Marvelous virtues of gems.
Other marvelous effects than routing the devil, which Hildegard attributes to gems in the course of the fourth book of the Subtilitates, are to confer intellect and science for the day, to banish anger and dulness, bestow an equable temper, restrain lust, cure all sorts of diseases and infirmities, endow with the gift of sound speech, prevent thefts at night, and enable one to fast. These marvelous results are produced either by merely having the stone in one’s possession, or by holding it in the hand, placing it next the skin, taking it to bed with one and warming it by the heat of the body, breathing on it, holding it in the mouth especially when fasting, suspending it about the neck, or making the sign of the cross with it. In the cure of insanity by use of the magnet the stone should be moistened with the patient’s saliva and drawn across his forehead while an incantation is repeated.[400] A man may be brought out of an epileptic fit by putting an emerald in his mouth.[401] Having recovered, he should remove the gem from his mouth and say, “As the spirit of the Lord filled the earth, so may His grace fill the temple of my body that it may never be moved.” This ceremony is to be repeated on nine successive mornings, and that here the gem is as important as the prayer is indicated by the direction that the patient should have the gem with him each time and take it out and look at it as he repeats the incantation. Different is the procedure for curing epilepsy by means of the gem achates.[402] In this case the stone should be soaked in water for three days at the full moon; this water should be slightly warmed, and then preserved, and all the patient’s food cooked in it dum luna tota crescat. The gem should also be placed in everything that he drinks. This astrological procedure is to be repeated for ten months.
Remarkable properties of fish.
We have already heard that certain fish have the property of expelling demons. Fish also have other remarkable virtues. The eye of a copprea, worn in a gold or silver ring so that it touches one’s finger, arouses a sluggish intellect.[403] The lung of a tunny fish, taken in water, is good for a fever, and it keeps one in good health to wear shoes and a belt made of its skin.[404] Pulverized salmon bones are recommended for bad teeth.[405] But eating the head of a barbo gives one a headache and fever.[406] Hildegard also tells some wonderful stories concerning the modes of generation of different varieties of fish. In the Causae et curae[407] for dimness of the eyes it is recommended to dry some walrus skin in the sun, soften it in pure wine, and apply it in a cloth between the eyes at night. It should be removed at midnight and applied only on alternate nights for a week. “Either it will remove dimness of the eyes, or God does not permit this to be done.”
Use of the parts of birds.
To render available or to enhance the occult virtues of birds Hildegard suggests a great amount of complicated ceremonial. The heart of a vulture, split in two, dried before a slow fire and in the sun, and worn sewn up in a belt of doeskin, makes one tremble in the presence of poison.[408] This is explained by the vulture’s own antipathy to poison, which is increased and purified by the fire, sun, and especially by the belt, for the doe is swifter and more sensitive than other animals. Mistiness is marvelously removed from the eyes by catching a nightingale before day-break, adding a single drop of dew found on clean grass to its gall, and anointing the eyebrows and lashes frequently with the same.[409] Another eye-cure consists in cooking a heron’s head in water, removing its eyes, alternately drying them in the sun and softening them in cold water for three successive times, pulverizing and dissolving them in wine, and at night frequently touching the eyes and lids with the tip of a feather dipped in this concoction.[410] The blood of a crane, dried and preserved, and its right foot are employed in varied ways to facilitate child-birth.[411] Hildegard also often tells how to make a medicinal unguent by cooking some bird in some prescribed manner and then pulverizing certain portions of the carcass with various herbs or other animal substances.[412] Even without the employment of ceremonial sufficiently remarkable powers are attributed to the bodies or parts of birds. Eating the flesh of one reduces fat and benefits epileptics, while eating its liver is good for melancholy.[413] The liver of a swan has the different property of purifying the lungs, while the lung of a swan is a cure for the spleen.[414] Again, a heron’s liver cures stomach trouble, while a cure for spleen is to drink water in which its bones have been stewed, and if one who is sad eats its heart, it will make him glad.[415]
Cures from quadrupeds.
Hildegard’s chapters on quadrupeds are so delightfully quaint that I cannot pass them over, although the properties which she attributes to them and the methods by which their virtues are utilized are not essentially different from those in examples already given. The camel, however, is peculiar in that its different humps have quite different virtues.[416] The one next to its neck has the virtues of the lion; the second, those of the leopard; the third, those of the horse. A cap of lion’s skin cures ailments of the head whether physical or mental.[417] Deafness may be remedied by cutting off a lion’s right ear and holding it over the patient’s ear just long enough to warm it and to say, “Hear adimacus by the living God and the keen virtue of a lion’s hearing.” This process is to be repeated many times. The heart of a lion is somewhat similarly employed, but without any incantation, to make a stupid person prudent. Burying a lion’s heart in the house is regarded as fire insurance against its being struck by lightning, “for the lion is accustomed to roar when he hears thunder.” Digestion is aided by drinking water in which the dried liver of a lion has been left for a short time. Placing a bit of the skin from between a bear’s eyes over one’s heart removes timidity and anxiety.[418] If anyone suffers from paralysis or one of those changeable diseases which wax and wane with the moon like lunacy, let him select a spot where an ass has been slain, or has died a natural death, or has wallowed, and let him spread a cloth on the grass or ground and repose there a short time and sleep if he can. Afterwards you should take him by the right hand and say, “Lazarus slept and rested and rose again; and as Christ roused him from foul decay, so may you rise from this perilous pestilence and the changing phases of fever in that conjunction in which Christ applied Himself to the alleviation of such complaints, prefiguring that He would redeem man from his sins and raise him from the dead.” With a brief interval of time allowed between, the same performance is to be repeated thrice in the same place on the same day, and then again thrice on the next and the third days, when the patient will be cured.[419]
The unicorn, weasel, and mouse.
The liver and skin of the unicorn have great medicinal virtues, but that animal can never be caught except by means of girls, for it flees from men but stops to gaze diligently at girls, because it marvels that they have human forms, yet no beards. “And if there are two or three girls together, it marvels so much the more and is the more quickly captured while its eyes are fixed on them. Moreover, the girls employed in capturing it should be of noble, not peasant birth, and of the middle period of adolescence.”[420] When one weasel is sick, another digs up a certain herb and breathes and urinates on it for an hour, and then brings it to the sick weasel who is cured by it.[421] But what this herb is is unknown to men and other animals, and it would do them no good if they did know it, since its unaided virtue is not efficacious, nor would the action of their breath or urine make it so. But the heart of a weasel, dried and placed with wax in the ear, benefits headache or deafness, and the head of a weasel, worn in two pieces in a belt next the skin, strengthens and comforts the bearer and keeps him from harm. The mouse, besides being responsible for two other equally marvelous cures, is a remedy for epilepsy. “For inasmuch as the mouse runs away from everything, therefore it drives away the falling disease.”[422] It should be put in a dish of water, and the patient should drink some of this water and also wash his feet and forehead in it.