CHAPTER VI

"One day on entering, I saw some of the brothers carrying Father Matthew like a corpse from the chapel to his room; his face was livid, and his strength was so far gone that he could not answer me when I spoke to him. 'Last night,' the brothers said, 'about seven o'clock, while ministering to a dying person, he perceived himself stricken, and fell at once into extreme weakness.' I helped to put him on his bed; ... he spoke afterwards, and said that he felt as if his head was separated into four parts. I sent for Dr. Senso, his physician; Dr. Senso declared to me that my friend had the plague, and that every symptom announced the approach of death. 'I fear,' he said, 'that the House of Mercy (Misericordia) is about to be deprived of its good director.' I asked if medical art could not save him. 'We shall see,' replied Senso, 'but I have only a very faint hope; his blood is too much poisoned.' I withdrew, praying God to save the life of this good man. Catharine, however, had heard of the illness of Father Matthew, whom she loved sincerely, and she lost no time in repairing to him. The moment she entered the room, she cried, with a cheerful voice, 'Get up, Father Matthew, get up! This is not a time to be lying idly in bed.' Father Matthew roused himself, sat up on his bed, and finally stood on his feet. Catharine retired; and the moment she was leaving the house, I entered it, and ignorant of what had happened, and believing my friend to be still at the point of death, my grief urged me to say, 'Will you allow a person so dear to us, and so useful to others, to die?' She appeared annoyed at my words, and replied, 'Inwhat terms do you address me? Am I like God, to deliver a man from death?' But I, beside myself with sorrow, pleaded, 'Speak in that way to others if you will, but not to me; for I know your secrets; and I know you obtain from God whatever you ask in faith.' Then Catharine bowed her head, and smiled just a little; after a few minutes she lifted up her head and looked at me full in the face, her countenance radiant with joy, and said, 'Well, let us take courage; he will not die this time,' and she passed on. At these words I banished all fear, for I understood that she had obtained some favor from heaven. I went straight to my sick friend, whom I found sitting on the side of his bed. 'Do you know,' he cried, 'what she has done for me?' He then stood up and narrated joyfully what I have here written. To make the matter more sure, the table was laid, and Father Matthew seated himself at it with us; they served him with vegetables and other light food, and he, who an hour before could not open his mouth, ate with us, chatting and laughing gaily."

None of Catharine's biographers fail to relate wonderful instances of her healing power.68

Martin Luther (1483-1546), the great leader of the Reformation, and St. Francis Xavier (1506-1552), the leader of the Counter-Reformation, were both healers, so it is said. Luther's cure of his friend and helper, Melanchthon, by prayer for and encouragement of the patient, is well known. Xavier's miracles were legion, but have been somewhatdiscredited by a recent author.69I add but one example. "A certain Tomé Paninguem, a fencing-master, says, I knew Antonio de Miranda, who was a servant of the Father Francis, and assisted him when saying Mass. He told me that when going one night on business to Combature, he was bitten by a venomous serpent. He immediately fell down as though paralyzed and became speechless. He was found thus lying unconscious. Informed of the fact, Father Francis ordered Antonio to be carried to him: and when he was laid down speechless and senseless, the Father prayed with all those present. The prayer finished, he put a little saliva with his finger on the bitten place on Antonio's foot, and at the same moment, Antonio recovered his senses, his memory and his speech, and felt himself healed. I have since heard details of this occurrence from the mouths of several eye-witnesses."70

If we accept Görres's account,71the most remarkable instance of curative power possessed by a saint is that afforded by St. Sauveur of Horta (1520-1567). Outside of this one work I have been unable to find any reference to this saint, so I will give a sketch of his apparently remarkable life. Hewas born in Catalonia, and received the first part of his name from a presentiment of his sponsors that he was to be a savior of men, and the second part because he entered the monastery at Horta. A short time after he finished his novitiate, people in some way got the idea that he had a wonderful gift of healing, and soon patients came to him in crowds from all parts of the country. He continued healing for several years. At one time during the feast of the Annunciation he cured six thousand persons, and at another time he found ten thousand patients, from viceroy to laborer, waiting for him at Valencia before the convent of St. Marie de Jesus. Notwithstanding his apparently great success, his brother monks complained to the bishop concerning the dirt and disorder caused by the crowds, and after a reprimand he was sent at midnight to the monastery at Reus, where he was known as Alphonse and assigned to the kitchen. In spite of this, crowds continued to come and he was transferred from monastery to monastery, but always with the same result—the crowd sought him to be healed. He was known as simple, open, and obedient in his relations with men, and austere toward himself. He was patient and resigned, compassionate toward the poor and sick, and full of zeal for their conversion. The number of patients he is said to have cured is incredible, and it is even said that he resuscitated three dead persons. After his deathmiracles were performed at his tomb. Why he was not in favor with his superiors and his brother monks is unknown; his friends say they were jealous; his enemies, that his cures were not genuine.

St. Philip Neri (1551-1595), the founder of the Oratorians, was renowned as a healer. He cured Clement VIII of gout by touching and prayer, a woman of cancer of the breast by the mere touch and assurance, a man of grievous symptoms such as loss of speech and internal pain by simply laying on of hands, and many similar and equally serious cases. The following case was counted nearly equal to a resurrection: "In 1560 Pietro Vittrici of Parma, being in the service of Cardinal Boncompagni, afterward Pope Gregory XIII, fell dangerously ill. He was given up by the physicians, and was supposed to be as good as dead. In this extremity he was visited by Philip who, as soon as he entered the sick man's room, began, as was his wont, to pray for him. He then put his hand on Pietro's forehead, and at the touch he instantly revived. In two days' time he was out of the house perfectly well and strong and went about telling people how he had been cured by Father Philip."72

George Fox (1624-1691), the founder of the Quakers, performed some simple cures of which he himself tells us. The most famous case was that of the cure of a lame arm by command, the accountof which we take from his pen. He thus records it: "After some time I went to the meeting at Arnside where Richard Meyer was. Now he had been long lame of one of his arms; and I was moved by the Lord to say unto him, among all the people, 'Prophet Meyer stand up upon thy legs' (for he was sitting down) and he stood up and stretched out his arm that had been lame a long time, and said: 'Be it known unto all you people that this day I am healed.' But his parents could hardly believe it, but after the meeting was done, had him aside and took off his doublet; and then they saw it was true. He soon after came to Swarthmore meeting, and there declared how the Lord had healed him. But after this the Lord commanded him to go to York with a message from him; and he disobeyed the Lord; and the Lord struck him again, so that he died about three-quarters of a year after."73The cure evidently was not permanent.

Valentine Greatrakes (1628-1683) was born in Affane, Ireland. He was the son of an Irish gentleman, had a good education, and was a Protestant. In 1641, at the outbreak of the Irish rebellion, he fled to England, and from 1649-1656 he served under Cromwell. In 1661, after a period of melancholy derangement, he believed that God had given him power of curing "king's evil" by touching or stroking and prayer. After some success with thisdisease, he added to his list ague, epilepsy, convulsions, paralysis, deafness, ulcers, aches, and lameness, and for a number of years he devoted three days in every week, from 6A. M.to 6P. M., to the exercise of his healing gifts. The crowds which thronged around him were so great that the neighboring towns were not able to accommodate them. He thereupon left his house in the country and went to Youghal, where sick people, not only from all parts of Ireland but from England, continued to congregate in such great numbers that the magistrates were afraid they would infect the place with their diseases.

VALENTINE GREATRAKESVALENTINE GREATRAKES

In some instances he exorcised demons; in fact, he claimed that all diseases were caused by evil spirits, and every infirmity was, with him, a case of diabolic possession. The church endeavored to prohibit his operations but without avail. He was invited to London, and, notwithstanding that an exhibition before the nobility failed, thousands flocked to his house in Lincoln's Inn Fields. In the "Miscellanies" of St. Evremond a graphic sketch is given of his work. The results of his healing are there summed up as follows:

"So great was the confidence in him, that the blind fancied they saw the light which they did not see—the deaf imagined that they heard—the lame that they walked straight, and the paralytic that they had recovered the use of their limbs. An ideaof health made the sick forget for a while their maladies; and imagination, which was not less active in those merely drawn by curiosity than in the sick, gave a false view to the one class, from the desire of seeing, as it operated a false cure on the other from the strong desire of being healed. Such was the power of the Irishman over the mind, and such was the influence of the mind over the body. Nothing was spoken of in London but his prodigies; and these prodigies were supported by such great authorities that the bewildered multitude believed them almost without examination, while more enlightened people did not dare to reject them from their own knowledge."

That there were real cures, however, seems most probable. The Bishop of Dromore testifies thus from his own observation: "I have seen pains strangely fly before his hands till he had chased them out of the body; dimness cleared, and deafness cured by his touch. Twenty persons at several times, in fits of the falling sickness, were in two or three minutes brought to themselves.... Running sores of the 'King's evil' were dried up; grievous sores of many months' date in a few days healed, cancerous knots dissolved, etc."74

The celebrated Flamstead, the astronomer, when a lad of nineteen, went into Ireland to be touched by Greatrakes, and he testifies that he was an eyewitness of several cures, although he himself was not benefited. In a letter to Lord Conway, Greatrakes says: "The King's doctors, this day (for the confirmation of their majesties' belief), sent three out of the hospital to me, who came on crutches; but, blessed be God! they all went home well, to the admiration of all people, as well as the doctors."75

Several pamphlets were issued by medical men and others criticising his work, and in 1666 he published a vindication of himself entitled "A Brief Account." This contained numerous testimonials by Bishop Wilkins, Bishop Patrick, Dr. Cudworth, Dr. Whichcote, and others of distinction and intelligence. After the retirement of Greatrakes, John Leverett, a gardener, succeeded to the "manual exercise," and declared that after touching thirty or forty a day, he felt so much goodness go out of him that he was fatigued as if he had been digging eight roods of ground.

About the same time that Greatrakes was working among the people of London, an Italian enthusiast, named Francisco Bagnone, was operating in Italy with equal success. He had only to touch the sick with his hands, or sometimes with a relic, to accomplish cures which astonished the people.

Hardly less famous than Greatrakes was Johann Jacob Gassner (1727-1779). He was born at Bratz, near Bludenz, and became Roman Catholic priestat Klösterle. He believed that most diseases were caused by evil spirits which could be exorcised by conjuration and prayer. He began practising and soon attracted attention. In 1774 he received a call from the bishop at Ratisbon to Ellwangen, where by the mere word of command, "Cesset" (Give over), he cured the lame and blind, but especially those who were afflicted with epilepsy and convulsions, and who were thereby supposed to be obsessed. His cures were not permanent in some cases, and before he died he lost power and respect.

57A. D. White,History of the Warfare of Science with Theology, II, pp. 5-22.

58W. E. H. Lecky,History of European Morals, I, pp. 347 f.

59P. Dearmer,Body and Soul, pp. 252 f. I am indebted to this excellent book for my material on the subject of Unction, as well as for many other quotations in this chapter.

60F. W. Puller,Anointing of the Sick, pp. 155-158.

61G. F. Fort,History of Medical Economy During the Middle Ages, gives this and the other incidents just quoted. See pp. 155, 160, 272, 275, 327.

62Bede,Ecclesiastical History, bk. V, chap. V.

63Quoted by P. Dearmer,Body and Soul, p. 359.

64J. Cotter Morison,Life and Times of St. Bernard, pp. 422 and 460, for this and the following incident.

65Thomas of Celano,Lives of St. Francis of Assisi(trans. A. G. F. Howell).

66Dublin Review, January, 1876, pp. 8-10.

67G. F. Fort,History of Medical Economy During the Middle Ages, pp. 278 f.

68See J. Butler,Life of St. Catharine of Siena, for many examples.

69See A. D. White,History of the Warfare of Science with Theology, already referred to.

70Jos. Marie Cros,St. François de Xavier, Sa vie et ses lettres, II, p. 392.

71Görres,La mystique divine naturelle et diabolique(trans. Sainte-foi), I, pp. 470-473.

72P. J. Bacci,Life of St. Philip Neri(trans. Antrobus), II, p. 168.

73G. Fox,Journal, I, p. 103.

74J. Moses,Pathological Aspects of Religions, p. 188.

75E. Salverte,The Philosophy of Magic(trans. Thompson), II, p. 81.

"He had the ring of Gyges, the talisman of invisibility."—Hamerton."The quack astrologer offers, for five pieces, to give you home with you a Talisman against Flies; a Sigil to make you fortunate at gaining; and a Spell that shall as certainly preserve you from being rob'd for the future; a sympathetic Powder for violent pains of the Tooth-ache."—Character of a Quack Astrologer."So far are they distant from the true knowledge of physic which are ignorant of astrology, that they ought not rightly to be called physicians, but deceivers; for it hath been many times experimented and proved that that which many physicians could not cure or remedy with their greatest and strongest medicines, the astronomer hath brought to pass with one simple herb, by observing the moving of the signs."—Fabian Withers.

"He had the ring of Gyges, the talisman of invisibility."—Hamerton.

"The quack astrologer offers, for five pieces, to give you home with you a Talisman against Flies; a Sigil to make you fortunate at gaining; and a Spell that shall as certainly preserve you from being rob'd for the future; a sympathetic Powder for violent pains of the Tooth-ache."—Character of a Quack Astrologer.

"So far are they distant from the true knowledge of physic which are ignorant of astrology, that they ought not rightly to be called physicians, but deceivers; for it hath been many times experimented and proved that that which many physicians could not cure or remedy with their greatest and strongest medicines, the astronomer hath brought to pass with one simple herb, by observing the moving of the signs."—Fabian Withers.

In the minds of most persons the terms talisman, amulet, and charm are synonymous. This may be more or less true as far as they are used to-day, but in the days when these terms meant something in real life there was a distinction. The talisman was probably at first an astronomical figure, but later the term became more comprehensive. Pope portrays this astrological import in his couplet,

"Of talismans and sigils knew the power,And carefully watch'd the planetary hour."

The amulet was always carried about the person, while the other two might be in the possession ofthe person in the case of the talisman, or, in the case of the charm, if a material object it could be placed entirely outside of one's care. The talisman and amulet must be a compound of some substance, the charm might be a gesture, a look, or a spoken word. Notice the example of charms according to Tennyson's words,

"Then, in one moment, she put forth the charmOf woven paces and of waving hands."

They were all used for defensive purposes,i. e., to keep away evil, in the form of demons, disease, or misfortune, but they might, especially the talisman, also attract good. Their power was of a magical character, and was exercised in a supernatural manner.

The idea of the talisman probably originated from the belief that certain properties or virtues were impressed upon substances by planetary influences. "A talisman," says Pettigrew, "may in general terms be defined to be a substance composed of certain cabalistic characters engraved on stone, metal, or other material, or else written on slips of paper." Hyde quotes a Persian writer who defines the Telesm or Talismay as "a piece of art compounded of the celestial powers and elementary bodies, appropriated to certain figures or positions, and purposes and times, contrary to the usual manner."

We are told by Maimonides that images or idols were called Tzelamim on account of the power or influence which was supposed to reside in them, rather than on account of their particular figure or form. Townley has opined that the reason for the production of astrological or talismanic images was probably the desire of early peoples to have some representation of the planets during their absence from sight, so that they might at all times be able to worship the planetary body itself or its representative. To accomplish this purpose, the astrologers chose certain colors, metals, stones, trees, etc., to represent certain planets, and constructed the talismans when the planets were in their exaltation and in a happy conjunction with other heavenly bodies. In addition to this, incantations were used in an endeavor to inspire the talisman with the power and influence of the planet for which it stood.

Pettigrew says: "The Hebrew word for talisman (magan) signifies a paper or other material, drawn or engraved with the letters composing the sacred nameJehovah, or with other characters, and improperly applied to astrological representations, because, like the letters composing 'The Incomparable Name,' they were supposed to serve as a defence against sickness, lightning, and tempest. It was a common practice with magicians, whenever a plague or other great calamity infested a country, to make a supposed image of the destroyer, eitherin gold, silver, clay, wax, etc., under a certain configuration of the heavens, and to set it up in some particular place that the evil might be stayed."76

The Jewish phylacteries must therefore be considered talismans and not amulets. The writings contained in them are portions of the law and are prepared in a prescribed manner. Three different kinds are used: one for the head, another for the arm, and the third is attached to the door-posts. The following is a Hebrew talisman supposed to have considerable power: "It overflowed—he did cast darts—Shadai is all sufficient—his hand is strong, and is the preserver of my life in all its variations."77

Arnot gives an account of some Scottish talismans not unlike the phylacteries of the Jews, which were for use on the door-posts. "On the old houses still existing in Edinburgh," he says, "there are remains of talismanic or cabalistical characters, which the superstitious of earlier days had caused to be engraven on their fronts. These were generally composed of some text of Scripture, of the name of God, or, perhaps, of an emblematic representation of the resurrection."78

The connection of astrology, or, as he calls it, "astronomy," and the talisman with medicine iswell portrayed by Chaucer in his picture of a good physician of his day. He says:

"With us there was a doctor of phisike;In al the world, was thar non hym lykTo speke of physik and of surgerye,For he wos groundit in astronomie.He kept his pacient a ful gret delIn hourys by his magyk naturel;Wel couth he fortunen the ascendentOf his ymagys for his pacient."

Fosbrooke has divided talismans into five classes, examples of some of which I have already given. They are: "1. Theastronomical, with celestial signs and intelligible characters. 2. Themagical, with extraordinary figures, superstitious words, and names of unknown angels. 3. Themixed, of celestial signs and barbarous words, but not superstitious, or with names of angels. 4. Thesigilla planetarum, composed of Hebrew numeral letters, used by astrologers and fortune-tellers. 5.Hebrew names and characters. These were formed according to the cabalistic art."

The doctrine of signatures bears a close resemblance to talismans, and some believe that talismans have largely grown out of this doctrine. Dr. Paris79defines the doctrine as the belief that "every natural substance which possesses any medical virtues indicates, by an obvious and well-marked externalcharacter, the disease for which it is a remedy or the object for which it should be employed." Southey says,80"The signatures [were] the books out of which the ancients first learned the virtues of herbs—Nature having stamped on divers of them legible characters to discover their uses." Some opined that the external marks were impressed by planetary influences, hence their connection with talismans; others simply reasoned it out that the Almighty must have placed a sign on the various means which he had provided for curing diseases.

Color and shape were the two principal factors in interpreting the signatures. White was regarded as cold and red as hot, hence cold and hot qualities were attributed to different medicines of these colors respectively. Serious errors in practice resulted from this opinion. Red flowers were given for disorders of the sanguiferous system; the petals of the red rose, especially, bear the "signature" of the blood, and blood-root, on account of its red juice, was much prescribed for the blood. Celandine, having yellow juice, the yellow drug, turmeric, the roots of rhubarb, the flowers of saffron, and other yellow substances were given in jaundice; red flannel, looking like blood, cures blood taints, and therefore rheumatism, even to this day, although many do not know whyredflannel is so efficacious.

Lungwort, whose leaves bear a fancied resemblance to the surface of the lungs, was considered good for pulmonary complaints, and liverwort, having a leaf like the liver, cured liver diseases. Eye-bright was a famous application for eye diseases, because its flowers somewhat resemble the pupil of the eye; bugloss, resembling a snake's head, was valuable for snake bite; and the peony, when in bud, being something like a man's head, was "very available against the falling sickness." Walnuts were considered to be the perfect signature of the head, the shell represented the bony skull, the irregularities of the kernel the convolutions of the two hemispheres of the brain, and the husk the scalp. The husk was therefore used for scalp wounds, the inner peel for disorders of the meninges, and the kernel was beneficial for the brain and tended to resist poisons. Lilies-of-the-valley were used for the cure of apoplexy, the signature reasoning being, as Coles says, "for as that disease is caused by the drooping of humors into the principal ventrices of the brain, so the flowers of this lily, hanging on the plants as if they were drops, are of wonderful use herein."

Capillary herbs naturally announced themselves as good for diseases of the hair, and bear's grease, being taken from an animal thickly covered with hair, was recommended for the prevention of baldness. Nettle-tea is still a country remedy for nettle rash; prickly plants like thistles and holly were prescribed for pleurisy and stitch in the side, and the scales of the pine were used in toothache, because they resemble front teeth. "Kidney-beans," says Berdoe, "ought to have been useful for kidney diseases, but seem to have been overlooked except as articles of diet." Poppy-heads were used "with success" to relieve diseases of the head, and the root of the "mandrake," from its supposed resemblance to the human form, was a very ancient remedy for barrenness and was evidently so esteemed by Rachel, in the account given in Genesis 30:14 ff.

In the treatment of small-pox red bed coverings were employed in order to bring the pustules to the surface of the body. The patient must be indued with red; the bed furniture and hangings should be red and red substances were to be looked upon by the patient; burnt purple, pomegranate seeds, mulberries or other red ingredients were dissolved in their drink. John of Gladdesden, physician to Edward II, prescribed the following treatment as soon as the eruption appeared: "Cause the whole body of your patient to be wrapped in scarlet cloth, or any other red cloth, and command everything about the bed to be made red." He further says that "when the son of the renowned King of England (Edward II) lay sick of the small-pox I took care that everything around the bed should be of a red color; which succeeded so completely thatthe Prince was restored to perfect health, without a vestige of a pustule remaining."

The Emperor Francis I, when infected with smallpox, was rolled up in a scarlet cloth, by order of his physicians, as late as 1765; notwithstanding this treatment he died. Kampfer says that "when any of the Japanese emperor's children are attacked with the small-pox, not only the chamber and bed are covered with red hangings, but all persons who approach the sick prince must be clad in scarlet gowns." By a course of reasoning similar to that used in the treatment of small-pox, it was supposed that flannel dyed nine times in blue was efficacious in removing glandular swellings.81

The astrological factor in talismans was most important because it was considered that certain stars and planets in certain relations produced certain diseases and contagious disorders. Astrologers, for example, attributed the plague to a conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in Sagittarius, on the tenth of October, or to a conjunction of Saturn and Mars in the same constellation, on the twelfth of November. Burton makes the most generous melancholy, as that of Augustus, to come from the conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in Libra; the bad, as that ofCatiline, from the meeting of Saturn and the moon in Scorpio. If these disorders were produced by planets it was reasonable to suppose that they could be cured by planets.

The virtue of herbs depended upon the planet under which they were sown or gathered. For example, verbena or vervain should be gathered at the rising of the dog-star, when neither the sun nor the moon shone, but an expiatory sacrifice of fruit and honey should previously have been offered to the earth. If this was carried out it had power to render the possessor invulnerable, to cure fevers, to eradicate poison, and to conciliate friendship. Notice also, that black hellebore, to be effective, was to be plucked not cut, and this with the right hand, which was then to be covered with a portion of the robe and secretly to be conveyed to the left hand. The person gathering it was to be clad in white, to be barefooted, and to offer a sacrifice of bread and wine.

Not only the planets and the stars, but the moon has had a potent influence on medicine. For instance, mistletoe was to be cut with a golden knife, and when the moon was only six days old. Brand82quotes fromThe Husbandman's Practice, or Prognostication Forever, published in 1664, the following curious passage, "Good to purge with electuaries, the moon in Cancer; with pills, the moon in Pisces;with potions, the moon in Virgo; good to take vomits, the moon being in Taurus, Virgo, or the latter part of Sagittarius; to purge the head by sneezing, the moon being in Cancer, Leo, or Virgo; to stop fluxes and rheumes, the moon being in Taurus, Virgo, or Capricorne; to bathe when the moon is in Cancer, Libra, Aquarius, or Pisces; to cut the hair off the head or beard when the moon is in Libra, Sagittarius, Aquarius, or Pisces."

The Loseley manuscripts provide us with further examples. "Here begyneth ye waxingge of ye mone, and declareth in dyvers tymes to let blode, whiche be gode. In the furste begynynge of the mone it is profetable to yche man to be letten blode; ye ix of the mone, neyther be nyght ne by day, it is not good." They also tell of a physician named Simon Trippe, who wrote to a patient in excuse for not visiting him, as follows: "As for my comming to you upon Wensday next, verely my promise be past to and old pacient of mine, a very good gentlewoman, one Mrs. Clerk, wch now lieth in great extremity. I cannot possibly be with you till Thursday. On Fryday and Saterday the signe wilbe in the heart; on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, in the stomake; during wch time it wilbe no good dealing with your ordinary physicke untill Wensday come sevenight at the nearest, and from that time forwards for 15 or 16 days passing good."83

Not unlike this is an incident of the year 686, given by Bede, where "a holy Bishop having been asked to bless a sick maiden, asked 'when she had been bled?' and being told that it was on the fourth day of the moon, said: 'You did very indiscreetly and unskilfully to bleed her on the fourth day of the moon; for I remember that Archbishop Theodore, of blessed memory, said that bleeding at that time was very dangerous, when the light of the moon and the tide of the ocean is increasing; and what can I do to the girl if she is like to die?'"84

"So great, indeed," says Fort, "became the abuse of medical astrology, whether by the direct juxtaposition of stellar influence, or through apposite images, that a celebrated Church Council at Paris declared that images of metal, wax, or other materials fabricated under certain constellations or according to fixed characters—figures of peculiar form, either baptized, consecrated, or exorcised, or rather desecrated by the performance of formal rites at stated periods which it was asserted, thus composed, possessed miraculous virtues set forth in superstitious writings—were placed under the ban and interdicted as errors of faith."85

We shall see that magnetism developed from astrology, and some other forms of mental healingfrom magnetism. One of these, sympathetic cures, was talismanic in its character, and therefore I give a brief account of its method of working, in this place.

Sympathetic cures probably started with Paracelsus, although Von Helmont tells us that the secret was first put forth by Ericcius Wohyus, of Eburo. As a development from magnetism the former originated the "weapon salve" which excited so much attention about the middle of the seventeenth century. The following was a receipt given by him for the cure of any wound inflicted by a sharp weapon, except such as had penetrated the heart, the brain, or the arteries. "Take the moss growing on the head of a thief who has been hanged and left in the air; of real mummy; of human blood, still warm—of each, one ounce; of human suet, two ounces; of linseed oil, turpentine, and Armenian bole—of each, two drachms. Mix all well in a mortar, and keep the salve in an oblong, narrow urn." With the salve the weapon (not the wound), after being dipped in blood from the wound, was to be carefully anointed, and then laid by in a cool place. In the meantime, the wound was washed with fair, clean water, covered with a clean soft linen rag, and opened once a day to cleanse off purulent matter. A writer in theForeign Quarterly Reviewsays there can be no doubt about the success of the treatment, "for surgeons at this momentfollow exactly the same method,exceptanointing the weapon!"

SIR KENELM DIGBYSIR KENELM DIGBY

The weapon-salve continued to be much spoken of on the Continent, and Dr. Fludd, or A Fluctibus, the Rosicrucian, introduced it into England. He tried it with great success in several cases, but in the midst of his success an attack was made upon him and his favorite remedy, which, however, did little or nothing to diminish the belief in its efficacy. One "Parson Foster" wrote a pamphlet entitled "Hyplocrisma Spongus; or a Spunge to wipe away the Weapon-salve," in which he declared that it was as bad as witchcraft to use or recommend such an unguent; that it was invented by the devil, who, at the last day, would seize upon every person who had given it the least encouragement. "In fact," said Parson Foster, "the Devil himself gave it to Paracelsus; Paracelsus to the emperor; the emperor to the courtier; the courtier to Baptista Porta; and Baptista Porta to Dr. Fludd, a doctor of physic, yet living and practising in the famous city of London, who now stands tooth and nail for it." Dr. Fludd, thus assailed, took up his pen and defended the unguent in a caustic pamphlet.

The salve changed into a powder in the hands of Sir Kenelm Digby, the son of Sir Edward Digby who was executed for his participation in the Gunpowder Plot. Sir Kenelm was an accomplished scholar and an able man, but at the same time amost extravagant defender of the powder of sympathy for the healing of wounds. This powder came into sudden and public notoriety through an accident to a distinguished person. Mr. James Howell, the well-known author of the Dendrologia, in endeavoring to part two friends in a duel, received a severe cut on the hand. Alarmed by the accident, one of the combatants bound up the cut with his garter and conveyed him home. The king sent his own surgeon to attend Mr. Howell, but in four or five days the wound was not recovering very rapidly and he made application to Sir Kenelm. The latter first inquired whether he possessed anything that had the blood upon it, upon which Mr. Howell produced the garter with which his hand had been bound. A basin of water in which some powder of vitriol had been dissolved was procured, and the garter immediately immersed in it, whereupon, to quote Sir Kenelm, Mr. Howell said, "I know not what ails me, but I find that I feel no more pain. Methinks that a pleasing kind of freshness, as it were a wet cold napkin, did spread over my hand, which hath taken away the inflammation that tormented me before." He was then advised to lay away all plasters and keep the wound clean and in a moderate temperature.

To prove conclusively the efficacy of the powder of sympathy, after dinner the garter was taken out of the basin and placed to dry before the fire. Nosooner was this done than Mr. Howell's servant came running to Sir Kenelm saying that his master's hand was again inflamed, and that it was as bad as before. The garter was again placed in the liquid and before the return of the servant all was well and easy again. In the course of five or six days the wound was cicatrized and a cure performed.

This case excited considerable attention at court, and on inquiry Sir Kenelm told the king that he learned the secret from a much-travelled Carmelite friar who became possessed of it while journeying in the East. Sir Kenelm communicated it to Dr. Mayerne, the king's physician, and from him it was known to even the country barbers. Even King James, the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Buckingham, and many other noble personages believed in its efficacy.

It would be a waste of time, had we space, to present fully Sir Kenelm's profound and lengthy explanation of the cure. He tried to make the cure more reasonable and acceptable by bringing forth certain alleged phenomena which he thought proved sympathy, and were therefore analogous in character. Surgeon-General Hammond calls attention to the fact that these inferences were invariably false. "It is a very curious circumstance," says he, "that of these, there is not one which is true. Thus he is wrong when he says that if the hand be severely burnt, the pain and inflammation are relieved by holding it near a hot fire; that a person who has a bad breath is cured by putting his head over a privy and inhaling the air which comes from it; that those who are bitten by vipers or scorpions are cured by holding the bruised head of either of those animals, as the case may be, near the bitten part; that in times of great contagion, carrying a toad, or a spider, or arsenic or some other venomous substance, about the person is a protection; that hanging a toad about the neck of a horse affected with farcy dissipates the disease; that water evaporated in a close room will not be deposited on the walls, if a vessel of water be placed in the room; that venison pies smell strongly at those periods in which the 'beasts which are of the same nature and kind are in rut'; that wine in the cellar undergoes a fermentation when the vines in the field are in flower; that a table-cloth spotted with mulberries or red wine is more easily whitened at the season in which the plants are flowering than at any other; that washing the hands in the rays of moonlight which fall into a polished silver basin (without water) is a cure for warts; that a vessel of water put on the hearth of a smoky chimney is a remedy for the evil, and so on—not a single fact in all that he adduces. Yet these circumstances were regarded as real, and were spoken of at the times as irrefragable proofs of the truth of Sir Kenelm's views."86

We need have no doubt concerning the operation of sympathetic cures, for Sir Kenelm has told us of their virtue in his own words.87His method was what was called the cure by the wet way, but the cure could also be effected in a dry way. Straus, in a letter to Sir Kenelm, gives an account of a cure performed by Lord Gilbourne, an English nobleman, upon a carpenter who had cut himself severely with his axe. "The axe, bespattered with blood, was sent for, besmeared with an anointment, wrapped up warmly, and carefully hung up in a closet. The carpenter was immediately relieved, and all went well for some time, when, however, the wound became exceedingly painful, and, upon resorting to his lordship it was ascertained that the axe had fallen from the nail by which it was suspended, and thereby become uncovered."

Dryden in "The Tempest" (Act V, Sc. I) makes Ariel say, in reference to the wound received by Hippolito from Ferdinand:

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