The Egyptians, according to Celsus, believed that there were thirty-six
demons or divinities in the air, to each of whom was attributed a
separate part or organ of the human body. In the event of disease
affecting one of these parts the priest-physician invoked the demon,
calling him by his name, and requiring him in a special form of words
to cure the afflicted part.
Solomon was credited among many Eastern people with having discovered
many of the secrets of controlling diseases by magical processes.
According to Josephus he composed and bequeathed to posterity a book of
these magical secrets. Hezekiah is said to have suppressed this work
because it was leading the people to pray to other powers than Jehovah.
But some of the secrets of Solomon were handed down in certain families
by tradition. Josephus relates that a certain Jew named Eleazor drew
a demon from the nose of a possessed person in the presence of the
Emperor Vespasian and a number of Roman officers, by the aid of a magic
ring and a form of invocation. In order to prove that the demon thus
expelled had a real separate existence, he ordered it to upset a vessel
of water which stood on the floor. This was done. Books professing to
give Solomon’s secrets were not uncommon among Christians as well as
Jews. Goethe alluded to such a treatise in “Faust” in the line
Für solche halbe Höllenbrut, Ist Salomoni’s Schlüssel gut.
Throughout their history the Jewish people have studied and practised
magic as a means of healing. According to the Book of Enoch the
daughters of men were instructed in “incantations, exorcisms, and the
cutting of roots” by the sons of God who came to earth and associated
with them. The Greeks and Romans always held Jewish sorcery in the
highest esteem, and the Arabs accepted their teaching with implicit
confidence. The Talmud is full of magical formulas, and the Kaballah, a
mystic theosophy which combined Israelitish traditions with Alexandrian
philosophy, and began to be known about the tenth century, was
unquestionably the foundation of the sophistry of Paracelsus and his
followers.
In the Middle Ages, and in some communities until quite recent times,
belief in the occult powers of Jews, which they had themselves
inculcated, was firm and universal, and became the reason, or at
least the excuse, for much of the persecution they had to suffer. For
the punishment of sorcery and witchcraft was not based on a belief
that fraud had been practised, but resulted from a conviction of the
terrible truth of the claims which had been put forward.
The Jews of Western Europe have lost or abandoned many of the
traditional practices which have been associated with their popular
medicines from time immemorial. But in the East, especially in Turkey
and Syria, quaint prayers and antiquated materia medica are still
associated as they were in the days of the Babylonian captivity. Dogs’
livers, earthworms, hares’ feet, live ants, human bones, doves’ dung,
wolves’ entrails, and powdered mummy still rank high as remedies, while
for patients who can afford it such precious products as dew from
Mount Carmel are prescribed. Invocations, prayers, and superstitious
practices form the stock in trade of the “Gabbetes,” generally elderly
persons who attend on the sick. They have a multitude of infallible
cures in their repertoires. Powdered, freshly roasted earthworms in
wine, or live grasshoppers in water, are given by them for biliousness.
For bronchial complaints they write some Hebrew letters on a new plate,
wash it off with wine, add three grains of a citron which has been
used at the Tabernacle festival, and give this as a draught. Dogs’
excrements made up with honey form a poultice for sore eyes, mummy or
human bones ground up with honey is a precious tonic, and wolves’ liver
is a cure for fits. But the administration of these remedies must be
accompanied by the necessary invocation, generally to the names of
patriarchs, angels, or prophets, but often mere gibberish, such as
“Adar, gar, vedar, gar,” which is the formula for use with a toothache
remedy.
The phylacteries still worn by modern Jews at certain parts of
their services, now perhaps by most of them only in accordance
with inveterate custom, have been in all ages esteemed by them as
protecting them against evil and demoniac influences. They are leathern
receptacles, which they bind on their left arms and on their foreheads
in literal obedience to the Mosaic instructions in the passages
transcribed, and contained in the cases, from Exodus c. 13, v. 1-10,
and c. 13, v. 11-16, Deuteronomy c. 6, v. 4-9, and c. 9, v. 13-21. To
a modern reader these passages appear to protest against superstitions
and heathenish beliefs and practices, but the rabbis and scribes
taught that these and the mesuza, the similar passages affixed to
the doorposts, would avert physical and spiritual dangers, and they
invented minute instructions for the preparation of the inscriptions.
A scribe, for example, who had commenced to write one of the passages,
was not to allow himself to be interrupted by any human distraction,
not even if the king asked him a question.
All the eastern nations trusted largely to amulets of various kinds for
the prevention and treatment of disease. Galen quotes from Nechepsus,
an Egyptian king, who lived about 630 B.C., who wrote that a
green jasper cut in the form of a dragon surrounded by rays, applied
externally would cure indigestion and strengthen the stomach. Among
the books attributed to Hermes was one entitled “The Thirty-six Herbs
Sacred to Horoscopes.” Of this book Galen says it is only a waste of
time to read it. The title, however, as Leclerc has pointed out, rather
curiously confirms the statement attributed to Celsus which is found in
Origen’s treatise, “Contra Celsum,” to which allusion has already been
made.
Amulets are still in general use in the East. Bertherand in “Medicine
of the Arabs” says the uneducated Arab of to-day when he has anything
the matter with him goes to his priest and pays him a fee for which
the priest gives him a little paper about two inches square on which
certain phrases are written. This is put up in a leathern case,
and worn as near the affected part as is possible. The richer Arab
women wear silver cases with texts from the Koran in them. But it is
essential that the paper must have been written on a Friday, a little
before sunset, and with ink in which myrrh and saffron have been
dissolved.
In the Third Report of the Wellcome Research Laboratories at the
Gordon Memorial College, Khartoum (London: Baillière, Tindall, &
Cox, 1908), Dr. R. G. Anderson writes an interesting chapter on the
medical superstitions of the people of Kordofan, and gives a number
of illustrations of amulets and written charms actually in use by the
Arabs of that country. “To the native,” says Dr. Anderson, “no process
is too absurd for belief, and often, within his limits, no price too
high to accomplish a cure.” Most of them wear talismans of some kind.
Some of them spend a great part of their scanty earnings on charms to
cure some chronic disease, stone in the bladder, for example. The son
of the late Mahdi presented to Dr. Anderson a charm which his father
wore round the arm above the elbow, designed against evil spirits and
the evil eye. It consisted of a square case containing a written charm,
and a bag filled with a preparation of roots. The charms worn by the
natives generally consist of quotations from the Koran, often repeated
many times and with signs of the great prophets interspersed. The
principal of these signs are the following:--
[Illustration: _Solomon._]
[Illustration: _Enoch._]
[Illustration: _David._]
[Illustration: _Lot._]
[Illustration: _Seth._]
[Illustration: “LOHN” (OR WRITING BOARD).]
The annexed illustration has been kindly lent by Mr. Wellcome (on
behalf of the Gordon Memorial College) from the Report mentioned above.
It represents a “Lohn,” or writing board on which Koranic phrases or
mystic inscriptions have been written by Fikis (holy men). When the
writing is dry it is washed off and the fluid is taken internally or
applied externally.