STYPTIC CHARMS
Fancy can save or kill; it hath closed up wounds, when the balsam could not, and without the aid of salves, to think hath been a cure.
Cartwright.
With bandage firm Ulysses' knee they bound;
Then, chanting mystic lays, the closing wound
Of sacred melody confessed the force;
The tides of life regained their azure course.
The Odyssey, xix, 535.
Probably the stanching of blood sometimes ascribed to the power of a verbal charm should be accredited to the vis medicatrix of Dame Nature herself. The mere sight of blood, as well as its loss, may induce syncope, a condition favorable to the cessation of hemorrhage. Where faith in a magic spell is strong, it is conceivable that a psychic or emotional force should influence the circulation of the blood, and affect its flow locally by a contraction or dilatation of the arterioles, through the agency of the vaso-motor nerves. Familiar instances are to be seen in the sudden glow or pallor of the cheek, under the stress of intense emotion.
In a curious English manuscript, thought to be of the fourteenth century, which is preserved in the Royal Library at Stockholm, are to be found many specimens of healing-spells; and among them one which was to be repeated in church, as follows: "Here bygynyth a charme for to staunch ye blood. In nomine Patris, etc. Whanne oure Lord was don on ye crosse yane come Longeus thedyr and smot hym yt a spere in hys syde. Blod and water yer come owte at ye wonde, and he wyppyd hys eyne and anon he sawgh kyth thorowgh ye vertu of yat God. Yerfore I conjure the blood yat yu come not oute of yis christen woman. In nomine Patris et Filii," etc.[106:1]
The following "Charme to Stanch Blood" is taken from a manuscript of the fifteenth century: "Jesus, that was in Bethlehem born, and baptyzed was in the flumen Jordane; as stente the water at hys comyng so stente the blood of this man N. thy serwaunt, throw the virtu of thy holy name, Jesu, and of thy cosyn, swete sente Jon. And sey thys Charme fyve tymes, with fyve Pater Nostirs, in the worship of the fyve woundys."
A popular medieval narrative charm for healing wounds and arresting hemorrhage, is to be found in the "Compendium Medicinæ" of Gilbertus Anglicus, physician to the Archbishop of Canterbury toward the close of the twelfth century. The work was first published at Lyons, France, in the year of 1500.
