Arnald speaks particularly of gems to which either Nature, the marvel-worker, or some erudite artist has given efficacious powers by engraving them with images in accordance with the constellations.[2716] In his medical works he states that a lion on a lead seal prevents one from feeling pain in an operation for the stone,[2717] and that an image of a man holding a dead serpent in his right hand and its tail in his left hand is an antidote for poison.[2718] That Arnald also employed such methods in actual medical practice is shown from the fact that Pope Boniface VIII set great store by a seal in the form of a lion which Arnald had prepared for him when he was suffering from the stone.[2719] Arnald’s separate treatise on seals gives detailed directions for engraving one for each sign of the zodiac. The following example is typical of the others and also further illustrates Arnald’s propensity to pious incantations: “In the name of the living Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, take the purest gold and melt it as the sun enters Aries. Later form a round seal from it and say while so doing, ‘Arise, Jesus, light of the world, thou who art in truth the lamb that taketh away the sins of the world and enlighteneth our darkness.’ And repeat the Psalm, Domine dominus noster. After doing this much, put the seal away, and later, when the moon is in Cancer or Leo and while the sun is in Aries, engrave on one side the figure of a ram and on the circumference arahel tribus juda v et vii, and elsewhere on the circumference let these sacred words be engraved, ‘The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us,’ and in the center, ‘Alpha and Omega and Saint Peter.’” These instructions are perhaps some relic of gnosticism. Arnald then states the virtues and powers of the seal: “Moreover, this precious seal works against all demons and capital enemies and against witchcraft, and is efficacious in winning gain and favor, and aids in all dangers and financial difficulties (vectigalibus), and against thunderbolts and storms and inundations, and against the force of the winds and the pestilences of the air. Its bearer is honored and feared in all his affairs. No harm can befall the building or occupants of the house where it is. It benefits demoniacs, those suffering from inflammation of the brain, maniacs, quinsy sore throat, and all diseases of the head and eyes, and those in which rheum descends from the head. And in general I say that it wards off all evils and confers goods; and let its bearer abstain as far as possible from impurity and luxury and other mortal sins, and let him wear it on his head with reverence and honor.”
Experimental method.
Arnald’s pages have supplied some evidence of the continued vogue of that “experimental knowledge” and “experimental science” of which Albertus Magnus and Roger Bacon and others of the early thirteenth century wrote. In a passage not yet noted[2720] Arnald recognizes the difficulty of medical experimentation and, like Petrus Hispanus and John of St. Amand, makes some suggestions as to how it should be conducted. They are, however, not novel. We have also heard him speak of experimenters, of a “philosopher and experimenter,” of “the long experience of any intelligent operator”, and of “rational experiment” which “always presupposes a determined object.” We have also heard him admit that the occult virtues of natural objects can be hit upon only by chance experiment or by some sort of revelation. And since these last two channels are as open to the common people as to the learned, it is possible that knowledge of occult virtues should be attained sooner by uneducated men than by others.[2721] This is not necessarily the case, however, and in a third treatise he speaks of a truth having been verified by experience until it has come to the notice of illiterate men and women. This truth is that the weakened powers of age can to some extent be restored, and as a proof of this assertion Arnald presently adduces the invention of eye-glasses,[2722] which are likewise mentioned by his contemporary, Bernard Gordon.[2723] We also have observed in Arnald the usual inclination to base marvels upon experience, as in “the marvelous and elect experiment” of Socrates or the cure of gout by binding on frog’s legs.
Further foibles of Arnald’s medicine.
In conclusion some foibles of Arnald’s medicine may be noted which do not exactly fall under any of the preceding heads. In the treatment of mania in the Breviarium he advises as a last resort that the skin be cut in the form of a cross and the skull perforated so that the noxious vapors may escape from the brain.[2724] In another place he warns against washing the head too often, “since thereby many have lost their sight before their time.”[2725] He advises to lave the eyes not with cold but with tepid water, and recommends as especially beneficial to the eyes washing with one’s own urine when one rises from bed in the morning, or with one’s own saliva. Throughout this same work he repeatedly recommends the most awful concoctions as remedies, but perhaps the climax in the way of a series of complicated recipes occurs in his Treatise against the Stone,[2726] a disease for which he had treated the pope. In his collection of antidotes[2727] we again run across the Potion of St. Paul and the opiates supposed to have been discovered by the emperor Hadrian and the prophet Esdras.
The affair of Bernard Délicieux.
The trial of Bernard Délicieux[2728] before the inquisition should perhaps be mentioned at this point as a connecting link between Arnald of Villanova of whom we have just treated and Raymond Lull to whom the next chapter will be devoted, especially as the tendency of this affair would appear to be to bring both of them into disrepute with the inquisition and under suspicion of magic. Thus two citizens of Albi testified that on the eve of Benedict XI’s death Bernard Délicieux or Delitiosi sent a leather chest wrapped in waxed cloth to Arnald of Villanova at the papal court, the imputation being that Arnald helped Bernard to poison the pope. Furthermore, Bernard was found to have in his possession a book of nigromancy which he said Raymond Lull, a Catalan of Majorca, had given to him at Rome. No doubt this evidence against Raymond and Arnald is very flimsy; Bernard himself was freed of the charge of poisoning;[2729] still, it may have done them some harm.
[2668] Jean Astruc, Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire de la Faculté de Médecine de Montpellier, Paris, 1767. A much cited book, but seemingly rare in this country.
[2669] HL 28, 26-104, with corrections and additions based on Menéndez Pelayo’s researches at pp. 487-90.
[2670] Menéndez Pelayo, Arnaldo de Villanova médico Catalán del siglo XIII, Madrid, 1879; and Historia de los heterodoxos españoles, Madrid, 1880, I, 449-87, 720-81.