“Amulets and things to be borne about I find prescribed, taxed
by some, approved by others. Look for them in Mizaldus, Porta,
Albertus, etc. A ring made with the hoof of an ass’s right
forefoot, carried about, etc. I say, with Renodeus, they are
not altogether to be rejected. Piony doth help epilepsies.
Pretious stones most diseases. A wolf’s dung carried about
helps the cholick. A spider an ague, etc. Such medicines are
to be exploded that consist of words, characters, spells,
and charms, which can do no good at all, but out of a strong
conceit, as Pomponatious proves, or the devil’s policy, that
is the first founder and teacher of them.”
BURTON: “Anatomy of Melancholy.”
Charms, enchantments, amulets, incantations, talismans, phylacteries,
and all the armoury of witchcraft and magic have been intimately mixed
up with pharmacy and medicine in all countries and in all ages. The
degradation of the Greek term pharmakeia from its original meaning of
the art of preparing medicine to sorcery and poisoning is evidence
of the prevalence of debasing superstitions in the practice of
medicine among the cultivated Greeks. Hermes the Egyptian, Zoroaster
the Persian, and Solomon the Hebrew were famous among the early
practitioners and teachers of magic. These names served to conjure
with. Those who bore them were probably wise men above the average
who were above such tricks as were attributed to them. But it suited
the purpose or the business of those who made their living out of the
superstitions of the people to pretend to trace their practices to
universally revered heroes of a dim past.
Not that the whole of the magical rites associated with the art of
healing were based on conscious fraud. The beliefs of savage or
untutored races in demons which cause diseases is natural, it may
almost be said reasonable. What more natural when they see one of their
tribe seized with an epileptic fit than to assume the presence of an
invisible foe? Or if a contagious plague or small-pox or fever attacks
their village, is it not an inevitable conclusion that angry spirits
have attacked the tribe, perhaps for some unknown offence? From such a
basis the idea of sacrifice to the avenging fiend follows obviously.
In some parts of China if a person accidentally kicks a stone and soon
afterwards falls ill the relatives go to that stone and offer fruit,
wine, or other treasures, and it may be that the patient recovers. In
that case the efficacy of the treatment is demonstrated, and only those
who do not desire to believe will question it; if the patient should
die the proof is not less conclusive of the demon’s malignity.
In some primitive peoples, among the New Zealand natives, for example,
it is believed that a separate demon exists for each distinct disease;
one for ague, one for epilepsy, one for toothache, and so forth. This
too, seems reasonable. Each of those demons has something which will
please or frighten him. So amulets, talismans, charms come into use.
The North American Indians, however, generally attribute all disease to
one evil spirit only. Consequently, their treatment of all complaints
is the same.