It would merely try the patience of the reader to enumerate even a
tithe of the absurd things which have been and are being used by
people, civilised and savage, as charms, talismans, and amulets. The
teraphim which Rachel stole from her father Laban, the magic knots of
the Chaldeans, the gold and stone ornaments of the Egyptians, which
they not only wore themselves but often attached to their mummies--a
multitude of these going back as far as the flint amulets of the
predynastic period, are to be seen in the British Museum--the precious
stones whose virtues were discovered by Orpheus, the infinite variety
of gold and silver ornaments adopted by the Romans with superstitious
notions, the fish, ichthys, being the initials of the Greek words for
Jesus Christ, the Lord, our Saviour, engraved on stones and worn by
the early Christians, the Gnostic gems, the coral necklaces, the bezoar
stones, the toad ashes, the strands of the ropes used for hanging
criminals, the magnets of the middle ages and of modern times, and
a thousand other things, credited with magical curative properties,
might be cited. Besides these there are myriads of forms of words
written or spoken, some pious, some gibberish, which have been used and
recommended both with and without drugs.
Schelenz in “Geschichte der Pharmacie” (1904) quotes from Jakob Mærlant
of Bruges, “the Father of Flemish science” (born about 1235) the
recommendation of an “Amulettring” on the stone of which the figure of
Mercury was engraved, and which would make the wearer healthy, “die
mæct sinen traghere ghesont.” (See Cramp Rings, p. 305.)
How widespread has been the belief in the power of amulets and charms
may be gathered from a few instances of such superstitions among
famous persons. Lord Bacon was convinced that warts could be cured by
rubbing lard on them and transferring the lard to a post. The warts
would die when the lard dried. Robert Boyle attributed the cure of a
hæmorrhage to wearing some moss from a dead man’s skull. The father of
Sir Christopher Wren relates that Lord Burghley, the Lord Treasurer of
England in Queen Elizabeth’s reign, kept off the gout by always wearing
a blue ribbon studded with a particular kind of snail shells round his
leg. Whenever he left it off the pain returned violently. Burton in
the “Anatomy of Melancholy” (1621) says St. John’s Wort gathered on a
Friday in the horn of Jupiter, when it comes to his effectual operation
(that is about full moon in July), hung about the neck will mightily
help melancholy and drive away fantastical spirits.
Pepys writing on May 28, 1667, says, “My wife went down with Jane and
W. Hewer to Woolwich in order to get a little ayre, and to lie there
to-night and so to gather May Dew to-morrow morning, which Mrs. Turner
hath taught her is the only thing to wash her face with; and I am
content with it.” But Mrs. Turner ought to have explained to Mrs. Pepys
that to preserve beauty it was necessary to collect the May Dew on the
first of the month.
Catherine de Medici wore a piece of an infant’s skin as a charm, and
Lord Bryon presented an amulet of this nature to Prince Metternich.
Pascal died with some undecipherable inscription sewn into his clothes.
Charles V always wore a sachet of dried silkworms to protect him from
vertigo. The Emperor Augustus wore a piece of the skin of a sea calf
to keep the lightning from injuring him, and the Emperor Tiberius wore
laurel round his neck for the same reason when a thunderstorm seemed
to be approaching. Thyreus reports that in 1568 the Prince of Orange
condemned a Spaniard to be shot, but that the soldiers could not hit
him. They undressed him and found he was wearing an amulet bearing
certain mysterious figures. They took this from him, and then killed
him without further difficulty. The famous German physician, Frederick
Hoffman, tells seriously of a gouty subject he knew who could tell when
an attack was approaching by a stone in a ring which he wore changing
colour.
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