XII.
MEDICAL SUPERSTITIONS.
| “When cats run home, and light is come, And dew is cold upon the ground, And the far-off stream is dumb, And the whirling sail goes round, And the whirling sail goes round; Alone and warming his five wits The white owl in the belfry sits.”—Tennyson. |
OLD AND NEW.—THE SIGN OF JUPITER.—MODERN IDOLATRY.—ORIGIN OF THE DAYS OF THE WEEK.—HOW WE PERPETUATE IDOLATRY.—SINGULAR FACT.—CHRISTMAS FESTIVITIES.—“OLD NICK.”—RIDICULOUS SUPERSTITIONS.—GOLDEN HERB.—HOUSE CRICKETS.—A STOOL WALKS!—THE BOWING IMAGES AT RHODE ISLAND.—HOUSE SPIDERS.—THE HOUSE CAT.—SUPERSTITIOUS IDOLATRIES.—WONDERFUL KNOWLEDGE.—NAUGHTY BOYS.—ERRORS RESPECTING CATS.—SANITARY QUALITIES.—OWLS.—A SCARED BOY.—HOLY WATER.—UNLUCKY DAYS.—THUNDER AND LIGHTNING.—A KISS.
Medicine, above all the other sciences, was founded upon superstition. Medicine, more than all the other arts, has been practised by superstitions. Stretching far back through the vista of time to the remotest antiquity, reaching forward into the more enlightened present, it has partaken of all that was superstitious in barbarism, in heathenism, in mythology, and in religion.
In showing the Alpha I am compelled to reveal the Omega.
Let us begin with Jupiter. I know that some wise Æsculapian—no Jupiterite—will turn up his nose at this page, while to-morrow, if he gets a patient, he will demonstrate what I am saying, and further, help to perpetuate the ignorant absurdities which originated with the old mythologists, by placing “℞”—the ill-drawn sign of Jupiter—before his recipe.
