From the beginning of time, the fortune-teller, the sorcerer, the interpreter of dreams, the charlatan, the wild medicine-man, the educated physician, the mesmerist, and the hypnotist, have made use of the patient's imagination, to help them in their work. They have all recognized the potency and availability of that force.[63:1]
Modern psychology explains the healing force of verbal charms as being due to the power of suggestion. For these suggest the idea of a cure to the subjective mind, which controls the bodily functions and conditions. Robert Burton, in the "Anatomy of Melancholy," said in reference to this subject:
All the world knows there is no vertue in charms; but a strong conceit and opinion alone, which forceth a motion of the humours, spirits and blood, which takes away the cause of the malady from the parts affected. The like we may say of the magical effects, superstitious cures, and such as are done by mountebanks and wizards. . . . Imagination is the medium deferens of Passions, by whose means they work and produce many times prodigious effects.
To give joy to the sick, said the Latin historian Cassiodorus, is natural healing; for, once make your patient cheerful, and his cure is accomplished. In like vein is an aphorism of Celsus: It is the mark of a skilled practitioner to sit awhile by the bedside, with a blithe countenance.
William Ramesey, M.D., in "Elminthologia" (1668), remarks that fancy doth not only cause but also as easily cureth divers diseases. To this agency may be properly referred many alleged magical and juggling cures, attributed to saints, images, relics, holy waters, avemarys, benedictions, charms, characters, and sigils of the planets. All such cures, wrote this author, are to be ascribed to the force of the imagination.
Written charms against toothache in Christian lands have usually a marked family resemblance; the theme being the same, but the number of variants legion. Saint Peter is represented as afflicted with the toothache, and sitting on a marble stone by the wayside. Our Lord passes by, and cures him by a few spoken words. The following quaintly illiterate version of this spell was in vogue in the north of Scotland within recent years: "Petter was laying his head upon a marrable ston, weping, and Christ came by and said: 'What else [ails] thou, Petter?' Petter answered: 'Lord God, my twoth.' 'Raise thou, Petter, and be healed.' And whosoever shall carry these lines in My Name, shall never feel the twothick."[64:1]
The following is a translation of a Welsh charm against toothache:
"As Peter was sitting alone on a marble stone, Christ came to him and said: 'Peter, what is the matter with you?' 'The toothache, my Lord God.' 'Arise, Peter, and be free'; And every man and woman will be cured of the toothache, who shall believe these words. I do this in the name of God."[65:1]
Another version of this charm is popular in Newfoundland. The inscribed paper, enclosed in a little bag, is hung around the neck of the afflicted person, from whom its contents are carefully concealed. "I've seed it written, a feller was sitten on a marvel stone, and our Lord came by; and he said to him, 'What's the matter with thee, my man?' And he replied, 'Got the toothache, Marster.' Then said our Lord, 'Follow Me, and thee shall have no more toothache.'"[65:2]
Still another form of this spell is in use among Lancashire peasants. The paper, inscribed as follows, is stitched inside the clothing: "Ass Sant Petter sat at the geats of Jerusalm, our Blessed Lord and Sevour Jesus Christ Passed by, and sead, 'What eleth thee?' He sead, 'Lord, my teeth ecketh.' Hee said, 'Arise and follow mee, and thy teeth shall never eake eney mour.'