The commemoration of this Apostle takes place on the 24th of August.
It is not, however, to record any external circumstance connected
with this church festival--which, in fact, is scarcely distinguished
by any peculiar solemnity--that I take notice of it, but for a
private superstitious practice which strikes me as a most curious
modification of one used by the pious housewives in the days of
Augustus.
Intermittent fevers, especially the Tertian and Quartan, are very
common in most parts of Andalusia. The season when they chiefly
attack the inhabitants, is summer; and whether the unbounded use,
which all sorts of people, but particularly the poor, make of grapes
and melons, contributes to the production of the disease, or whether
the mere coincidence of the two facts is, as usual, taken for cause
and effect; it is an established opinion in this part of the country
that, if fruit is not the original source of the ague, an abstinence
from that kind of food is indispensable to avoid a relapse into that
treacherous complaint.
That there should be a particular Saint, to superintend the medical
department of curing the ague, is so perfectly consistent with the
Catholic notions, that a deficiency on that point would more surprise
me than to find a toe not under the influence of some heavenly aspect
in the _Vox Stellarum_, which was one of my wonders in England. That
province, in fact, is allotted to Saint Bartholomew. Now, ninepence
is a sufficient inducement for any of our sons of Esculapius to mount
his mule as well as his wig, and dose you with the most compound
electuary he is master of; but how to fee a supernatural doctor,
would be a puzzling question, were it not that tradition teaches the
method of propitiating every individual mentioned in the calendar.
Each Saint has a peculiar fancy--from Saint _Anthony of Padua_, who
will often delay the performance of a miracle till you plunge him
into a well, or nail his print topsy-turvy upon the wall, to Saint
_Pasqual Baylon_, who is readiest to attend such as accompany their
petitions with some lively steps and a final caper. As to Saint
Bartholomew, nothing will induce him to cure an ague but a vow to
abstain, on the day of his festival, from all food except bread and
fruit--the very means which, but for his miraculous interference,
would, according to common opinion, cause either a return, or an
aggravation of the complaint.
Mark, now, the vow employed by the Roman matrons for the cure of
intermittents. It is recorded by Horace, and thus translated by
Francis:--
“Her child beneath a quartan fever lies
For full four months, when the fond mother cries,
Sickness and health are thine, all-powerful Jove;
Then, from my son this dire disease remove,
And when your priests thy solemn fast proclaim,
Naked the boy shall stand in Tiber’s stream.
Should chance, or the physician’s art, upraise
Her infant from the desperate disease;
The frantic dame shall plunge her hapless boy,
Bring back the fever, and the child destroy.”[45]
[45] Jupiter, ingentes qui das adimisque dolores,
(Mater ait pueri menses jam quinque cubantis),
Frigida si puerum quartana reliquerit, illo
Mane, die quo tu indicis jejunia, nudus
In Tiberi stabit.--Casus, medicusve levarit
Ægrum ex precipiti; mater delira necabit
In gelidâ fixum ripâ, febrimque reducet.
HOR. SAT. L. II. 3. 288.
The existence of Heathen superstitions adapted to Christian worship
is too common to excite surprise; nor is it any similarity in the
externals of the two practices I have just compared, that constitutes
their analogy. My mind is struck alone by the unchangeable spirit of
superstition, which, attributing in all ages and nations, our own
passions and feelings to supernatural beings, endeavours to obtain
their favour by flattering their vanity. Both the ancient Roman and
modern Spanish vow for the cure of the ague, seem to set at defiance
the supposed and most probable causes of the disease, from which the
devotees seek deliverance; as if to secure to the patron deities the
undoubted and full honour of the miracle.