When cures were to be effected by the method called by some authors “insemination” each disease seemed to require its special plant. Thus yellow jaundice required swallow-wort and juniper berries; dropsy, absinthe (worm-wood) and box-elder; pleurisy, the poppy; the plague, the plant known as scordium (this plant smells like garlic), etc.—(Frommann, “Tract. de Fascinat.,” p. 1030.)
The following problem is presented for solution or for such explanation as competent scholars may find it possible to give.
We know that every disease was looked upon as an infliction from some angry god; on the other hand, we know also that for each disease there was some god, in later days some saint, to whom the afflicted might appeal; we know also that certain plants were sacred to certain divinities. Therefore the question to be answered is, Were the plants hereinbefore specified those which were sacred to those gods who had charge of those diseases respectively? The examination to be complete should include all that may now survive among European peasantry of the worship of Roman, Phœnician, Celtic, Teutonic, or even Egyptian or Etruscan, deities.
Grimm recites the names of the trees employed for the cure of different diseases,—epilepsy, peach-blossoms; ague, elder-tree; gout, fir-tree; ague, willow; gout, young pine-tree.—(“Teut. Mythology.”)
Why was Apollo supposed to love the laurel and the cornel cherry, “Pluto the cypress and the maiden-hair,—a moisture-loving fern, which we may take for granted could not be very plentiful in his chosen realm,—Luna the dittany, Ceres the daffodil, Jupiter the oak, Minerva the olive, Bacchus the vine, and Venus the myrtle-shade?”—(Extract from an article entitled “Flowers as Emblems,” in “Standard,” London, copied in “Sun,” New York, May 12, 1889.)
“A sick man’s perspiration from the brow wiped off with bread, and given to a dog, will cure the patient.”—(Sagen-Märchen, “Volksaberglauben aus Schwaben,” Freiburg, 1861, p. 494.)
As a certain cure for witchcraft take the excrement of the patient, put it in a pig’s bladder, and hang it up in the chimney; or let him take some of his own excrement, inwardly, dissolved in vinegar; or apply human excrement to the bewitched part, then put that excrement in a pig’s bladder, and hang it up in the chimney to smoke for three or four days.—(Paullini, pp. 260, 261.)
By the French, urine was considered a certain cure for fever. Such an amount of superstition attached to the panacea that the prescription may well be given in full:—
“Knead a small loaf with urine voided in the worst stage of his fever by a person having the quaternary ague. Bake the loaf, let it cool, and give it to be eaten by another person. Repeat the same during three different attacks, and the fever will leave the patient and go to the person who has eaten the bread.”
Another one runs in these terms:—