EPILEPSY.
The dung of the peacock was one of the favorite prescriptions for the alleviation of epilepsy, the disease so pre-eminently of divine origin that by the Romans it was termed the Divine Disease[98] (Morbus sacer).
Epilepsy was likewise called the “comitial disease,” because, according to the different authorities consulted upon the subject, the moment a Roman was attacked by it, the “comitia,” if in session, were dissolved. The “comitia ... were the assemblies of the clans for deliberating upon such important matters as the appointment of judges, etc.”[99] Of exactly what transpired afterwards we have no knowledge; it is most likely that the assembled clans devoted themselves to supplicating the gods to take mercy upon an afflicted kinsman. It is not at all beyond the limits of probability that the patient was, in early days, sacrificed to appease the wrath of the deity inflicting the punishment, or disease as we should designate it. This, at least, is the only rational inference to be drawn from the action taken with the clothing worn during the fit, and the excrement voided at the same time, both of which, as we have seen, were burned,—a reminiscence of the earlier practice when such a fate was meted out to the victim himself.
But we do find that the belief in transference or transplantation was one of the underlying principles of all medical practice in ancient and mediæval times; and, by a reference to the examples cited, it will be noted that special stress was laid upon the employment of clippings of the hair or nails of the patient, or his urine, ordure, or, in rarer instances, his saliva or perspiration; these were to be placed in egg-shells and then buried in ant-hills, thrown into fish-ponds, given to dogs or chickens, or thrown out in the cross-roads, in the hope that some traveller, impelled by curiosity, would pick up the strange package and with it take the disease from the original sufferer.
All diseases were believed to be punishments inflicted by angry gods; therefore, all medicines were originally charms, i. e. oblations or sacrifices to propitiate the offended spirits or to secure the interposition of still more powerful gods who should render nugatory the malevolent work of the minor. Sometimes, the charms employed suggest unmistakably the prior existence of human sacrifice; the trembling victim was ordered to sacrifice himself or one of his household. But, on the principle that the part represents the whole, in other words, that the actual sacrifice could be deferred in consideration of the presentation of a pledge, such a pledge was offered in the shape of hair, nails, skin, blood, excrements, saliva, or shreds of the clothing belonging to the interested devotee, the supposition, of course, being that the propitiated Deity could, at a future time, insist upon the execution of the contract, or the consummation of the sacrifice the pledge guaranteed.
Therefore, when we find in “sympathetic” cures, that human exuviæ, excrements, etc., are thrown into ponds, we may without difficulty infer that the fishes or water gods, in accepting the oblation, accepted the sacrifice as symbolized, and, being appeased, took back to themselves the disease they had in their wrath inflicted.
The same is the underlying principle when such “charms,” as we very properly call them, were hung upon trees, or stones, or around holy wells; it was the guardian spirits of those localities which had been offended and must be mollified by the “carmen” or ode of incantation which was an inseparable adjunct of all such votive offerings,—from which comes our own word “charm.”[100]
When the “charm” was thrown to a dog, or placed in a field, where cattle, horses, or sheep, or wild beasts might pasture upon it, an animal god had to be propitiated; and where it was simply thrown out on the road, or, better still, at a cross-roads, the “earth-spirits,” or some goblins not definitely determined upon, in the mind of the sacrificer, were believed to be the authors of his infirmity.
Hanging these charms up in the chimney of one’s own house was clearly an invocation to clan or family spirits to withdraw their wrath from an afflicted kinsman, or hasten to his assistance. Viewed in this light, the “charms” that to us seem so trivial, the rags, tufts of hair, etc., may, in the mind of the person offering them, have been oblations of the most sacred character.