petty kings at the head of the Nile “wishes to communicate with another,
he sends on the messenger’s neck a horn, ... which serves both for
credentials and security.... No one dare touch a Mbakka with one of these
horns upon his neck.”—(Speke, “Nile,” London, 1863, vol. ii. pp. 509,
521.)
Bruce says that, after a victory, the Abyssinian commanders wear a
head-dress, surmounted by a horn,—a conical piece of silver,—gilt, about
four inches long, much in the shape of our common candle-extinguishers.
This is called kern, or horn, and is only worn in parades or reviews
after victory. This, I apprehend, like all other of their usages, is
taken from the Hebrews, and the several allusions made in Scripture to
arise from this practice. “I said unto fools, Deal not foolishly, and to
the wicked, Lift not up the horn.” And so in many other places throughout
the Psalms.—(Bruce, “Nile,” Dublin, 1791, vol. iii. p. 551. See also
“Encyclopædia of Geography,” Philadelphia, 1845, vol. ii. p. 588, art.
“Abyssinia.” See also under “Mistletoe;” “Milk,” and “Semen,” under
“Pharmacy;” extract from Pliny; extract from Lentilius; extract from
Etmuller; “Perspiration,” under “Pharmacy,” and others.)
A “black letter” copy of “Malleus Maleficarum,” one of the “incunabula”
from the press of Peter Schœffer, Mayence, 1487, was carefully examined;
but besides being very dim and extremely hard to decipher, it contained
nothing not already given from other authorities.
XLV.
CURES BY TRANSPLANTATION.
The most curious method of alleviating physical and mental disorders
was that termed by various writers: “Cures by Transplantation,” by
“Translation,” by “Sympathy,” and by “Magnetic Transference.”
There is a perfect embarrassment of riches on this division of our
subject, and the difficulty has been not to select, but to know what to
reject.
Etmuller enumerates five different kinds of cures by transplantation: 1.
Insemenation, wherein “magnes mumia” (the spirit distilled from mummy
flesh) was used to water the rich earth in which certain seed had been
planted; but care must be taken in the selection of the plant, some
being beneficial, others noxious; 2. Implantatio, where a plant, already
growing, or the root only of such a plant is selected, and watered as
above described; 3. Impositio, where some of the skin of the diseased
member, or some of the patient’s excrement, or anything else intimately
connected with him, “aut ejus excrementum aut utrumque,” is inserted
between the bark and body of a tree, and the opening then tamped with
mud. But in every case bear in mind that if a slow, gradual cure is to
be brought about, a slow-growing tree must be selected; but for a speedy
recovery, a quick-growing tree; 4. Inoratio, in which daily certain
trees or plants, until cure results, are to be watered with the “urina,
sudore, fecibus alvi vel lotura membri aut totius corporis;” but it is
recommended that each irrigation be covered up with earth, to keep out
the air; 5. Inescatio, where “mummy” is given to an animal to eat; the
animal will die, the patient recover.
Human ordure was a frequent addition to the “spiritus mumiæ.”
Frommann opens the way to a clearer understanding of the principles upon
which these cures depended. He states that not all diseases were thus
curable; only those which in themselves were “movable.” Poison could
not be so cured, because its lethal action was effected too quickly for
the slow-moving remedial agency of transplantation. Injuries to the
“vital faculties,” such as “aneurisms of the aorta,” etc., were not
transplantable. Worms ditto, although they were able to move of their own
will. “Lipothymia” or syncope, was not transferable. All “transplantable”
diseases were called “saline” diseases, because, according to the medical
theories prevailing in those days, they originated in some defect of the
“salts” of the body.—(See Frommann, “Tract. de Fascinatione,” pp. 1017,
1018.)
Among the strongest “magnetic” medicines, according to Paracelsus, was
the one “ex stercore humano.”—(See Etmuller, vol. i. p. 69.)
There was another: “Take a sufficient quantity of the ordure of a healthy
man, and make it into a poultice with human urine, to which add sweat
gathered from the body with a sponge; place this in a clean place in
the shade until it dries, and when needed for use, moisten with human
blood.” “Recipe copiosum stercus hominis sani, et hoc cum urina ejusdem
misce, redige in consistentiam pultis, adde quantum habere potes sudoris
ex hominibus sanis a linteo aut spongia collecti, ponantur simul in loco
mundo in umbra donec siccentur, hinc adde sanguinem recentem, misce,
sicca, et ad usum reserva.”
Etmuller also mentions a “sympathetic” cure for quartan ague, in which
the hair of the patient was to be mixed with food and thrown to birds,
which, swallowing the food, took away the fever.
Another method was to take the clippings of the toe and finger nails of
the sick person, place them in an egg and throw them to the birds; others
again wrap them up in wax and early in the morning, before the rising
of the sun, affix the parcel to the door of a neighbor’s house, or else
tie it to the back of a living crab, and throw the crab back into the
stream: “Sunt cui ad curandam febrem segmenta e manibus et pedibus ovo
includunt, avibusque devoranda objiciunt; alii eadem ceræ involvunt,
matutinoque tempore ante solis ortum januæ affigunt, aliii dorso cancri
vivi alligant, cancrumque fluenti committunt.”—(Idem, vol. ii. p. 265.)
The first excrement of a man sick with dysentery was mixed with salt as
a “magnetic” cure; to this, some people added the powder of eel-skins
(Frommann, “Tractatus,” p. 1012, _et seq._). Yellow jaundice patients
urinated upon clean linen sheets; if they succeeded in dyeing them yellow
they would recover soon; if not, not (p. 1012); roots wet with the
patient’s urine were burned as a cure for the yellow jaundice (p. 1013);
all the clothing of an epileptic patient was burned, and the ashes
thrown in a stream, down-stream (p. 1013); especially was this the case
if any of it had been defiled by alvine dejections voided in one of the
paroxysms; and the same care was taken to burn this excrement (p. 1013).
(Note that epilepsy was always regarded as the sacred disease; here we
have a suggestion of human sacrifice.)
The method of curing by digging up the ground, depositing some plant
and enriching the surrounding soil with the patient’s egestæ is given
by Frommann (p. 1016); but the trees or plants to be selected for this
purpose were to be those of forests or those which bore edible fruits,
“ut fraxinus, quercus, betula, tilia, fagus, alnus,” etc. (Ash, oak,
birch, linden, beech, alder, etc.) The animals had to be such as did not
eat human flesh, as “canes, feles, equi, lupi, vulpes;” others could be
used on occasion, but the results were not so sure (idem, p. 1017). There
were two general methods: one, in which the “sanguis, pili, excrementa”
of the patient himself were offered; the other, in which crabs, meat,
eggs, lard, apples, and other things, were rubbed to the affected parts
and then offered (idem.)
Beckherius gives the recipe for effecting a “sympathetic cure” of fever
by clipping the finger and toe-nails of the patient and tying these
clippings in a rag to the door of a neighbor’s house. “Si resegmine
unguium e manibus et pedibus deprompta, cera involvantur, matutininoque
tempore ante solis exortum alienæ januæ affiguntur.” And wicked people
were in the habit of preparing a draught composed of equal parts of
their dirty finger-nails and cantharides, and whoever drank that in his
liquor fell into a condition of atrophy (Med. mic. pp. 15, 16). When the
patient’s own hair was used in these cures, it was placed in an egg and
thrown to chickens.—(Idem, p. 8.)
Frommann speaks of enclosing fragments of the patient’s nails and
clippings of his hair in knots and throwing these in the road to be
untied by some curious person who would catch the disease.—(“Tract. de
Fascinatione,” p. 1003.)
The blood, urine, or excrement of the patient was to be placed in an
egg-shell and fed to barn-yard fowl.—(Idem.)
“Id quod alio modo per urinam ægri quoque fieri valet; qua ratione cum
sanguine, urina, excrementis, ægrotantis multæ sympatheticæ curæ fieri
possunt;” and to this class belong such remedies as cutting an apple or a
piece of bacon in half, then hanging the piece up in the chimney to melt
or rot; as fast as this was effected, the disease disappeared. Speaking
of transplantation, he says: “Prioris exemplum est dum applicato stercore
humano ad certam aliquam partem transplantatur eo ipso morbo in plantam
cujus semen in terram hoc stercore mistam inferitur.” The first example
is where the ordure of the patient is applied to a certain plant, and
thus transfers the disease from the patient to the plant.—(Etmuller,
“Opera Omnia,” vol. i. p. 69, Lyons, 1696.)
Etmuller teaches that clippings of the toe and finger nails tied to the
back of a living crab, which was then to be thrown into a stream by a
man who would perform the duty and return home without speaking would
effect cures; similarly, for the alleviation of gout, he recommends
that these clippings be buried in a hole made in the bark of an oak
which should then be closed with a wedge: “Abscinduntur ungues manuum
et pedum, alligantur dorso cancri viventis, et cancer istis unguibus
oneratus, immittitur in flumen retrofaciem redeundo sine loquela, donec
in domum facta fuerit reversio. Instituuntur qq. transplantationes pro
viribus recuperandis per ungues. Sic in podagræ.... R.; Ungues pedis,
atque immittuntur in foramen excavatum in quercum et super foramen ponunt
cuneum ex quo subito fit, ut remittat dolor ac desinat Podagra” (vol. ii.
p. 270.)
Etmuller mentions the cure by tying the fragments of finger and toe nails
to a crab, in another place in his works. For the recovery of impaired
strength, these clippings should be buried in the bark of a cherry-tree,
which should then be closed with ordure: “Ad recuperandos vires abscissos
ungues et capillos cerasi radici incisæ imponunt, vulnusque fimo
co-operiunt.”—(Idem, vol. ii. p. 265.)
“Denique si quid aliud singulare est si quis accipiat ovum recens, hoc
coquat cum urina propria ad assumptionem medietatis, quo facto urina
superstes projiciatur in flumen secundum ejusdem cursum, ovum vel ita
coctum leviter apertur immittatur in acervum formicarum. Unde quando
formicæ assumpserunt ovum solutem erit fascinum” (idem, vol. i. p. 462).
“Finally, there is this singular method of taking a fresh egg and putting
it in some of the patient’s own urine, which is boiled down one half; the
supernatant urine is then to be thrown into a stream (down current) and
the egg itself buried in an ant-heap; as fast as the ants consume the
egg, the effects of the witchcraft vanish.”
Again, for the cure of gout, toe and finger nails were to be cut and
placed in an aperture in the bark of an oak-tree: “Vel dum ungues pedum
abscissi et in quercum terebratam inclusi, hominem liberum reddunt a
podagra.”—(Idem, p. 69, vol. i.)
Urine was of great use in curing people bitten by serpents. “Per
urinam solent fieri curationes magico-magneticæ morborum, si scillicet
lardum vel potius caro porcina coquatur ter in urina ægri et caro ista
incoctionis urinæ postmodum propinetur cani vel porco devoranda, sic enim
sit, ut quam plurimi morbi curentur per transplantationem in animalia quæ
devorant carnem et urinam.”—(Etmuller, p. 271.)
Hog-lard or a lardy hog-skin, rubbed on warts and then suspended in
the chimney or buried in horse-dung, caused the warts to disappear as
fast as it decayed. “Suspendatur in camino furni, vel in fimo equino
sepeliatur.... Sicut exsiccatur in fumo, vel putrescit in fimo lardum
ita exsiccetur et putrescat verruca.” (Idem.) Half a dozen methods of
employing hog-dung are given.
Frommann quotes Ratray as saying from his own observation that there
was a “sympathy” between the patient’s urine when enclosed in a glass
vial and the condition of the patient himself,—a sort of “barometrical”
sympathy, as we would term it. At an earlier period of culture the urine
would have been placed in the horn of a goat, or in the bladder of a hog.
The methods of effecting these cures by placing the patient’s urine in
an ants’ nest, in any manner, are all given by Johannes Christianus
Frommann (“Tract. de Fascinat.,” pp. 1004 _et seq._); also the method
by boiling an egg in the urine and placing the egg in the nest of ants
(p. 1005); also the method of making bread with the patient’s urine, and
giving the bread to a dog to eat (p. 1005). In Italy there was a variant
of this custom, consisting in giving bread made with the urine of a male
patient to a male dog, and that made with the urine of a sick woman to
a bitch (idem). Yellow jaundice was cured by boiling a piece of meat in
the patient’s urine and giving said meat to a dog (idem); for the cure
of rupture the patient should soak some barley in his urine, and then
bury the barley in the bark of a tree (p. 1007). Another mode of cure
by transplantation was for the patient to urinate in a vial of glass,
stop it up with a linen rag or a paper wad, and bury it in the earth (p.
1010). For the cure of yellow jaundice, the patient dug a hole in the
ground and urinated therein before sunrise (pp. 1010, 1011); for the cure
of dysentery the patient deposited his excrement on a piece of ash and
left it in a hole (p. 1011); fever patients threw their excrement in a
stream (idem). Other modes were to make a mixture of the urine of the
sick man, mixed with ashes, let the mass dry in the sun, and then put it
by the embers of the kitchen fire to bake (p. 1012); the ordure of a man
sick from “incantation” was applied to the place of the spell, and then
hung up (enclosed in a hog’s bladder) for three days in the smoke of the
chimney (idem).
In his long and most interesting chapter upon the cure of diseases by
the use of human ordure, “magically or sympathetically,” Schurig relates
many quaint and curious methods of employment of the alvine dejections
of those supposed to be almost _in articulo mortis_. For example, the
ordure of the patient was taken, placed in the hollow of a dead man’s
bone, which was then thrown into boiling water. This remedy, if we can
trust Schurig, seems to have been of the highest efficacy. Another mode
was to mix the ordure with the lees of wine and the pounce of cherries,
and let the mass ferment together; or the ordure was collected and thrown
into running water.—(See Schurig, “Chylologia,” pp. 783, 784. The whole
chapter “De Stercoris Humani Usu Magico seu Sympathetico,” No. xiii.
should be read.)
Goat-urine was applied to sore eyes; but a more certain cure in grave
cases was additionally effected by hanging some of it in a goat’s horn
for twenty days. “Si cum cornu capræ suspenditur diebus viginti.”—(Sextus
Placitus, “De Med. ex Animal.,” article “De Capro.”)
Beckherius has a “sympathetic” cure for the yellow jaundice. Make a
poultice of horse-dung and the patient’s own urine, and hang it up in
the chimney. “Fimum equinum cum urina ægri sic misce, ut pultis referat
consistentiam, hæc linteolo excipe, et in camino suspende ut fumo semper
sunt exposita.” (“Med. Microcos.,” p. 65.) Another was to hang the urine
of the patient in a bladder in the chimney; as the urine evaporated the
patient was to recover. “Propriam urinam vesica suilla excerpisse et hanc
in fumo exposuisse seque observasse ad exsiccationem. Urina in vesica
ipsum quoque icteritiam evanuisse.” (Idem, p. 65.) Another cure of yellow
jaundice was a dose, morning and evening, of a mixture of human urine and
horse-radish. (Idem, p. 66.) There was still another “sympathetic” cure:
the patient urinated in a vessel, which was allowed to evaporate by the
fire, and this was continued for nine days.—(Idem, p. 66.)
For consumption Beckherius gives a “sympathetic” cure (already noted from
other sources) of boiling an egg in the patient’s urine until it hardens,
and then burying it in an ant-hill. (Idem, p. 75.) The same cure was
employed in fevers. (Idem.)
A pinch of salt, the size of a big bean, was wrapped in a linen rag,
and dipped in the urine of the patient for a whole day; then heated in
the fire until it became reddish in color; some of this was sprinkled
on bread, and the patient rubbed with it morning and evening.—(“Medicus
Microcosmus,” pp. 75, 76.)
A fresh egg was boiled in the sick person’s urine, and then thrown to
the fishes. “Recens ovum in urina ægri quod in piscinam ubi pisces sunt
conjiciatur, et momento febrem cessare dicunt.”—(Idem, p. 78.)
Still another was to make a cake out of flour moistened with the urine
of the sick; throw this to the fishes. The fishes who ate it would take
the disease, and the patient recover. “Subige farinam cum urina ægri ad
formam placentulæ; coque hæc in forno, instar panis objice piscibus, ut
ab iis devoretur; abit febris, maxime quartana.”—(Idem.)
Frommann devotes a long chapter to cures by “transplantation.” He cites
from Pliny the method of curing a bad cough by spitting into the mouth of
a toad (tree-toad; see notes already taken), and also gives another in
which the urine of the patient made into a dough with flour, was given to
a dog or hog.—(“Tract. de Fascinat.” p. 1002.)
Frommann believed with Von Helmont that there was nothing superstitious
about such cures, because there were no rites and no incantations used.
(Idem, p. 1033.) But later on, he mentions having heard a woman (who was
trying one of these cures by rolling some of her son’s hair in wax and
burying the wax ball in an incision in an apple-tree) recite certain
words, which she declined to repeat for him when asked; hence he was in
some doubt about her particular case (p. 1034). He quotes the English
Count of Digby as stating that he knew of a nurse who carelessly allowed
some of a baby’s excrement to be burned up in a fire; the result was the
child suffered terribly from excoriation of the fundament (p. 1038). The
way in which a cure was effected in this case was the “sympathetic” one
of placing the baby’s excrements for three days in a basin filled with
cold water, and exposing in a cold place (p. 1039).
Dropsy was cured by hanging the patient’s urine (enclosed in a pig’s
bladder) up in a chimney, and neglecting all other remedies. “Urinam
ejus recentem vesica suilla conclusam in camino suspendi, curavi.”
(Idem, p. 1047.) A young virgin was cured of a tertian fever by giving
to a hen bread made with the urine voided during the paroxysms. The girl
recovered; the hen died. “Virginis cujusdam febre intermittente tertiana
laborantis urinam calidam in paroxysmo redditam gallinæ familicæ cum
pane mistam exhiberi curavi” (p. 1047).
See also notes from Samuel Augustus Flemming, under “Perspiration.”
Dr. Joseph Lanzoni did not believe that any good results followed the
suspension above the earth, in a sow’s bladder, of human urine in cases
of suppression of urine, as was often to be noticed among Jews and some
of the religious orders. “Urinæ suppressionem minime referare vesicam
suis suspensam, quæ non tetigit terram, quod nonnulli volunt, observavi
in quodam Religioso et Hebræo.”—(“Phemer. Physic-Medic.,” Leipsig, 1694,
vol. i. p. 49.)
Paullini taught that fevers of all kinds could be cured by pouring the
patient’s urine into a fish-pond. “Such of the fish as drink of that
water,” he says, “will receive the fever, which will leave the sick man.”
For the “sympathetic” cure of epilepsy, all the clothing worn by the
patient during the paroxysm, even his shoes, were to be carefully burned,
and the ashes cast into flowing water. More than this; if, during
the attack, the patient had defecated, the ordure was collected, and
with everything touched by it, burned up with the same care. “Hominis
epilepticum insultum primum patientis sive junior sit, sive senior
indumenta omnia et vestes indusium, calcei, tibialis, et similia sub dio
comburantur, et in cinerem redigantur; cinis vero in aquam fluvialem
secundum flumen projiciatur. Si autem jam ante homo epilepsia laboravit,
ad alvi excrementa in ipso paroxysmo reddita attendatur; quæ si adest res
commaculata cum ipsis excrementis modo jam dicto comburatur.”—(Schurig,
“Chylologia,” p. 1013, quoting Frommann.)
Schurig gives the recipe of Johannes Philippus ab Hertodt for the
preparation of a “sympathetic” powder, which serves to inform us as to
the incoherent ideas of the practitioners of a couple of centuries ago.
Freely translated, it reads, “Take of a healthy human mummy, moistened
with a little urine; let it be dried in a place exposed to an east wind,
but not to the sun, until it shall be reduced to powder; this is to be
mixed with an equal weight of cream of tartar, and the ‘sympathetic
powder of vitriol,’ prepared according to formula, in the dog-days; or of
the salt of Hungarian vitriol, heated to whiteness in a furnace.” A pinch
of this sympathetic powder should be sprinkled upon the feces of the sick
person, or upon a cloth dipped in his urine, and then preserved in a cool
place. Its efficacy was vouched for in the highest terms: “Effective
curat omnia vulnera, ulcera, febres petechiales, et urina fabulum,
periculosissimas hæmorrhagias puerperarum, arthriditem quamcunque,
podagram et illam vagam dictam, pulmonis apostemata, hæmorrhoides nimias,
narium fluxus immodicos, capitis dolores, catarrhos, fluxos albos
mulierum, menstrua copiosa, morsus canis rabidi, vel alterium cujuscunque
animalis, item mammas ulceratas.”—(Schurig, pp. 775, 776.)
Schurig adds a number of these cures for dysentery, such as placing
the dejecta in the retort used for the distillation of vitriol, ...
sprinkling such dejecta with salt, or with vitriol, or mixing them with
hot ashes and live coals; preferably, the excrement to be thus employed
should be the first ejected having a bloody tinge.
“The various modes of application of these remedies are too long
for insertion here, but are valuable to the student as showing how
deep-seated was the belief in the occult properties of the excreta
themselves.”—(“Chylologia,” pp. 785, 786.)
The following is an old French “sympathetic” recipe for the cure of all
kinds of colic: “Pour la colique ce sera ici la recette d’un vilain
remède, mais pourtant sympathique en ceux qui sont tourmentés de la
colique, car s’ils mettent sous la selle percée bien fermée de la
fiente de vache fraichement recueillie, et qu’ils pissent et déchargent
les excréments de leur ventre dessus, par sympathie sans difficulté
ils auront du soulagement.”—(Lazarus Neyssonier, quoted by Schurig,
“Chylologia,” pp. 784, 785.)
For the “sympathetic” cure of hernia, the root of the herb “wall-wort”
was smeared with the ordure of the patient, and then buried in
the ground. “Radicem Symphti Oleto Proprio delibutam et in terram
defossam.”—(Idem, p. 787.)
To stop hemorrhage “sympathetically,” whether from wounds or other
injuries, some of the flowing blood was taken, and mixed with the ordure
of the patient, and the mixture then exposed in a jar to the action
of the air. “Contra hæmorrhagias, sive in læsonibus et vulneribus, ut
sanguis sistatur, misce sanguinem ex sanguine profluentem cum proprio
stercore et in olla ad desiccandum æri libero expone.”—(Idem, p. 787.)
A patient suffering from yellow jaundice should urinate upon horse-dung
while warm. This same remedy seems to have been in vogue in helping women
in the expulsion of the placenta. One of the prescriptions given by
Schurig states that the horse-dung must be from an animal that was not
tired at the time of the evacuation,—“non defatigati.”—(Idem, p. 812 _et
seq._)
A “sympathetic” cure by the use of the dung of horses seems to be implied
in the case of infants’ small-pox, where we find it suspended in beer;
“pendatur in cerevisiam ... propterea ne fauces affligantur a variolis
quod alias solet esse casus periculosissimus.”—(Etmuller, vol. ii. p.
264.)