See skulking Truth to her old cavern fled,Mountains of casuistry heap’d o’er her head;Philosophy that lean’d on Heav’n beforeShrinks to her Second Cause and is no more.Physic of Metaphysic begs defence,And Metaphysic calls for aid on Sense.See Mystery to Mathematics fly;In vain! they gaze, turn giddy, rave, and die.Pope—“The Dunciad” (641–648).
See skulking Truth to her old cavern fled,Mountains of casuistry heap’d o’er her head;Philosophy that lean’d on Heav’n beforeShrinks to her Second Cause and is no more.Physic of Metaphysic begs defence,And Metaphysic calls for aid on Sense.See Mystery to Mathematics fly;In vain! they gaze, turn giddy, rave, and die.Pope—“The Dunciad” (641–648).
See skulking Truth to her old cavern fled,Mountains of casuistry heap’d o’er her head;Philosophy that lean’d on Heav’n beforeShrinks to her Second Cause and is no more.Physic of Metaphysic begs defence,And Metaphysic calls for aid on Sense.See Mystery to Mathematics fly;In vain! they gaze, turn giddy, rave, and die.Pope—“The Dunciad” (641–648).
See skulking Truth to her old cavern fled,
Mountains of casuistry heap’d o’er her head;
Philosophy that lean’d on Heav’n before
Shrinks to her Second Cause and is no more.
Physic of Metaphysic begs defence,
And Metaphysic calls for aid on Sense.
See Mystery to Mathematics fly;
In vain! they gaze, turn giddy, rave, and die.
Pope—“The Dunciad” (641–648).
The ancient idea that earth, air, fire, and water were the elements of Nature was held by chemists in the 18th century. Empedocles appears to have been the author of this theory, which was adopted by Aristotle. Some speculative philosophers, however, taught that all of these were derived from one original first principle; some held that this was water, some earth, some fire, and others air. Paracelsus, who does not seem to have objected to this idea, contributed another fantastic one to accompany it. According to him everything was composed of sulphur, salt, and mercury; but he did not mean by these the material sulphur, salt, and mercury as we know them, but some sort of refined essence ofthese. These three essentials came to be tabulated thus:—
This is taken from Beguin, who explains that the mercury, sulphur, and salt of this classification are not those “mixt and concrete bodies such as are vulgarly sold by merchants. Mercury, which combines the elements of air and water, Sulphur represents Fire, and Salt, Earth.” “But the said principles, to speak properly, are neither bodies; because they are plainly spiritual, by reason of the influx of celestial seeds, with which they are impregnated: nor spirits, because corporeal, but they participate of either nature; and have been insignized by Phylosophers with various names, or at the least unto them they have alluded these.”
Instances of the combination of these principles are given. If you burn green woods, you first have a wateriness, mercury; then there goes forth an oleaginous substance easily inflammable, sulphur; lastly, a dry and terrestrial substance remains, salt. Milk contains a sulphurous buttery substance; mercurial, whey; saline, cheese. Eggs: white, mercury, yolk, sulphur, shell, salt. Antimony regulus, mercury, red sulphur conceiving flame; a salt which is vomitive.
George Ernest Stahl.Born at Anspach, 1660; died at Berlin, 1734. Stahl was the originator of the “phlogiston theory” which generally prevailed in chemistry until Lavoisier disproved it in the last quarter of the 18th century.
George Ernest Stahl.
Born at Anspach, 1660; died at Berlin, 1734. Stahl was the originator of the “phlogiston theory” which generally prevailed in chemistry until Lavoisier disproved it in the last quarter of the 18th century.
Born at Anspach, 1660; died at Berlin, 1734. Stahl was the originator of the “phlogiston theory” which generally prevailed in chemistry until Lavoisier disproved it in the last quarter of the 18th century.
Nowhere do you get these principles pure. Mercury (the metal) contains both sulphur and salt; so with the others.
Becker, the predecessor of Stahl, was not quitesatisfied with the orthodox opinion, and improved upon it by limiting the elements to water and earth; but he recognised three earths, vitrifiable, inflammable, and mercurial. The last yielded the metals. Stahl was inclined to go back to the four elements again, but he had his doubts about their really elementary character. He, however, concentrated his attention on fire, out of which he evolved his well-known phlogiston theory. This substance, if it was a substance, was conceived as floating about all through the atmosphere, but onlyrevealing itself by its effects when it came into contact with material bodies. There was some doubt whether it possessed the attribute of weight at all; but its properties were supposed to be quiescent when it became united with a substance which thereby became phlogisticated. It needed to be excited in some special way before it could be brought again into activity. When combined it was in a passive condition.
The amusing features of the phlogiston theory only developed when it came to be realised that when the phlogiston was driven out of a body, as in the case of the calcination of a metal, the calx remaining was heavier than the metal with the phlogiston had been. The first explanation of this phenomenon was that phlogiston not only possessed no heaviness, but was actually endowed with a faculty of lightness. This hypothesis was, however, a little too far-fetched for even the seventeenth century. Boerhaave thereupon discovered that as the phlogiston escaped it attacked the vessel in which the metal was calcined, and combined some of that with the metal. This notion would not stand experiment, but Baume’s explanation of what happened was singularly ingenious. He insisted that phlogiston was appreciably ponderable. But, he said, when it is absorbed into a metal or other substance it does not combine with that substance, but is constantly in motion in the interstices of the molecules. So that as a bird in a cage does not add to the weight of the cage so long as it is flying about, no more does phlogiston add to the weight of the metal in which it is similarly flying about. But when the calcination takes place the dead phlogiston, as it may be called, does actually combine with the metal, and thus the increase of weight is accounted for.
The doctrine of the “humours,” or humoral pathology, as it is generally termed, is usually traced to Hippocrates. It is set forth in his book on the Nature of Man, which Galen regarded as a genuine treatise of the Physician of Cos, but which other critics have supposed to have been written by one or more of his disciples or successors. At any rate, it is believed to represent his views. Plato elaborated the theory, and Galen gave it dogmatic form.
The human body was composed not exactly of the four elements, earth, air, fire, and water, but of the essences of these elements. The fluid parts, the blood, the phlegm, the bile, and the black bile, were the four humours. There were also three kinds of spirits, natural, vital, and animal, which put the humours in motion.
The blood was the humour which nourished the various parts of the body, and was the source of animal heat. The bile kept the passages of the body open, and served to promote the digestion of the food. The phlegm kept the nerves, the muscles, the cartilages, the tongue, and other organs supple, thus facilitating their movements. The black bile (the melancholy, Hippocrates termed it) was a link between the other humours and sustained them. The proportion of these humours occasioned the temperaments, and it is hardly necessary to remark that this fancy still prevails in our language; the sanguine, the bilious, the phlegmatic, and the atrabilious or melancholy natures being familiar descriptions to this day.
The humours had different characters. The blood was naturally hot and humid, the phlegm cold andhumid, the bile hot and dry, and the black bile cold and dry. Alterations of the humours would cause diseased conditions; distempers was the appropriate term. There might be a too abundant provision of one or more of the humours. A plethora of blood would cause drowsiness, difficulty of breathing, fatty degeneration. A plethora of either of the other humours would have the effect of causing corruption of the blood; plethora of bile, for example, would result in a jaundiced condition, bad breath, a bitter taste in the mouth, and other familiar symptoms. Hæmorrhoids, leprosy, and cancer might result from a plethora of the melancholic humour; colds, catarrhs, rheumatisms were occasioned by a superabundance of the phlegm.
It must not be supposed that Galen or any other authority pretended that the humours were the sole causes of disease. Ancient pathology was a most complicated structure which cannot be even outlined here. The theory of the humours is only indicated in order to show how these explained the action of drugs. To these were attributed hot, humid, cold, and dry qualities to a larger or less extent. Galen classifies them in four degrees—that is to say, a drug might be hot, humid, cold, or dry in the first, second, third, or fourth degree. Consequently the physician had to estimate first which humour was predominant, and in what degree, and then he had to select the drug which would counteract the disproportionate heat, cold, humidity, or dryness. Of course he had his manuals to guide him. Thus Culpepper tells us that horehound, for example, is “hot in the second degree, and dry in the third”; herb Trinity, or pansies, on the other hand, “are cold and moist, both herbs and flowers”; and so forth. Medicines which applied to the skin would raise a blister, mustard, for example,are hot in the fourth degree; those which provoke sweat abundantly, and thus “cut tough and compacted humours” (Culpepper) are hot in the third degree. Opium was cold in the fourth degree, and therefore should only be given alone to mitigate violent pain. In ordinary cases it is wise to moderate the coldness of the opium by combining something of the first degree of cold or heat with it.
An amusing illustration of the reverence which this doctrine of the temperatures inspired is furnished by Sprengel in the second volume of his History of Medicine. Dealing with the Arab period, he tells us that Jacob-Ebn-Izhak-Alkhendi, one of the most celebrated authors of his nation, who lived in the ninth century, and cultivated mathematics, philosophy, and astrology as well as medicine, wrote a book on the subject before us, extending Galen’s theory to compound medicines, explaining their action in accordance with the principles of harmony in music. The degrees he explains progress in geometric ratio, so that the fourth degree counts as 16 compared with unity. He sets out his proposition thus:x=bn‑1a;abeing the first,bthe last,xthe exponent, andnthe number of the terms. Sprengel has pity on those of us who are not familiar with mathematical manipulations, and gives an example to make the formula clear.
This preparation therefore forms a mixture exactly balanced in hot and cold properties, but twice as dry asit is humid; the mixture is therefore dry in the first degree. If the total had shown twelve of the dry to three of the humid qualities, it would have been dry in the second degree. When it is remembered that in addition to these calculations the physician had to realise that drugs adapted for one part of the body might be of no use for another, it will be perceived that the art of prescribing was a serious business under the sway of the old dogmas.
It has never been pretended, so far as I am aware, that the Rosicrucian mystics of the middle ages did anything for the advancement of pharmacy. They are only mentioned here because they claimed the power of curing disease, and also because it happens that the fiction which created the legends concerning them was almost contemporaneous with the not unsimilar one (if the latter be a fiction) which made a historical figure of Basil Valentine. Between 1614 and 1616 three works were published professing to reveal the history of the brethren of the Rosy Cross. The first was known as Fama Fraternitatis, the second was the Confessio Fraternitatis, and the third and most important was the “Chymical Marriage of Christian Rosencreutz.” The treatises are written in a mystic jargon, and have been interpreted as alchemical or religious parables, though vast numbers of learned men adopted the records as statements of facts. It was asserted that Christian Rosencreutz, a German, born in 1378, had travelled in the East, and from the wise men of Arabia and other countries had learnt the secrets of their knowledge, religious, necromantic, and alchemical. On his returnto Germany he and seven other persons formed this fraternity, which was to be kept secret for a hundred years. The brethren, it is suggested, communicated to each other their discoveries and the knowledge which had been transmitted to them to communicate with each other. They were to treat the sick poor free, were to wear no distinctive dress, but they used the letters C.R. They knew how to make gold, but this was not of much value to them, for they did not seek wealth. They were to meet once a year, and each one appointed his own successor, but there were to be no tombstones or other memorials. Christian Rosencreutz himself is reported to have died at the age of 106, and long afterwards his skeleton was found in a house, a wall having been built over him. Their chief business being to heal the sick poor, they must have known much about medicine, but the books do not reveal anything of any use. They acquired their knowledge, not by study, but by the direct illumination of God. The theories—such as they were—were Paracelsian, and the fraternity, though mystic, was Protestant.
The most curious feature of the story is that the almost obviously fictitious character of the documents which announced it should have been so widely believed. Very soon after their publication German students were fiercely disputing concerning the authenticity of the revelations, and the controversy continued for two hundred years. Much learned investigation into the origin of the first treatises has been made, and the most usual conclusion has been that they were written by a German theologian, Johann Valentin Andreas, of Württemberg, b. 1586, d. 1654. He is said to have declared before his death that he wrote the alleged history expressly as a work of fiction.
was at least intelligible. It associated itself, too, with the pious utterances so frequent among the mediæval teachers and practitioners of medicine. The theory was that the Creator in providing herbs for the service of man had stamped on them, at least in many instances, an indication of their special remedial value. The adoption of ginseng root by the Chinese as a remedy for impotence, and of mandrake by the Hebrews and Greeks in the treatment of sterility, those roots often resembling the male form, have been often cited as evidence of the antiquity of the general dogma.... But isolated instances of that kind are very far from proving the existence of systematic belief. Hippocrates states that diseases are sometimes cured by the use of “like” remedies; but he was not the founder of homœopathy.
It is likely that the belief in a special indication of the virtues of remedies grew up slowly in the monasteries, and was originated, perhaps, by noticing some curious coincidences. It found wide acceptation in the sixteenth century, largely owing to the confident belief in the doctrine expressed in the writings of Paracelsus. Oswald Crollius and Giovanni Batista Porta, both mystical medical authors, taught the idea with enthusiasm. But it can hardly be said that it maintained its influence to any appreciable extent beyond the seventeenth century. Dr. Paris describes the doctrine of signatures as “the most absurd and preposterous hypothesis that has disgraced the annals of medicine”; but except that it may have led to experiments with a few valueless herbs, it is difficult to see sufficient reason for this extravagant condemnation of a poetic fancy.
The signatures of some drugs were no doubt observed after their virtues had been discovered. Poppy, for instance, under the doctrine was appropriated to brain disorders, on account of its shape like a head. But its reputation as a brain soother was much more ancient than the inference.
It is only necessary to give a few specimens of the inductive reasoning involved in the doctrine of signatures as revealed by the authors of the old herbals. The saxifrages were supposed to break up rocks; their medicinal value in stone in the bladder was therefore manifest. Roses were recommended in blood disorders, rhubarb and saffron in bilious complaints, turmeric in jaundice, all on account of their colour. Trefoil “defendeth the heart against the noisome vapour of the spleen,” says William Coles in his “Art of Simpling,” “not only because the leaf is triangular like the heart of a man, but because each leaf contains the perfect icon of a heart and in the proper flesh colour.” Aristolochia Clematitis was called birthwort, and from the shape of its corolla was believed to be useful in parturition. Physalis alkekengi, bladder wort, owed its reputation as a cleanser of the bladder and urinary passages to its inflated calyx. Tormentilla officinalis, blood root, has a red root, and would therefore cure bloody fluxes. Scrophularia nodosa, kernel wort, has kernels or tubers attached to its roots, and was consequently predestined for the treatment of scrofulous glands of the neck. Canterbury bells, from their long throats, were allocated to the cure of sore throats. Thistles, because of their prickles, would cure a stitch in the side. Scorpion grass, the old name of the forget-me-not, has a spike which was likened to the tail of a scorpion, and was therefore a remedy forthe sting of a scorpion. [The name forget-me-not was applied in England, until about a century ago, to the Ground Pine (Ajuga Chamœpitys), for the unpoetical reason that it left a nauseous taste in the mouth.]
Oswald Crollius, who describes himself as Medicus et Philosophus Hermeticus, in his “Tractatus de Signatures,” writes a long and very pious preface explaining the importance of the knowledge of signatures. It is the most useful part of botany, he observes, and yet not a tenth part of living physicians have fitted themselves to practise from this study to the satisfaction of their patients. His inferences from the plants and animals he mentions are often very far-fetched, but he gives his conclusions as if they had been mathematically demonstrated. Never once does he intimate that a signature is capable of two interpretations. A few illustrations not mentioned above may be selected from his treatise.
Walnuts have the complete signature of the head. From the shell, therefore, a salt can be made of special use for wounds of the pericranium. The inner part of the shell will make a decoction for injuries to the skull; the pellicle surrounding the kernel makes a medicine for inflammation of the membrane of the brain; and the kernel itself nourishes and strengthens the brain. The down on the quince shows that a decoction of that fruit will prevent the hair falling out. So will the moss that grows on trees. The asarum has the signature of the ears. A conserve of its flowers will therefore help the hearing and the memory. Herb Paris, euphrasia, chamomile, hieracium, and many other herbs yield preparations for the eyes. Potentilla flowers bear the pupil of the eye, and may similarly be employed. The seed receptacle of the henbane resembles the formation of the jaw. That is why these seeds are good for toothache. The lemon indicates the heart, ginger the belly, cassia fistula the bowels, aristolochia the womb, plantago the nerves and veins, palma Christi and fig leaves the hands.
The signatures sometimes simulate the diseases themselves. Lily of the valley has a flower hanging like a drop; it is good for apoplexy. The date, according to Paracelsus, cures cancer; dock seeds, red colcothar, and acorus palustris will cure erysipelas; red santal, geraniums, coral, blood stones, and tormentilla, are indicated in hæmorrhage; rhubarb in yellow bile; wolves’ livers in liver complaints, foxes’ lungs in pulmonary affections, and dried worms powdered in goats’ milk to expel worms. The fame of vipers as a remedy was largely due to the theory of the renewal of their youth. Tartarus, or salt of man’s urine, is good against tartar and calculi.
Colour was a very usual signature. Red hangings were strongly advocated in medical books for the beds of patients with small-pox. John of Gaddesden, physician to Edward II, says, “When I saw the son of the renowned King of England lying sick of the small-pox I took care that everything round the bed should be of a red colour, which succeeded so completely that the Prince was restored to perfect health without the vestige of a pustule.”
It will be noticed that parts of animals are credited in the examples just quoted with remedial properties. This was a natural extension of the doctrine. Metals, too, were credited with medicinal virtues correspondingwith their names or with the deities and planets with which they had been so long associated. The sun ruled the heart, gold was the sun’s metal, therefore gold was especially a cordial. The moon, silver, and the head were similarly associated. Iron was a tonic because Mars was strong.
“Have a care,” says Culpepper, “you use not such medicines to one part of your body which are appropriated to another; for if your brain be overheated and you use such medicines as cool the heart or liver you may make mad work.”
But it was not quite so simple a thing as it may seem to be to select the proper remedy, because there were conditions which made it necessary to follow an antipathetical treatment. For instance, Saturn ruling the bones caused toothache; but if Jupiter happened to be in the ascendant, the proper drug to employ was one in the service of the opposing planet. Modern astronomy has removed the heavenly bodies so far from us that we have ceased to regard them in the friendly way which once characterised our relations with them. To quote Culpepper again: “It will seem strange to none but madmen and fools that the stars should have influence upon the body of man, considering he being an epitomy of the Creation must needs have a celestial world within himself; for ... if there be an unity in the Godhead there must needs be an unity in all His works, and a dependency between them, and not that God made the Creation to hang together like a rope of sand.”
Among the strange theories which have found acceptance in medical history, mainly it would seem by reason of their utter baselessness and absurdity, none is moreunaccountable than the belief in the so-called sympathetic remedies. There is abundant material for a long chapter on this particular manifestation of faith in the impossible, but a few prominent instances of the remarkable method of treatment comprised in the designation will suffice to prove that it was seriously adopted by men capable of thinking intelligently.
The germ of the idea goes back to very early ages. Dr. J. G. Frazer, the famous authority on primitive beliefs, traces the commandment in the Pentateuch, “Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother’s milk,” to an ancient prejudice against the boiling of milk in any circumstances, on the ground that this would cause suffering to the animal which yielded the milk. If the suffering could be thus conveyed, it was logical to believe that healing was similarly capable of transference.
Pliny (quoted by Cornelius Agrippa) says: “If any person shall be sorry for a blow he has given another, afar off or near at hand, if he shall presently spit into the middle of the hand with which he gave the blow, the party that was smitten shall presently be free from pain.”
Paracelsus developed the notion with the confidence which he was wont to bestow on theories which involved far-fetched explanations. This was his formula for “Unguentum Sympatheticum”:—
Take 4 oz. each of boar’s and bear’s fat, boil slowly for half an hour, then pour on cold water. Skim off the floating bit, rejecting that which sinks. (The older the animals yielding the fat, the better.)
Take of powdered burnt worms, of dried boar’s brain, of red sandal wood, of mummy, of bloodstone, 1 oz. of each. Then collect 1 drachm of the moss from the skull of a man who died a violent death, one who hadbeen hanged, preferably, and had not been buried. This should be collected at the rising of the moon, and under Venus if possible, but certainly not under Mars or Saturn. With all these ingredients make an ointment, which keep in a closed glass vessel. If it becomes dry on keeping it can be softened with a little fresh lard or virgin honey. The ointment must be prepared in the autumn.
Paracelsus describes the methods of applying this ointment, the precautions to be taken, and the manner in which it exerts its influence. It was the weapon which inflicted the wound which was to be anointed, and it would be effective no matter how far away the wounded person might be. It would not answer if an artery had been severed, or if the heart, the brain, or the liver had suffered the lesion. The wound was to be kept properly bandaged, and the bandages were to be first wetted with the patient’s urine. The anointment of the weapon was to be repeated every day in the case of a serious wound, or every second or third day when the wound was not so severe, and the weapon was to be wrapped after anointment in a clean linen cloth, and kept free from dust and draughts, or the patient would experience much pain. The anointment of the weapon acted on the wound by a magnetic current through the air direct to the healing balsam which exists in every living body, just as the heat of the sun passes through the air.
Paracelsus also prescribed the leaves of the Polygonum persicaria to be applied to sores and ulcers, and then buried. One of his disciples explains that the object of burying the leaves was that they attracted the evil spirits like a magnet, and thus drew these spirits from the patient to the earth.
The sympathetic egg was another device to cheat diseases, attributed to the same inventive genius. An empty chicken’s egg was to be filled with warm blood from a healthy person, carefully sealed and placed under a brooding hen for a week or two, so that its vitality should not be impaired. It was then heated in an oven for some hours at a temperature sufficient to bake bread. To cure a case this egg was placed in contact with the affected part and then buried. It was assumed that it would inevitably take the disease with it, as healthy and concentrated blood must have a stronger affinity for disease than a weaker sort.
Robert Fludd, M.D., the Rosicrucian, who fell under the displeasure of the College of Physicians on account of his unsound views from a Galenical standpoint, was a warm advocate of the Paracelsian Weapon Salve. In reply to a contemporary doctor who had ridiculed the theory he waxes earnest, and at times sarcastic. He explains that “an ointment composed of the moss of human bones, mummy (which is the human body combined with balm), human fat, and added to these the blood, which is the beginning and food of them all, must have a spiritual power, for with the blood the bright soul doth abide and operateth after a hidden manner. Then as there is a spiritual line protracted or extended in the Ayre between the wounded person and the Box of Ointment like the beam of the Sun from the Sun, so this animal beam is the faithful conductor of the Healing nature from the box of the balsam to the wounded body. And if it were not for that line which conveys the wholesome and salutiferous spirit, the value of the ointment would evaporate or sluce out this way or that way and so would bring no benefit to the wounded persons.”
Van Helmont, Descartes, Batista Porta, and other leaders of science, in the seventeenth century, espoused the theory cordially enough. Van Helmont’s contribution to the evidence on which it was founded is hard to beat. In his “De Magnetica Vulnerum Curatione,” written about 1644, he relates that a citizen of Brussels having lost his nose in a combat in Italy, repaired to a surgeon of Bologna named Tagliacozzi, who provided him with another, taking the required strip of flesh from the arm of a servant. This answered admirably, and the Brussels man returned home. But thirteen months later he found his nose was getting cold; and then it began to putrefy. The explanation, of course, was that the servant from whom the flesh had been borrowed had died. Van Helmont adds, “Superstites sunt horum testes oculati Bruxellae”; there are still eye-witnesses of this case at Brussels.
Moss from a dead man’s skull is a principal ingredient in all the sympathetic ointments, and the condition that the dead man should have died a violent death is generally insisted on. But Van Helmont, quoting from one Goclenius, adds another condition still more absurd. It is that the dead man’s name should only have three letters. Thus, for example, Dod would do, but not Dodd.
Sir Gilbert Talbot (in the time of Charles II) communicated to the Royal Society particulars of a cure he had made with Sympathetic Powder. An English mariner was stabbed in four places at Venice, and bled for three days without intermission. Sir Gilbert, who happened to be at Venice at the same time, was told of this disaster. He sent for some of the man’s blood and mixed Sympathetic Powder with it. At the same time he sent a man to bind up the patient’s wounds with clean linen. Soon after he visited the mariner andfound all the wounds closed, and the man much comforted. Three days later the poor fellow was able to call on Sir Gilbert to thank him, but even then “he appeared like a ghost with noe blood left in his body.”
Marquise de Sévigné.Born 1626, died 1696, whose famous “letters” are of great historical importance, frequently introduces references to the medicine of the period, and was herself a faithful disciple of many of its quackeries.
Marquise de Sévigné.
Born 1626, died 1696, whose famous “letters” are of great historical importance, frequently introduces references to the medicine of the period, and was herself a faithful disciple of many of its quackeries.
Born 1626, died 1696, whose famous “letters” are of great historical importance, frequently introduces references to the medicine of the period, and was herself a faithful disciple of many of its quackeries.
Madame de Sévigné, an experienced amateur in medical matters, provides interesting evidence of the popularity of the powder of sympathy. Writing toher daughter on January 28th, 1685, she tells her that “a little wound which was believed to have been healed had shown signs of revolt; but it is only for the honour of being cured by your powder of sympathy. The Baume Tranquille is of no account now; your powder of sympathy is a perfectly divine remedy. My sore has changed its appearance and is now half dried and cured.” On February 7th, 1685, she writes again:—“I am afraid the powder of sympathy is only suitable for old standing wounds. It has only cured the least troublesome of mine. I am now using the black ointment, which is admirable.” Even the black ointment proved unfaithful, for in June of the same year the marchioness writes that she has gone to the Capucins of the Louvre. They did not believe in the powder of sympathy; they had something much better. They gave her certain herbs which were to be applied to the affected part and removed twice a day. Those removed are to be buried; “and laugh if you like, as they decay so will the wound heal, and thus by a gentle and imperceptible transpiration I shall cure the most ill-treated leg in the world.”
Sir Kenelm Digby.(From a painting by Vandyke in the Bodleian Gallery, Oxford.)
Sir Kenelm Digby.
(From a painting by Vandyke in the Bodleian Gallery, Oxford.)
The name of Sir Kenelm Digby is more closely associated with the “powder of sympathy” than that of any other person, and indeed he is often credited with the invention of the idea; but this was not the case. He was an extraordinary man who played a rather prominent part in the stirring days of the Stuarts. His father, Sir Everard Digby, was implicated in the Gunpowder Plot, and was duly executed. Kenelm must have been gifted with unusual attractions or plausibility to have overcome this unfortunate stain on his pedigree, but he managed it, and history introduces him to us at the court of that suspicious monarch,
James I., while he was quite a young man. He had inherited an income of £3,000 a year, and seems to have been popular with the King and with his fellow courtiers. But he was not contented to lead an idle life, so he pressed James to give him a commission to go forth and steal some Spanish galleons, which was the gentlemanly thing to do in those days. James consented, but at the last moment it was discovered that the commission would not be in order unless it was countersigned by the Lord High Admiral, who wasaway from England at the time. James therefore simply granted the buccaneer a licence to undertake a voyage “for the increase of his knowledge.” Digby scoured the Mediterranean for a year or two, captured some French, Spanish, and Flemish ships, and won a rather severe engagement with French and Venetian vessels at Scanderoon in the Levant. This exploit was celebrated by Digby’s friend, Ben Jonson, in verse, which can only be termed deathless on account of its particularly imbecile ending:—
Witness his action done at ScanderoonUpon his birthday, the eleventh of June.
Witness his action done at ScanderoonUpon his birthday, the eleventh of June.
Witness his action done at ScanderoonUpon his birthday, the eleventh of June.
Witness his action done at Scanderoon
Upon his birthday, the eleventh of June.
The writer of Digby’s epitaph plagiarised the essence of this brilliant strophe in the following lines:—
Born on the day he died, the eleventh of June,And that day bravely fought at Scanderoon.It’s rare that one and the same day should beHis day of birth and death and victory.
Born on the day he died, the eleventh of June,And that day bravely fought at Scanderoon.It’s rare that one and the same day should beHis day of birth and death and victory.
Born on the day he died, the eleventh of June,And that day bravely fought at Scanderoon.It’s rare that one and the same day should beHis day of birth and death and victory.
Born on the day he died, the eleventh of June,
And that day bravely fought at Scanderoon.
It’s rare that one and the same day should be
His day of birth and death and victory.
On his return home after thus distinguishing himself, Digby was knighted, changed his religion occasionally, was imprisoned and banished at intervals, and dabbled in science between times, or shone in society in London, Paris, or Rome, visiting the two last-named cities frequently on real or pretended diplomatic missions.
During his residence in France, in 1658, he lectured to the University of Montpellier on his sympathetic powder, and the fame of this miraculous compound soon reached England. When he came back he professed to be shy of using it lest he should be accused of wizardry. But an occasion soon occurred when he was compelled to take the risk for the sake of a friend. Thomas Howel, the Duke of Buckingham’s secretary, was seriously wounded in trying to prevent a duel between two friends of his, and the doctorsprognosticated gangrene and probably death. The friends of the wounded man appealed to Sir Kenelm, who generously consented to do his best. He told the attendants to bring him a rag on which was some of the sufferer’s blood. They brought the garter which had been used as a bandage and which was still thick with blood. He soaked this in a basin of water in which he had dissolved a handful of his sympathetic powder. An hour later the patient said he felt an agreeable coolness. The fever and pain rapidly abated, and in a few days the cure was complete. It was reported that the Duke of Buckingham testified to the genuineness of the cure and that the king had taken a keen interest in the treatment.
Digby asserted that the secret of the powder was imparted to him by a Carmelite monk whom he met at Florence. His laboratory assistant, George Hartman, published a “Book of Chymicall Secrets,” in 1682, after Sir Kenelm’s death, and therein explained that the Powder of Sympathy, which was then made by himself (Hartman), and “sold by a bookseller in Cornhill named Brookes” was prepared “by dissolving good English vitriol in as little warm water as will suffice, filter, evaporate, and set aside until fair, large, green crystals are formed. Spread these in the sun until they whiten. Then crush them coarsely and again dry in the sun.” Other recipes say it should be dried in the sun gently (a French formula says “amoureusement”) for 365 days.
Sir Kenelm’s scientific explanation of the action of his sympathetic powder is on the same lines as the others I have quoted. Briefly it was that the rays of the sun extracted from the blood and the vitriol associated with it the spirit of each in minute atoms. At the same time the inflamed wound was exhaling hotatoms and making way for a current of air. The air charged with the atoms of blood and vitriol were attracted to it, and acted curatively.
In a letter written by Straus to Sir Kenelm, it is related that Lord Gilborne had followed the system, but his method was described as “the dry way.” A carpenter had cut himself severely with an axe. The offending axe still bespattered with blood was smeared with the proper ointment and hung up in a cupboard. The wound was going on well, but one day it suddenly became violently painful again. On investigation it was found that the axe had fallen from the nail on which it was hung.
Inscribed on the plate attached to the portrait of Sir Kenelm Digby in the National Portrait Gallery, it is stated that “His character has been summed up as a prodigy of learning, credulity, valour, and romance.” Although this appreciation is quoted the author is not named. Other testimonials to his character and reliability are to be found in contemporary literature. Evelyn alludes to him as “a teller of a strange things.” Clarendon describes him as “a person very eminent and notorious throughout the whole course of his life from his cradle to his grave. A man of very extraordinary person and presence; a wonderful graceful behaviour, a flowing courtesy, and such a volubility of language as surprised and delighted.” Lady Fanshawe met him at Calais with the Earl of Strafford and others and says, “much excellent discourse passed; but, as was reason, most share was Sir Kenelm Digby’s who had enlarged somewhat more in extraordinary stories than might be averred.” At last he told the company about the barnacle goose he had seen in Jersey; a barnacle which changes to a bird, and at this they alllaughed incredulously. But Lady Fanshawe says this “was the only thing true he had declaimed with them. This was his infirmity, though otherwise of most excellent parts, and a very fine-bred gentleman.” In John Aubrey’s “Brief Lives” (“set down between 1669 and 1696”) Digby is described as “such a goodly person, gigantique and great voice, and had so graceful elocution and noble address, etc., that had he been drop’t out of the clowdes in any part of the world he would have made himself respected.”
It may be of interest to add that a daughter of Sir Kenelm Digby’s second son married a Sir John Conway, of Flintshire. Her granddaughter, Honora, married a Sir John Glynne whose great-grandson, Sir Stephen Glynne, was the father of the late Mrs. W. E. Gladstone.
In 1690, Lemery had the courage to express some doubts about this powder of sympathy, and in 1773 Baumé declared its pretensions to be absolutely illusory.
To conclude the account of this curious delusion, a few quotations from English literature may be added.
There are several allusions to sympathetic cures in Hudibras. For instance,
For by his side a pouch he woreReplete with strange hermetick powderThat wounds nine miles point blank would solder,By skilful chemist at great costExtracted from a rotten post.
For by his side a pouch he woreReplete with strange hermetick powderThat wounds nine miles point blank would solder,By skilful chemist at great costExtracted from a rotten post.
For by his side a pouch he woreReplete with strange hermetick powderThat wounds nine miles point blank would solder,By skilful chemist at great costExtracted from a rotten post.
For by his side a pouch he wore
Replete with strange hermetick powder
That wounds nine miles point blank would solder,
By skilful chemist at great cost
Extracted from a rotten post.
And again,
’Tis true a scorpion’s oil is saidTo cure the wounds the vermin made;And weapons dress’d with salves restoreAnd heal the wounds they made before.
’Tis true a scorpion’s oil is saidTo cure the wounds the vermin made;And weapons dress’d with salves restoreAnd heal the wounds they made before.
’Tis true a scorpion’s oil is saidTo cure the wounds the vermin made;And weapons dress’d with salves restoreAnd heal the wounds they made before.
’Tis true a scorpion’s oil is said
To cure the wounds the vermin made;
And weapons dress’d with salves restore
And heal the wounds they made before.
In Dryden’sTempest, the sympathetic treatment is referred to. Hippolito has been wounded by Fernando,and Miranda instructed by Ariel, visits him. Ariel says, “Anoint the sword which pierced him with this weapon salve, and wrap it close from air.” The following is the next scene between Hippolito and Miranda.
Hip.Oh! my wound pains me.Mir.I am come to ease you.[Unwrapping the sword.Hip.Alas! I feel the cold air come to me.My wound shoots worse than ever.[Miranda wipes and anoints the sword.Mir.Does it still grieve you?Hip.Now, methinks, there’s something laid just upon it.Mir.Do you find no ease?Hip.Yes, yes; upon the sudden all the painIs leaving me; Sweet heaven, how I am eased.
Hip.Oh! my wound pains me.Mir.I am come to ease you.[Unwrapping the sword.Hip.Alas! I feel the cold air come to me.My wound shoots worse than ever.[Miranda wipes and anoints the sword.Mir.Does it still grieve you?Hip.Now, methinks, there’s something laid just upon it.Mir.Do you find no ease?Hip.Yes, yes; upon the sudden all the painIs leaving me; Sweet heaven, how I am eased.
Hip.Oh! my wound pains me.Mir.I am come to ease you.[Unwrapping the sword.Hip.Alas! I feel the cold air come to me.My wound shoots worse than ever.[Miranda wipes and anoints the sword.Mir.Does it still grieve you?Hip.Now, methinks, there’s something laid just upon it.Mir.Do you find no ease?Hip.Yes, yes; upon the sudden all the painIs leaving me; Sweet heaven, how I am eased.
Hip.Oh! my wound pains me.
Mir.I am come to ease you.[Unwrapping the sword.
Hip.Alas! I feel the cold air come to me.
My wound shoots worse than ever.
[Miranda wipes and anoints the sword.
Mir.Does it still grieve you?
Hip.Now, methinks, there’s something laid just upon it.
Mir.Do you find no ease?
Hip.Yes, yes; upon the sudden all the pain
Is leaving me; Sweet heaven, how I am eased.
Lastly, in theLay of the Last Minstrel, Scott alludes to this same superstition in the lines
But she has ta’en the broken lanceAnd washed it from the clotted goreAnd salved the splinter o’er and o’er.
But she has ta’en the broken lanceAnd washed it from the clotted goreAnd salved the splinter o’er and o’er.
But she has ta’en the broken lanceAnd washed it from the clotted goreAnd salved the splinter o’er and o’er.
But she has ta’en the broken lance
And washed it from the clotted gore
And salved the splinter o’er and o’er.
It would appear from the explanations already given that by washing the gore away she destroyed the communication between the wound and the remedy.
The first allusion to the application of the magnet as a cure for disease is found in the works of Aetius, who wrote in the early part of the sixth century. He mentions that holding a magnet in the hand is said to give relief in gout. He does not profess to have tested this treatment himself. Writers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries recommend it strongly for toothache, headache, convulsions, and nerve disorders. About the end of the seventeenth century magnetic tooth-picks and earpicks were sold. To these wereattributed the virtues of preventing and healing pains in those organs.
Paracelsus originated the theory of animal magnetism. The mysterious properties possessed by the loadstone and transferable from that body to iron, were according to Paracelsus an influence drawn directly from the stars and possessed by all animate beings. It was a fluid which he called Magnale. By it he explained the movements of certain plants which follow the course of the sun, and it was on the basis of this hypothesis that he composed his sympathetic ointment and explained the action of talismans. Paracelsus applied the magnet in epilepsy, and also prepared a magisterium magnetis.
Glauber professed to have a secret magnet which would draw only the essence or tincture from iron, leaving the gross body behind. With this he made a tincture of Mars and Venus, thus “robbing the dragon of the golden fleece which it guards.” This is understood to mean that he dissolved iron and copper in aqua fortis. And as Jason restored his aged father to youth again, so would this tincture prove a wonderful restorative. He commenced to test it on one occasion and very soon black curly hair began to grow on his bald head. But he had not enough of the tincture to permit him to carry on the experiment, and though he had a great longing to make some more, he apparently put off doing so until it was too late.
Van Helmont, Fludd, and other physicians of mystic instincts, were among the protagonists of animal magnetism, and physicians administered pulverised magnet in salves, plasters, pills and potions. But in 1660 Dr. Gilbert, of Colchester, noted that, when powdered, the loadstone no longer possessed magnetic properties. Ultimately, therefore, it was understoodthat the powder of magnet was not capable of producing any other effects than any other ferruginous substance. But the belief in magnets applied to the body was by no means dissipated. The theory was exploited by various practitioners, but notably towards the latter part of the eighteenth century, when the Viennese doctor, F. A. Mesmer, excited such a vogue in Paris that the Court, the Government, the Academy of Sciences, and aristocratic society generally were ranged in pro-and anti-Mesmer sections. Franklin stated that at one time Mesmer was taking more money in fees than all the regular physicians of Paris put together. And yet Mesmer’s explanations of the phenomena attending his performances were only an amplification of the doctrines which Paracelsus had first imagined.
The excitement did not spread to England to any great extent, but about the same time an American named Perkins created a great deal of stir with his metallic tractors, which sent the nation tractor-mad for the time. Dr. Haygarth, of Bath, contributed to the failure of this delusion by a series of experiments on patients with pieces of wood painted to resemble the tractors from which equally wonderful relief was felt, proving that the cures such as they were, could only have been the consequence of faith.
The history of the treatment of itch is such a curious instance of the blind acceptance of authority through many centuries, in the course of which the true explanation lay close at hand, that it is worth narrating briefly.
It is stated in some histories that the disease wasknown to the Chinese some thousands of years ago, and the name they gave it, Tchong-kiai, which means pustules formed by a worm, indicates that at least when that term was adopted they had some acquaintance with the character of the disease.
Some writers have supposed that certain of the uncleannesses alluded to in the Book of Leviticus have reference to this complaint; and it is quite possible that in old times it acquired a much more severe character than it ever has now, owing to neglect or improper treatment. Psora, in Greek, and the equivalent term Scabies, in Latin, are supposed to have at least included the itch, though in all probability those words comprehended a number of skin diseases which are now more exactly distinguished. Hippocrates mentions psora, and apparently treated it solely by the internal administration of diluents and purgatives. Aristotle mentions not only the disease but the insects found, he said, in the blisters. Celsus advocated the application of ointments composed of a miscellaneous lot of drugs, such as verdigris, myrrh, nitre, white lead, and sulphur. Galen hints at the danger of external applications which might drive the disease inwards. In Cicero, Horace, Juvenal, and other of the classical writers, the word scabies is used to indicate something unnatural; showing that it had come to be adopted metaphorically.
The Arab writers are much more explicit. Rhazes, Haly Abbas, and Avicenna are very definite in their descriptions of the nature of the complaint, and how it is transmitted from one person to another; but Avicenna’s mode of treatment was directed to the expulsion of the supposed vicious humours from the body by bleeding and purgatives, especially by apurgative called Hamech. At the same time he advised that the constitution should be reinforced by suitable diet and astringent medicines.
Avenzoar of Seville, a remarkable observer, who lived in the twelfth century, alludes to a malady of the skin, common among the people, and known as Soab. This, he says, is caused by a tiny insect, so small that it can scarcely be seen, which, hidden beneath the epidermis, escapes when a puncture has been made.
One would have supposed that the doctors were at that time on the eve of understanding the itch correctly, and in fact the writers of the next few centuries were at least quite clear about the acarus. Ambrose Paré, for example, who lived through the greater part of the sixteenth century, uses this language:—“Les cirons sont petits animaux cachés dans le cuir, sous lequel ils se trainent, rampent, et rongent petit par petit, excitant une facheuse demangeaison et gratelle;” and elsewhere “Ces cirons doivent se tirer avec espingles ou aiguilles.”
All this time, however, the complaint was regarded as a disturbance of the humours which had to be treated by suitable internal medicines. In a standard work,De Morbis Cutaneis, by Mercuriali, published at Venice in 1601, the author attributes the disease to perverted humours, and says it is contagious because the liquid containing the contagious principle is deposited on or in the skin.
This view, or something like it, continued to be the orthodox opinion at least up to the seventeenth century. Van Helmont’s personal experience of the itch is referred to in dealing with that eccentric genius who was converted from Galenism to Paracelsianism as a consequenceof his cure; but he never got beyond the idea that the cause of the complaint was a specific ferment.
The earliest really scientific contribution to the study of this disorder may be credited to Thomas Mouffet, of London, who, in a treatise published in 1634, entitledInsectorum sive Minimorum Animalium Theatrum, showed not only that the animalculæ were constantly associated with the complaint, but made it clear that they were not to be found in the vesicles, but in the tunnels connected with these. For this was the stumbling block of most of the investigators. It had been so often stated that the parasites were to be found in the vesicles, that when they were not there the theory failed. Mouffet’s exposition ought to have led to a correct understanding of the cause of the complaint, but it was practically ignored.
About this time the microscope was invented, and in 1657 a German naturalist named Hauptmann published a rough drawing of the insect magnified. A better, but still imperfect, representation of it was given a few years later by Etmuller.
In 1687 a pharmacist of Leghorn, named Cestoni, induced a Dr. Bonomo of that city to join him in making a series of experiments to prove that the acarus was the cause of itch. They had both observed the women of the city extracting the insects from the hands of their children by the aid of needles, and the result of their research was a treatise in which the parasitic nature of the complaint was maintained, and the uselessness of internal remedies was insisted on. These intelligent Italians recommended sulphur or mercury ointment as the essential application.
Even with this evidence before them the doctors went on faithful to their theory of humours. Linnæussupported the view of Bonomo and Cestoni, but made the mistake of identifying the itch parasite with the cheese mite. The great medical authorities of the eighteenth century, such as Hoffmann and Boerhaave, still recommended general treatment, and a long list of drugs might be compiled which were supposed to be suitable in the treatment of itch. Among these, luckily, some parasiticides were included, and, consequently, the disease did get cured by these, but the wrong things got the credit. About the end of the eighteenth century Hahnemann promulgated the theory that the “psoric miasm” of which the itch eruption was the symptomatic manifestation, was the cause of a large proportion of chronic diseases.
Some observers thought there were two kinds of itch, one caused by the acarus, the other independent of it. Bolder theorists held that the insect was the product of the disease. The dispute continued until 1834, in which year Francois Renucci, a native of Corsica, and at the time assistant to the eminent surgeon d’Alibert at the Hôpital St. Louis, Paris, undertook to extract the acarus in any genuine case of itch. As a boy he had seen the poor women extract it in Corsica, as Bonomo and Cestoni had seen others do it at Leghorn, though his learned master at the hospital remained sceptical for some years. It was near the middle of the nineteenth century before the parasitic character of itch was universally acknowledged.