The Rev. Oswald Cockayne has given us, in his translation of the Saxon Leech Book, a very curious and interesting citation from Helias, Patriarch of Jerusalem, who wrote to King Ælfred in answer to his request to be furnished with some good recipes from the Holy Land:
“Patriarch Helias sends these to King Ælfred:[642]__
“So much as may weigh a penny and a half, rub very small, then add the white of an egg, and give it to the man to sip. It (balsam) is also very good in this wise for cough and for carbuncle, apply this wort, soon shall the man be hole. This is smearing with balsam for all infirmities which are on a man’s body, against fever, and against apparitions, and against all delusions. Similarly also petroleum is good to drink simple for inward tenderness, and to smear on outwardly on a winter’s day, since it hath very much heat; hence one shall drink it in winter; and it is good if for any one his speech faileth, then let him take it, and make the mark of Christ under his tongue, and swallow a little of it. Also if a man become out of his wits, then let him take part of it, and make Christ’s mark on every limb, except the cross upon the forehead, that shall be of balsam, and the other also on the top of the head. Triacle (θηριακόν) is a good drink for all inward tendernesses, and the man, who so behaveth himself as is here said, he may much help himself. On the day on which he will drink Triacle, he shall fast until midday, and not let the wind blow on him that day: then let him go to the bath, let him sit there till he sweat; then let him take a cup, and put a little warm water in it, then let him take a little bit of the triacle, and mingle with the water, and drain through some thin raiment, then drink it, and let him then go to his bed and wrap himself up warm, and so lie till he sweat well; then let him arise and sit up and clothe himself, and then take his meat at noon, and protect himself earnestly against the wind that day; then, I believe to God, that it may help the man much. The white stone is powerful against stitch, and against flying venom, and against all strange calamities; thou shalt shave it into water and drink a good mickle, and shave thereto a portion of the red earth, and the stones are all very good to drink of, against all strange uncouth things. When the fire is struck out of the stone, it is good against lightenings and against thunders, and against delusion of every kind; and if a man in his way is gone astray, let him strike himself a spark before him. He will soon be in the right way. All this Dominus Helias, Patriarch at Jerusalem, ordered one to say to King Ælfred.” Mr. Cockayne tells us in his preface[643] that Helias sent Alfred “a recommendation of scammony, which is the juice of a Syrian convolvulus, of gutta ammoniacum,[644] of spices, of gum dragon, of aloes, of galbanum, of balsam, of petroleum, of the famous Greek compound preparation called θηριακή and of the magic virtues of alabaster. These drugs are good in themselves, and such as a resident in Syria would naturally recommend to others.” This very singular and instructive fact concerning King Ælfred is one of the most interesting things in Mr. Cockayne’s valuable work.
As to the age of the MS., the translator sets it down about A.D. 900. The sources of the information he ascribes to Oxa, Dun, and Helias; there is a mixture of the Hibernian and Scandinavian elements also. Some of the prescriptions are traceable to Latin writers, and large extracts are made from the Greek physicians. Paulus Ægineta is responsible for the long passage on hiccupings (or Hicket, as the Leech Book calls the malady), as chapter xviii. is almost identical with Paulus Ægin., lib. ii. sect. 57. Mr. Cockayne thinks that the number of passages the Saxon drew from the Greek would make perhaps one-fourth of the first two books. Whether they came direct from the Greek manuscripts or at second hand as quotations, it is not possible to say. Quoting M. Brechillet Jourdain,[645] Mr. Cockayne says that it is shown that the wise men of the Middle Ages long before the invention of printing possessed Latin translations of Aristotle; there is every probability, therefore, that they would be familiar with the works of the Greek physicians. Some of them could translate Greek. If an Italian or Frenchman could acquire Greek and turn it into Latin, a Saxon might do as much. Bede and his disciples could certainly have done so. Bede says that Tobias, Bishop of Rochester, was as familiar with the Greek and Latin languages as with his own. “It appears, therefore,” concludes Mr. Cockayne, “that the leeches of the Angles and Saxons had the means, by personal industry or by the aid of others, of arriving at a competent knowledge of the contents of the works of the Greek medical writers. Here, in this volume, the results are visible. They keep, for the most part, to the diagnosis and the theory; they go back in the prescriptions to the easier remedies; for whether in Galen or others, there was a chapter on the εὐπόριστα, the ‘parabilia,’ the resources of country practitioners, and of course, even now, expensive medicines are not prescribed for poor patients.”[646]
In the very valuable Saxon Leechdoms[647] we have an excellent account of the state of medicine as practised in England before the Norman Conquest. The Leech Book (Læce Boc)[648] is a treatise on medicine which probably belonged to the abbey of Glastonbury. The manuscript, thinks Mr. Cockayne, belonged to one Bald, a monk. The book, says the editor, is learned in a literary sense, but not in a professional, for it does not really advance man’s knowledge of disease or of cures. He may have been a physician, he was certainly a lover of books—“nulla mihi tam cara est optima gaza quam cari libri.” The work seems to imply that there was a school of medicine among the Saxons. In the first book, p. 120, we read that “Oxa taught us this leechdom”; in the second book, p. 293, we are told concerning a leechdom for lung disease that “Dun taught it”; again we find “some teach us.” So far as book learning was concerned, there was certainly a sort of medical teaching. It was perhaps merely taken from the Greek by means of a Latin translation of Trallianus, Paulus of Ægina, and Philagrios. As examples of reasonable treatment take that for hare-lip (or hair-lip as in the text): “Pound mastic very small, add the white of an egg, and mingle as thou dost vermilion, cut with a knife the false edges of the lip, sew fast with silk, then smear without and within with the salve, ere the silk rot. If it draw together, arrange it with the hand, anoint again soon.”[649]
Against pediculi quicksilver and old butter are to be mingled together in a mortar, and the resulting salve to be applied to the body. This is precisely the mercurial ointment of modern pharmacy used for the same purpose.
Religion, magic, and medicine were oddly mixed up by our Saxon forefathers. Thus the Leech Book tells us[650] for the “dry” disease we should “delve about sour ompre (i.e. sorrel dock), sing thrice the Pater noster, jerk it up, then while thou sayest sed libera nos a malo, take five slices of it and seven peppercorns, bray them together, and while thou be working it, sing twelve times the psalm Miserere mei, Deus, and Gloria in excelsis deo, and the Pater noster; then pour the stuff all over with wine, when day and night divide, then drink the dose and wrap thyself up warm.” Here is an exorcism for fever. “A man shall write this upon the sacramental paten, and wash it off into the drink with holy water, and sing over it.... In the beginning, etc. (John i. 1). Then wash the writing with holy water off the dish into the drink, then sing the Credo, and the Paternoster, and this lay, Beati immaculati, the psalm (cxix.), with the twelve prayer psalms, I adjure you, etc. And let each of the two[651] then sip thrice of the water so prepared.”[652] The demon theory of disease was still in force; even at Glastonbury we find the following exorcism:[653] “For a fiend sick man, when a devil possesses the man or controls him from within with disease; a spew drink, lupin, bishopwort, henbane, cropleek; pound these together, add ale for a liquid, let stand for a night, add fifty libcorns (or cathartic grains), and holy water. A drink for a fiend sick man, to be drunk out of church bell.”[654]
“Githrife, cynoglossum, yarrow, lupin, betony, attorlothe, cassock, flower de luce, fennel, church lichen, lichen, of Christ’s mark or crosse, lovage; work up the drink off clear ale, sing seven masses over the worts, add garlic and holy water, and drip the drink into every drink which he will subsequently drink, and let him sing the psalm, Beati immaculati, and Exurgat, and Salvum me fac, Deus,[655] and then let him drink the drink out of a church bell, and let the mass priest after the drink sing this over him: Domine, sancte pater omnipotens.”[656] Again, “For the phrenzied; bishopwort, lupin, bonewort, everfern,[657] githrife, elecampane; when day and night divide, then sing thou in the church litanies, that is, the names of the hallows or saints, and the Paternoster; with the song go thou, that thou mayest be near the worts and go thrice about them, and when thou takest them go again to church with the same song, and sing twelve masses over them, and over all the drinks which belong to the disease, in honour of the twelve apostles.”[658]
The Leech Book has “a salve against nocturnal goblin visitors,” a remedy “against a woman’s chatter,” which is to go to bed, having eaten only a root of radish; “that day the chatter cannot harm thee.”[659] Red niolin, a plant which grows by running water, if put under the bolster, will prevent the devil from scathing a man within or without. There is “a lithe drink against a devil and dementedness,” and a cure for a man who is “overlooked.”