“Wear on the finger a jasper of bluish-gray luster.”—Advised by Dioscorides, Book 5, 159.
Remedy against podagra [gout] (“Alexander of Tralles,” Book 12, page 582): “Take a gold leaf and write upon it when the moon is on the wane: mei, threu, mor, for, teux, za, zon, the, lu, chri, ge, ze, on. As the sun becomes firm in this name and daily renews itself, so does this formation also make firm as conditions were previously. Quickly, quickly, rapidly, rapidly. For behold! I call the great name in which becomes firm again what was destined to die: Jas, azyf, zyon, threux, dain, chook. Make this formation firm as it has been, quickly, quickly, rapidly, rapidly. This document must be covered with the tendon of a crane, enclosed in a capsule, and worn by the patient at his heel.”
Remedy against diseases of the eye (advised by Sextus Placitus Papyriensis. Magnus, “Ophthalmology of the Ancients,” page 597): “If the right eye becomes afflicted with glaucoma, rub it with the right eye of the wolf, and, similarly, the left eye with the left eye of the wolf.”
In photophobia (fear of light) “Wear as an amulet an eye which was taken from a live crab.”—Quintus Serenus Samonicus. Magnus, “Ophthalmology of the Ancients,” page 595.
With pains of the eye the patient must, with a copper needle, put out the eyes of a green lizard caught on a Jupiter day, during a moon that is on the wane, in the month of September. The eyes must be worn in a golden capsule, as an amulet around the neck (Marcellus Empiricus. Magnus, “Ophthalmology of the Ancients,” page 602.)
The above illustrations are surely sufficient to give the reader an idea of the medicine of the magicians. At the same time they show the great similarity which exists between these ancient magic cures and the sympathetic cures of our people at the present day.
§ 4. Ancient Medicine and Magic.—But how is it possible that the ancient physicians, and even the most enlightened minds among them, should not only have tolerated such a crass medical superstition as the above examples have shown us, but should even have incorporated them in their works? Incomprehensible, however, as this fact may appear to the modern practitioner, it becomes conceivable if the condition of antique medicine and of the medical profession of ancient times is considered.
In the first place, ancient medical science adopted an entirely different mode of diagnostico-theoretical method than that employed by professors of medicine in modern times. Ancient natural science (compare also Chapter [V.] of this work), as well as ancient medicine, obtained their scientific views exclusively by deduction—i.e., they deduced individual results from general presumptions, or, rather, they construed, by reason of some general presumption, the physico-medical consequences which were to follow from such a general supposition. If this attempt to obtain an insight into physical processes is extremely hazardous, it becomes still more precarious when the manner and means in which these general presumptions were arrived at were primarily of an entirely hypothetical nature. It is true, no fundamental objection can be raised to this method, as even modern natural science and medicine, despite the fact that their methods of investigation in a diagnostico-theoretical respect scarcely admit of material objections, can not do without hypothesis. But hypothesis is not always mere hypothesis. It is well known that there are hypotheses which, even in the minds of the most conscientious investigators, are not inferior to that knowledge which is obtained by experiment and observation, whereas other hypotheses again present the distinct stamp of insufficiency and makeshift. The trustworthiness and the heuristic value of an hypothesis depend upon the quality of the diagnostico-theoretical process by means of which it was obtained. If this process has been such as physical investigation is bound to insist upon, the hypothesis thus arrived at is fully justified to supply the still absent data with regard to the phenomena in question. This, however, can be accomplished by hypothesis only when the latter is not set forth until it plainly appears that, in spite of a conscientious and orderly arrangement of observation after observation, of experiment upon experiment, without the admission of logical loopholes, full data in regard to the nature of the phenomena is not forthcoming. In such a case we may consider as actually proven by hypothesis what observation and systematic experiment, continuous and logical, were intended to prove, and failed. However, this inductive hypothesis is alone entitled to be considered in medicine. Naturally, such an inductive hypothesis was not thought of by the ancients, as the inductive method of investigation was generally quite unknown to them. The process by which ancient medicine usually attempted to find its hypothesis was by an argument from analogy. Each and every point of resemblance, however superficial, between two phenomena was considered sufficient by the ancient naturalists to warrant the assumption that analogous phenomena in the most various domains were most certainly proven to possess similar points of resemblance. And upon the basis of such an insecure method of deduction—which, moreover, was selected entirely at the option of the observer—the ancient investigator erected the boldest hypotheses. Thus, for instance, the atomic theory of Leucippus and Democritus is an hypothesis which rests upon the basis of a conclusion from analogy. The motes which appear in the rays of the sun led these two ancient investigators to the conception that, like the particles of dust sporting in the air, the primary component parts of everything that exists in the entire universe consisted of similar particles.[2]
It appears that Epicurus arrived at his theory of light (according to which, as is well known, images of things were brought to the senses by delicate but absolutely objective small pictures which were detached from the surface of things in a continuous current) by the fact that many animals—for instance, snakes—shed their skins. The theory of humoral pathology, one of the most important advances in medical science, was based on a conclusion from analogy and arrived at by the deductive method.