Other instances of association are when the remedy employed is some part of an animal who is free from the disease in question or marked by an opposite state of health. Goats and gazelles never have ophthalmia, hence various portions of their bodies are prescribed for eye diseases.[383] Eagles can gaze at the sun, therefore their gall is efficacious in eye-salves.[384] The bird called ossifrage has a single intestine which digests anything; the end of this intestine serves as an amulet against colic, and indigestion may be cured by merely holding the crop of the bird in one hand.[385] But do not hold it too long or your flesh will waste away. The virus of mares is an ingredient in a candle which makes heads of horses seem to appear when it burns;[386] while ink of the sepia is used in a candle which causes Ethiopians to be seen when it is lighted.[387] These magic candles are borrowed by Pliny from the works of Anaxilaus, and we shall find them a feature of medieval collections of experiments. Earth from a cart-wheel rut is thought a remedy against the bite of the shrew-mouse because that creature is too torpid to cross such a rut;[388] and Pliny believes that none of the virtues attributed to moles by the magicians is more probable than that they are an antidote to the bite of the shrew-mouse, which shuns even ruts, whereas moles burrow freely through the soil.[389] Pliny finds incredible the assertion made by some that a ship will move more slowly if it has the right foot of a tortoise aboard,[390] but the logic of the magic seems evident enough.
Magic transfer of disease.
In Pliny’s medicine there are a number of examples of what may be called magic transfer, in which the aim of the procedure is not to cure the disease outright but to rid the patient of it by transferring it from him to some other animal or object. Intestinal disease may be transferred to puppies who have not yet opened their eyes by pressing them to the body and giving them milk from the patient’s mouth. They will die of the disease, when its cause and exact nature may be determined by dissecting them. But finally they must be buried.[391] Griping pains in the bowels will also pass to a duck that is held against the abdomen. One may be rid of a cough by spitting in a frog’s mouth or cure catarrh by kissing a mule,[392] although in these cases we are left uninformed whether the disease passes to the animal. But if a person who has been stung by a scorpion whispers the news in the ear of an ass, the ill will be transferred to the ass.[393] A boil may be removed by rubbing nine grains of barley around it, each grain thrice with the left hand, and then throwing them all into the fire.[394] Warts are banished by touching each with a grain of the chickpea and then tying the grains up in a linen cloth and throwing them behind one.[395] If a root of asphodel is applied to sores and then hung up in smoke, the sores will dry up along with the root.[396] To cure scrofulous sores some bind on as many earthworms as there are sores and let them dry up together.[397] A tooth will cease aching if the herb erigeron is dug up with iron and the patient thrice alternately touches the tooth with the root and spits, and if he then replaces the herb in the same spot and it lives.[398] If this last is a case of magic transfer, perhaps we may trace the same notion in some of the numerous instances in which Pliny directs that an animal shall be released alive after some part of it has been removed or some other medicinal use made of it.
Amulets.
A common characteristic of magic force and occult virtue is that it will often act at a distance or without any physical contact or direct application. This is manifested in the practice of carrying or wearing amulets, or, what is the same thing, of ligatures and suspensions, in which objects are hung from the neck or bound to some part of the body in order to ward off danger from without or cure internal disease. Instances of such practices in the Natural History are well nigh innumerable. Roots are suspended from the neck by a thread;[399] the tongue of a fox is worn in a bracelet;[400] for quinsy the throat is wound thrice with a thong of dog-skin and catarrh is relieved by winding the same about the fingers.[401] A tooth stops aching when worms are taken from a certain prickly plant, put with some bread in a pill-box, and bound to the arm on the same side of the body as the aching tooth.[402] Two bed-bugs bound to the left arm in wool stolen from shepherds are a charm against nocturnal fevers; against diurnal fevers, if wrapped in russet cloth instead.[403] The heart of a vulture is an amulet against snakes, wild beasts, robbers, and royal wrath.[404] The traveler who carries the herb artemisia feels no fatigue.[405] Injurious drugs cannot cross one’s threshold and do injury in one’s household, if a sea-star is smeared with the blood of a fox and attached to the lintel or door-post with a copper nail.[406] Not only is a wreath of herbs worn for headache,[407] but a sprig of poplar held in the hand prevents chafing between the thighs.[408] Often objects are placed under one’s pillow, especially for insomnia,[409] but any psychological effect is precluded in the case where this is to be done without the patient’s knowledge.[410] All sorts of specifications are given as to the color and kind of string, cloth, skin, box, nail, ring, bracelet, and the like in which should be placed, or with which should be bound on, the various gems, herbs, and parts of animals which serve as amulets. But when we are told that a remedy for headache which always helps many consists of a little bone from a snail found between two cart ruts, passed through gold, silver, and ivory, and attached to the body with dog-skin; or that one may bind on the head with a linen cloth the head of a snail decapitated with a reed when feeding in the morning especially at full moon;[411] we feel that we have passed beyond mere amulets, ligatures, and suspensions to more elaborate minutiae of magic procedure.
Position or direction.
Position or direction is often an important matter in Pliny’s, as in magic, ceremonial. It perhaps comes out most frequently in his specification of right or left. An aching tooth should be scarified with the left eye-tooth of a dog; a spider which is placed with oil in the ear should be caught with the left hand;[412] epilepsy may be cured if a virgin touches the sufferer with her right thumb;[413] for ophthalmia of the right eye suspend the right eye of a frog from the patient’s neck, and the left eye for the left eye;[414] for lumbago tear off an eagle’s feet away from the joint, and use the right foot for the right side and the left for pain in the left side.[415] But we have met other examples already, and also cases of the use of the upper or lower part of this or that according to the corresponding location of an aching tooth in the upper or lower jaw.[416] Tracing circles with and about objects, facing towards this or that point of the compass, the prohibition against glancing behind one, and the stress laid upon finding things or killing animals between the ruts of cart wheels, are other examples of taking into consideration position and direction which we have already met with incidentally to the treatment of other topics. The prescription of a plant which has grown on the head of a statue and of another which has taken root in a sieve thrown into a hedge[417] also seem to take mere position largely into account, more so than the accompanying recommendation of an herb growing on the banks of a stream and of another growing upon a dunghill.[418]
The time element.
The element of time is also important. Operations should be performed before sunrise, early in the morning, at night, and so on. The moon is especially regarded in such directions.[419] When we are informed that sufferers from quartan fever should be rubbed all over with the fat of a tortoise, we are also told that the tortoise will be fattest on the fifteenth day of the moon and that the patient should be anointed on the sixteenth.[420] But this waxing and waning of the tortoise with the moon is primarily a matter of astrology and planetary influence, under which heading we shall also later speak of Pliny’s observance of the rising of the dog-star.
Observance of number.