Cauterization.
The medicine of this period may be further illustrated by two Latin manuscripts of the eleventh century in the Sloane collection of the British Museum.[2887] One contains a brief treatise which illustrates the common tendency at that time to employ cauterization not only for surgical purposes in connection with wounds, but as a medical means of giving relief to internal diseases and trivial complaints with which cauterization could have no connection. That the practice was very largely a superstition is further evident from the fact that one part of the body often was cauterized for a complaint in another or opposite portion or member. In the present example, under the alluring names of Apollonius and Galen as professed authors,[2888] are presented a series of human figures showing where the cautery should be applied. These pictures of naked patients marked all over their anatomy with spots where the red-hot iron should be applied, or submitting with smiling or wry faces to its actual administration in the most tender places, are both amusing and, when we reflect that this useless pain was actually repeatedly inflicted through long centuries, pathetic.[2889]
Treatment of demoniacs.
In a general and much longer work on diseases and their remedies which follows in the same manuscript and which is professedly compiled from Hippocrates, Galen, and Apollonius, the treatment prescribed for demoniacs,[2890] who, it states, are in Greek called epilemptici (epileptics), includes among other things vaporization between the shoulder blades with various mixtures, scarification and bleeding, application of leeches to the “stomach where you ought not to operate with iron,”[2891] shaving and “imbrocating”[2892] the scalp, and anointing the hands and feet with oil. Both our manuscripts contain recipes for expelling or routing demons.[2893] For this purpose such substances are employed as the stone gagates and holy water, and elsewhere the usual confidence is reposed in the virtues of herbs and such parts of animals as the liver of a vulture.
Incantations and characters.
In one of the manuscripts is a treatise in which much use is made of incantations and characters. There are prayers to “Lord Jesus and Holy Mary” to heal the sick, while characters, sometimes engraved upon lead plates, are employed not only for medical purposes, but to prevent women from conceiving, to make fruit trees bear well, and against enemies.[2894] Later on in the manuscript instructions for plucking a medicinal herb include facing east and reciting a paternoster.[2895]
In a twelfth century manuscript.
The twelfth century portion of this same manuscript consists mainly of a long medical medley with no definitely marked beginning or ending but apparently originally in five books.[2896] Towards its close occur a number of incantations and characters quite in the style of Marcellus Empiricus.[2897] Indeed, “a marvelous charm” for toothache is an exact copy of his instructions to repeat seven times in a waning moon on Tuesday or Thursday an incantation beginning, “Aridam, margidam, sturgidam.”[2898] To make all his enemies fear him a man should gather the herb verbena on a Thursday, repeating seven times a formula in which the plant is personally addressed and the desire expressed to triumph over all foes as the verbena conquers winds and rains, hail and storms.[2899] If here the influence of pagan religion is still present, many of the incantations are in Christian form and expressed in the name of God or the Father. To find a thief characters are employed together with the incantation, “Abraham bound, Isaac held, Jacob brought back to the house.”[2900] A charm against fever opens, “Christ was born and suffered; Christ Jesus rose from the dead and ascended unto heaven; Christ will come at the day of judgment. Christ says, According to your faith it shall be done.” Then the sign of the cross is employed and “sacred words,” which seem, however, to include not only Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, but Maximianus, Dionysius, John, Serapion, and Constantinus. As we have to do with a twelfth century manuscript the last two names might be presumed to have reference to the medical writers of the eleventh century, but another manuscript which contains a similar incantation states that they are the names of the seven sleepers.[2901] Our charm then continues “In the name of Christ” and with a prayer to God to free from sickness anyone who “bears this writing in Thy name.”[2902]
Magic with a split hazel rod.
In the same work occurs the earliest instance of which I am aware of the magical “experiment” with a split rod and an incantation, to which we shall hear William of Auvergne, Albertus Magnus, John of St. Amand, and Roger Bacon refer in the thirteenth century. A rod of four cubits length is to be cut with repetition of the Lord’s Prayer. It is to be split, and the two halves are to be held apart at the ends by two men. Then, making the sign of the cross, one should repeat the following incantation, “Ellum sat upon ella and held a green rod in his hand and said, Rod of green reunite again,”[2903] together with the Lord’s Prayer until the two split halves bend together in the middle. One then seizes them in one’s fist at the junction point, cuts off the rest of the rods, and makes magic use of the section remaining in one’s grasp.[2904]