In the rugged, mountainous districts of western Ireland, a region inhabited mostly by shepherds and fishermen, medical practice still devolves largely upon "fairy-women" and "witch-doctors," who rely upon herbs, prayers, and incantations in their treatment of the sick. In Ireland, too, are individuals reputed to be masters of the art of "setting" charms for controlling hemorrhage; their method being the repetition of certain words arbitrarily selected, whose weirdness tends to impress the patient with a sense of the mysterious.[109:1]
Spells for checking the flow of blood are plentiful in the early literature of Germany, and are still employed to some extent. In Dr. G. Lammert's "Volksmedizin in Bayern" (Würzburg, 1869), many hemostatic formulas are given, which are popular among the peasantry in various portions of the empire. They are usually adjurations or commands addressed to the blood, considered as a personality. Thus a spell in vogue in the mountainous region of Odenwald in Hesse, is as follows: "Blood, stand still, as Christ stood still in the river Jordan."
In "Folk-Lore," March, 1908, reference is made to a styptic spell in use at the present time in northern Devonshire, among wise women who are skilled in the art of controlling hemorrhage by psychic methods. The spell consists in repeating the verse, Ezekiel, xvi, 6. In the locality above mentioned it is customary to seek the aid of one of these professional "stenters," instead of a surgeon or veterinarian, and the people have implicit faith in this mode of treatment. The presence of the wise woman is not essential. She merely pronounces the spell wherever she may happen to be, with the assurance that it will be found effectual, on the return of the messenger to the patient.
The prevalence of similar beliefs is shown in the following verse from a popular poem of the seventeenth century:
Tom Pots was but a serving-man;
But yet he was a Doctor good;
He bound his kerchief on the wound,
And with some kind words stanch'd the blood.
FOOTNOTES:
[106:1] Archæologia, vol. xxx, p. 401; 1844.
[107:1] J. F. Payne, M.D., English Medicine in the Anglo-Saxon Times.
[107:2] Lady Wilde, Ancient Cures, Charms, and Usages of Ireland.