]
The "Leech book"[148] says that for typhus fever the patient is to drink of a decoction of herbs over which many masses have been sung, then say the names of the four "gospellers" and a charm and a prayer. Again, a man is to write a charm in silence, and just as silently put the words in his left breast and take care not to go in-doors with the writing upon him, the words being EMMANUEL VERONICA. The Loseley MSS. prescribe the following for all manner of fevers: "Take iii drops of a woman's mylke yt norseth a knave childe, and do it in a hennes egge that ys sedentere (or sitting), and let hym suppe it up when the evyl takes hym."
Goitre.—The dew collected from the grave of the last man buried in a church-yard has been used as a lotion for goitre, and a correspondent of Notes and Queries for May 24, 1851, furnishes two remedies then in use at Withyam, Sussex. "A common snake, held by its head and tail, is slowly drawn by someone standing by nine times across the front part of the neck of the person affected, the reptile being allowed, after every third time, to crawl about for awhile. Afterwards the snake is put alive in a bottle, which is corked tightly, and then buried in the ground. The tradition is, that as the snake decays, the swelling vanishes. The second mode of treatment is just the same as the above, with the exception of the snake's doom. In this case it is kidded, and its skin, sewn in a piece of silk, is worn round the diseased neck. By degrees the swelling in this case also disappears."
Headache.—In Brand's day, the rope which remained after a man had been hanged and cut down was an object of eager competition, being regarded as of great virtue in attacks of headache, and Gross says: "Moss growing on a human skull, if dried, powdered, and taken as snuff, will cure the Headach." Loadstone was also recommended as a sovereign remedy for this malady. Pliny said that any person might be immediately cured of the headache by the application of any plant which has grown on the head of a statue, provided it be folded in the shred of a garment, and tied to the part affected with a red string.
Hemorrhage.—The following charm has been used to stop bleeding at the nose and other hemorrhages:
"In the blood of Adam Sin was taken, In the blood of Christ it was all shaken, And by the same blood I do the charge, That the blood of (insert name) run no longer at large."
Pepys in his Diary gives us a Latin charm of which the following is a translation:
"Blood remain in Thee, As Christ was in himself; Blood remain in thy veins, As Christ in his pains; Blood remain fixed, As Christ was on the crucifix."
Brand, the historian of Orkney, says: "They have a charm whereby they stop excessive bleeding in any, whatever way they come by it, whether by or without external violence. The name of the Patient being sent to the Charmer, he saith over some words, (which I heard,) upon which the blood instantly stoppeth, though the bleeding Patient were at the greatest distance from the Charmer. Yea, upon the saying of these words, the blood will stop in the bleeding throats of oxen or sheep, to the astonishment of Spectators. Which account we had from the Ministers of the Country."
Boyle says: "Having been one summer frequently subject to bleeding at the nose, and reduced to employ several remedies to check that distemper; that which I found the most effectual to stanch the blood was some moss of a dead man's skull, (sent for a present out of Ireland, where it is far less rare than in most other countries,) though it did but touch my skin, till the herb was a little warmed by it."[149]
Brand gives "A charme to staunch blood: Jesus that was in Bethleem born, and baptyzed was in the flumen Jordane, as stente the water at hys comyng, so stente the blood of thys man N. thy servvaunt, thorw the virtu of thy holy Name ♰ Jesu ♰ & of thy Cosyn swete Sent Jon. And sey thys charme fyve tymes with fyve Pater Nosters, in the worschep of the fyve woundys."[150]
"In the year 1853," says Berdoe, "I saw among the more precious drugs in the shop of a pharmaceutical chemist at Leamington a bottle labelled in the ordinary way with the words, Moss from a Dead-Man's Skull. This has long been used, superstitiously, dried, powdered, and taken as snuff, for headache and bleeding at the nose."
Herpes.—Turner[151] notices a prevalent charm among old women for the shingles, and which is not uncommonly heard of to-day. It was to smear on the affected part the blood from a black cat's tail. He says that in the only case when he saw it used it caused considerable mischief.
Incubus.—Stones with holes through them were commonly called hag-stones, and were often attached to the key of the stable door to prevent witches riding the horses. One of these suspended at the head of the bed was celebrated for the prevention of nightmare. In the "Leech book"[152] we find the following: "If a mare or hag ride a man, take lupins, garlic, and betony, and frankincense, bind them on a fawn skin, let a man have the worts on him, and let him go into his house." Notice the following from Lluellin's poems:
"Some the night-mare hath prest With that weight on their brest, No returnes of their breath can passe, But to us the tale is addle, We can take off her saddle, And turn out the night-mare to grasse."
Insomnia.—In the Loseley MSS. we find a receipt "For hym that may not slepe. Take and wryte yese wordes into leves of lether: Ismael! Ismael! adjuro te per Angelum Michaelum ut soporetur homo iste; and lay this under his bed, so yt he wot not yerof and use it allway lytell, and lytell, as he have nede yerto."
Jaundice.—This disease was sometimes cured by transplantation, and Paracelsus gives us a method for carrying this out. Make seven or nine—it must be an odd number—cakes of the newly emitted and warm urine of the patient with the ashes of ash wood, and bury them for some days in a dunghill.
In the journal of Dr. Edward Browne, transmitted to his father, Sir Thomas Browne, we read of a magical cure for jaundice: "Burne wood under a leaden vessel filled with water; take the ashes of that wood, and boyle it with the patient's urine; then lay nine long heaps of the boyled ashes upon a board in a ranke, and upon every heap lay nine spears of crocus: it hath greater effects than is credible to any one that shall barely read this receipt without experiencing."[153]
Madness.—The early inhabitants of Cornwall used "to place the disordered in mind on the brink of a square pool, filled with water from St. Nun's well. The patient, having no intimation of what was intended, was, by a sudden blow on the breast, tumbled into the pool, where he was tossed up and down by some persons of superior strength till, being quite debilitated, his fury forsook him; he was then carried to church, and certain masses were sung over him. A similar practice of the people of Perthshire is noticed by Sir Walter Scott in Marmion.
"Thence to St. Fillan's blessed well, Whose spring can frenzied dreams dispel, And the crazed brain restore."
Marasmus.—Mr. Boyle relates the case of a physician whose wan face betokened a marasmus, and who was induced to try a method not unlike the sympathetic cures. "He took an egg and boiled it hard in his own warm urine; he then with a bodkin perforated the shell in many places, and buried it in an ant-hill, where it was kept to be devoured by the emmets; and as they wasted the egg, he found his distemper to abate and his strength to increase, insomuch that his disease left him."[154]
Rickets.—The most common method of dealing with this disease was by drawing the children through a split tree. The tree was afterward bound up and, as it healed and grew together, the children acquired strength; at least, so 'twas said. Sir John Cullum saw the operation performed and says that the ash tree was selected as most preferable for the purpose. "It was split longitudinally about five feet: the fissure was kept open by the gardener, whilst the friend of the child, having first stripped him naked, passed him thrice through it, almost head foremost. This accomplished, the tree was bound up with packthread, and as the bark healed, so it was said the child would recover. One of the cases was of rickets, the other a rupture." Drawing the children through a perforated stone was also a cure for rickets, providing that two brass pins were carefully laid across each other on the top edge of this stone.[155]
Sciatica.—Sleeping on stones on a particular night was formerly practised in Cornwall to cure all forms of lameness. Boneshave was the term used for sciatica in Exmoor, where the following charm was used for its cure: The patient must lie on his back on the bank of a river or brook, having a straight staff lying by his side between him and the water, and must have the following words repeated over him:
"Boneshave right, Boneshave straight. As the water runs by the stave Good for Boneshave."[156]
Scrofula.—Scrofula, or "king's-evil," was best cured by the touch of the sovereign, but, if this could not be accomplished, a naked virgin could cure it, especially if she spit three times upon it. Stroking the affected parts nine times with the hand of a dead man, particularly of one who had suffered a violent death as a penalty of his crime, especially if it be murder, was long practised, and was said to be efficacious in curing scrofula.
Sweating Sickness.—Aubrey[157] gives a selection of the favorite prescriptions in use against the sweating sickness. Among them was the following: "Another very true medicine.—For to say every day at seven parts of your body, seven paternosters, and seven Ave Marias, with one Credo at the last. Ye shall begyn at the ryght syde, under the right ere, saying the 'paternoster qui es in coelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum,' with a cross made there with your thumb, and so say the paternoster full complete, and one Ave Maria, and then under the left ere, and then under the left armhole, and then under the left hole, and then the last at the heart, with one paternoster, Ave Maria with one Credo; and these thus said daily, with the grace of God is there no manner drede hym."
Thorns.—Three metrical charms have been used for troubles of this kind. Pepys' Diary records "A charme for a thorne":
"Jesus, that was of a Virgin Born, Was pricked both with nail and thorn; It neither wealed, nor belled, rankled nor boned; In the name of Jesus no more shall this."
Another form of the same is this:
"Christ was of a Virgin born, And he was pricked with a thorn; It did neither bell, nor swell; And I trust in Jesus this never will."
Brand gives another thus:
"Unto the Virgin Mary our Saviour was born, And on his head he wore the crown of thorn; If you believe this true and mind it well, This hurt will never fester, nor yet swell."[158]
Toothache.—King in his interesting article recites this cure: "Seeth as many little green frogges sitting upon trees as thou canst get, in water: take the fat flowynge from them, and when nede is, anoynt the teth therwyth. The graye worms breathing under wood or stone, having many fete, these perced through with a bodken and then put into the toth, alayeth the payne."[159] A nail driven into an oak tree is reported to be a cure for this pain, and bones from a church-yard have from ancient times been used as charms against this disease.
An early idea was that toothache was caused by a worm and that henbane seed roasted would cure it. The following from "The School of Salerne" formulates this superstition:
"If in your teeth you hap to be tormented, By meane some little wormes therein do breed, Which pain (if heed be tane) may be prevented, Be keeping cleane your teeth, when as you feede; Burne Francomsence (a gum not evil sented), Put Henbane unto this, and Onyon seed, And with a tunnel to the tooth that's hollow, Convey the smoke thereof, and ease shall follow."
Even to-day, I suppose, druggists sell henbane seed for this purpose. The seed is used by sprinkling it on hot cinders and holding the open mouth over the rising smoke. The heat causes the seed to sprout, and thus there appears something similar to a maggot, which is ignorantly supposed by the sufferer to have dropped from the tooth.[160]
Warts.—The cures for warts are many and varied. There have been many charms devised for their removal. Grose gives directions to "Steal a piece of beef from a butcher's shop, and rub your wart with it, then throw it down the necessary house, or bury it, and as the beef rots, your warts will decay."[161] Some have great faith in having a vagrant count them, mark the number on the inside of his hat, and then when he leaves the neighborhood he takes the warts with him. Coffin water was also considered good for them.
"For warts," says Sir Thomas Browne, "we rub our hands before the moon, and commit any magulated part to the touch of the dead. Old Women were always famous for curing warts; they were so in Lucian's time."[162]
Sir Kenelm Digby, in a work already referred to, says: "One would think that it were folly that one should offer to wash his hands in a well-polished silver basin, wherein there is not a drop of water, yet this may be done by the reflection of the moonbeams only, which will afford it a competent humidity to do it; but they who have tried it, have found their hands, after they are wiped, to be much moister than usually; but this is an infallible way to take away warts from the hands, if it be often used."
Black gives us several ways of charming away warts. He says: "Lancashire wise men tell us for warts to rub them with a cinder, and this tied up in paper, and dropped where four roads meet, will transfer the warts to whoever opens the parcel. Another mode of transferring warts is to touch each wart with a pebble, and place the pebbles in a bag, which should be lost on the way to church; whoever finds the bag gets the warts." A common Warwickshire custom was to rub the warts with a black snail, stick the snail on a thorn bush, and then, say the folks, as the snail dies so will the wart disappear.[163]
Warts, on the other hand, seem in certain cases to be considered lucky. In "Syr Gyles Goosecappe, Knight," a play of 1606, Lord Momford is made to say: "The Creses here are excellent good: the proportion of the chin good; the little aptnes of it to sticke out; good. And the wart aboue it most exceeding good."
Wen.—A newspaper of 1777 reports: "After he (Doctor Dodd) had hung about ten minutes, a very decently dressed young woman went up to the gallows in order to have a wen in her face stroked by the Doctor's hand; it being a received opinion among the vulgar that it is a certain cure for such a disorder. The executioner, having untied the Doctor's hand, stroked the part affected several times therewith."
At the execution of Crowley, a murderer of Warwick, in 1845, a similar scene is described in the newspapers: "At least five thousand persons of the lowest of the low were mustered on this occasion to witness the dying moments of the unhappy culprit.... As is usual in such cases (to their shame be it spoken) a number of females were present, and scarcely had the soul of the deceased taken its farewell flight from its earthly tabernacle, than the scaffold was crowded with members of the 'gentler sex' afflicted with wens in the neck, with white swellings in the knees, &c., upon whose afflictions the cold clammy hand of the sufferer was passed to and fro for the benefit of his executioner."[164]
Whooping-Cough.—It was a common belief in Devonshire, Cornwall, and some other parts of England, that if one inquired of any one riding on a piebald horse of a remedy for this complaint, whatever he named was regarded as an infallible cure. In Suffolk and Norfolk, a favorite remedy was to put the head of a suffering child for a few minutes into a hole made in a meadow. It must be done in the evening with only the father and mother to witness it.
A child in Cornwall received the following treatment: "If afflicted with the hooping cough, it is fed with the bread and butter of a family, the heads of which bear respectively the names of John and Joan. In the time of an epidemic, so numerous are the applications, that the poor couple have little reason to be grateful to their godfathers and godmothers for their gift of these particular names. Or, if a piebald horse is to be found in the neighbourhood, the child is taken to it, and passed thrice under the belly of the animal; the mere possession of such a beast confers the power of curing the disease."
We have an account of a cure for whooping-cough in a Monmouthshire paper about the middle of the nineteenth century. "A few days since an unusual circumstance was observed at Pillgwenlly, which caused no small degree of astonishment to one or two enlightened beholders. A patient ass stood near a house, and a family of not much more rational animals was grouped around it. A father was passing his little son under the donkey, and lifting him over its back a certain number of times, with as much solemnity and precision as if engaged in the performance of a sacred duty. This done, the father took a piece of bread, cut from an untasted loaf, which he offered the animal to bite at. Nothing loath, the Jerusalem poney laid hold of the piece of bread with his teeth, and instantly the father severed the outer portion of the slice from that in the donkey's mouth. He next clipped off some hairs from the neck of the animal, which he cut up into minute particles, and then mixed them with the bread which he had crumbled. This very tasty food was then offered to the boy who had been passed round the donkey so mysteriously, and the little fellow having eaten thereof, the donkey was removed by his owners. The father, his son, and other members of his family were moving off, when a bystander inquired what all these 'goings on' had been adopted for? The father stared at the ignorance of the inquirer, and then in a half contemptuous, half condescending tone, informed him that 'it was to cure his poor son's whooping-cough, to be sure!' Extraordinary as this may appear, in days when the schoolmaster is so much in request, it is nevertheless true."
There is a belief in Cheshire that, if a toad is held for a moment within the mouth of the patient, it is apt to catch the disease, and so cure the person suffering from it. A correspondent of Notes and Queries speaks of a case in which such a phenomenon actually occurred; but the experiment is one which would not be very willingly tried. Brand informs us that "Roasted mice were formerly held in Norfolk a sure remedy for this complaint; nor is it certain that the belief is extinct even now. A poor woman's son once found himself greatly relieved after eating three roast mice!"[165]
Worms.—A Scotch writer in the last half of the seventeenth century observed: "In the Miscellaneous MSS. ... written by Baillie Dundee, among several medicinal receipts I find an exorcism against all kinds of worms in the body, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, to be repeated three mornings, as a certain remedy."[166]
[122] S. B. Gould, Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, p. 273.
[123] H. Morley, Life of Cornelius Agrippa, I, p. 165.
[124] M. Thiers, Traité des Superstitions, p. 436.
[125] E. A. King, "Medieval Medicine," Nineteenth Century, XXXIV, p. 147.
[126] G. F. Fort, History of Medical Economy During the Middle Ages, p. 72.
[127] J. Brand, Popular Antiquities, III, pp. 229 f.
[128] Ibid., III, pp. 228 and 237.
[129] T. J. Pettigrew, Superstitions Connected with ... Medicine and Surgery, pp. 94 f.
[130] J. Brand, Popular Antiquities, III, pp. 252 f.
[131] E. Berdoe, Origin and Growth of the Healing Art, p. 416.
[132] T. J. Pettigrew, Superstitions Connected with ... Surgery and Medicine, pp. 104-106.
[133] Pepys' Diary, I, p. 323.
[134] T. J. Pettigrew, Superstitions Connected with ... Medicine and Surgery, pp. 113-115.
[135] History of Moray, p. 248.
[136] History of Medicine, p. 159.
[137] J. Brand, Popular Antiquities, III, pp. 240 and 248.
[138] I, p. 324.
[139] E. A. King, "Medieval Medicine," Nineteenth Century, XXXIV, p. 149.
[140] T. J. Pettigrew, Superstitions Connected with ... Medicine and Surgery, p. 77.
[141] E. Berdoe, Origin and Growth of the Medical Art, pp. 397 and 414.
[142] E. A. King, "Medieval Medicine," Nineteenth Century, XXXIV, p. 147.
[143] E. Berdoe, Origin and Growth of the Healing Art, p. 327.
[144] T. J. Pettigrew, Superstitions Connected with ... Medicine and Surgery, pp. 84 f
[145] G. F. Fort, History of Medical Economy During the Middle Ages, p. 196.
[146] J. Brand, Popular Antiquities, III, p. 237.
[147] T. J. Pettigrew, Superstitions Connected with ... Medicine and Surgery, p. 92.
[148] II, p. 139.
[149] Ibid., pp. 112 f.
[150] J. Brand, Popular Antiquities, III, pp. 237, 241, and 268.
[151] Diseases of the Skin, p. 82.
[152] II, p. 139.
[153] T. J. Pettigrew, Superstitions Connected with ... Medicine and Surgery, p. 103.
[154] Ibid., p. 102.
[155] J. Brand, Popular Antiquities, III, pp. 249 f.
[156] Ibid., p. 245.
[157] History of England, II, p. 296.
[158] J. Brand, Popular Antiquities, III, p. 264.
[159] E. A. King, "Medieval Medicine," Nineteenth Century, XXXIV, p. 148.
[160] E. Berdoe, Origin and Growth of the Healing Art, pp. 414 f.
[161] T. J. Pettigrew, Superstitions Connected with ... Medicine and Surgery, p. 108.
[162] J. Brand, Popular Antiquities, III, p. 241.
[163] Berdoe, Origin and Growth of the Healing Art, pp. 415 f.
[164] J. Brand, Popular Antiquities, III, p. 241.
[165] Ibid., p. 239.
[166] Ibid., p. 240.