SUPERSTITION AND ITS INFLUENCE ON MEDICINE.
Superstition is a belief in what is wholly opposite to the laws of
the physical and moral world, and yet supposed to be attainable by
supernatural agency.
The words incantation and charm seem to have been derived from the
ancient practice of curing diseases by poetry and music. Democritus
says that many diseases are capable of being cured by the sound of a
flute when properly played. Marianus Capellus assures us also that
fevers may be cured by suitable songs. Galen believed the sound of the
flute efficacious in gout and epilepsy. Asclepiades actually employed
the trumpet for the relief of sciatica, and tells us it is to be
continued until the fibres of the part begin to palpitate, when the
pain will vanish. What terrible visions might be conjured up if such
remedies were used to-day.
The influence of superstition on medicine may be accounted for by
the fact, that from the very first, ideas with regard to the action
of drugs must have been combined with those concerning supernatural
agencies, for the phenomena of nature in very early times were
attributed to spirits. Diseases were supposed to be due to an evil
spirit, therefore to cast the disease out was equivalent to curing
it, and the methods used for this purpose were by no means always
ineffective in curing disease.
Incantations and spells were generally used in addition to a real
remedial agent, but the incantations usually got the credit for
effecting the cure.
In early times superstition played an important part in the cure of
disease, and it prevails to a certain extent to-day. “In the opinion of
the ignorant multitude,” says Lord Bacon, “witches and impostors have
always held a competition with physicians.”
There has ever been a peculiar propensity in the human mind to foster a
belief in the supernatural, and perhaps more especially in respect to
medicine on account of the obscurity and ignorance with which it was
once surrounded. In early times almost every disease was attributed to
punishment for evil-doing, the working of some demon, or the influence
of the stars; hence the use of any article that was strange or rare as
a remedy.
“The employment of precious stones for medicinal purposes,” writes
De Boot, “arises from an Arab superstition which supposed them to be
the residence of spirits.” They were first used as amulets, and then
gradually came to be administered inwardly for various ailments.
“Mystery is the very soul of empiricism,” says Paris; “withdraw
the veil, and the confidence of the patient instantly languishes.”
A propensity to attribute every ordinary and natural effect
to extraordinary and unnatural causes, is one of the striking
characteristics of medical superstition.
The properties that herbs possessed were attributed by the old
physicians to the planets which were supposed to influence them, and
our medical men to this day head their prescriptions with a sign
that originally meant an invocation to Jupiter, which is a surviving
relic of this old superstitious practice. Another very curious fact
with respect to medical superstition is, that many of the greatest
philosophers were firm believers in it. Lord Bacon is said to have
believed in the existence of a panacea that would prolong life beyond
its natural term. He considered that the principal cause of death
was the action of the external air in drying and exhausting the
body, which he thought might be prevented by nitre; but although he
took three grains of his favourite salt every morning for the last
thirty years of his life, he died at the age of sixty-six. We have
many customs at the present day which are a survival of the days of
superstition, and few have any idea of their origin. The mother, when
she hangs round the neck of her child the plaything known as a coral
and bells, little imagines she is perpetuating an ancient superstitious
practice. The soothsayers attributed many mystic properties to coral,
and it was believed to ward off the evil eye, and drive away devils and
evil spirits. For this purpose it was suspended from a child’s neck
as an amulet. Pliny and Dioscorides greatly esteemed the medicinal
properties of coral, and Paracelsus recommends that it should be worn
around the necks of infants to keep away fits, sorcery, charms, and to
serve as an antidote to poisons. The bells usually suspended to it were
originally intended to frighten away evil spirits, and not to amuse the
child alone.
Paris mentions a curious circumstance, _viz._, that the same
superstitious belief should exist among the negroes of the West Indies,
who affirm that the colour of coral is always affected by the state of
health of the wearer, it becoming paler in disease.
But all the remedies that originated in superstition were not entirely
useless. Some, whether by accident or not, had a natural power of
efficacy, and led to discoveries of importance. In the time of
James I., a powder known as the sympathetic powder of Sir Kenelm Digby
had a great reputation for healing wounds. Whenever a wound had been
inflicted, this powder was applied to the weapon which had caused it,
which was also smeared with ointment and dressed two or three times a
day. The wound itself was directed to be brought together and carefully
bound up with clean linen rags, but above all to be let alone for seven
days, at the end of which time it was generally found to be healed.
This was, of course, said to be due to the wonderful properties of
the sympathetic powder, instead of the fact of excluding the air from
the part and not interfering with nature’s own healing powers. The
mysterious sympathetic healing powder was afterwards said to be simply
calcined green vitriol. The rust of the spear of Telephus, alluded to
by Homer as a cure for the wounds which that weapon inflicted, was
probably verdigris, and led to the discovery of its use as a surgical
dressing.
The cures supposed to be performed by royal touch show the power
of faith over desire, or mind over matter. The royal surgeons who
introduced the patients to be touched for scrofula, doubtless took care
to choose those who had a tendency to recover, and who, if left to
nature, would probably have gradually recovered. Boswell says that Dr.
Johnson, when thirty months old, was taken by his mother to London to
be touched by Queen Anne, on the advice of Sir John Floyer, a physician
of Lichfield.
From time immemorial the ignorant have had the most unbounded
confidence in nauseous remedies, and it would seem as if the nastier
and more disgusting the medicines were, the greater faith they had in
them. The larger the price asked, the more implicit the faith seemed to
be. The Collyrium of Danares, a famous quack eye lotion, was sold at
Constantinople for £9 a bottle, and the elixirs sold by Paracelsus and
Van Helmont brought extortionate prices. The doctrine of Signatories,
as it was called, is of very great antiquity. It implied that every
natural substance which possesses any medicinal virtues, indicates, by
an obvious and well-marked external character, the disease for which it
is a remedy. Thus the bloodstone was used to stop bleeding, on account
of its marks resembling drops of blood. The root of the mandrake, on
account of its resemblance to the human form, was used as a remedy
for sterility. Turmeric was administered for jaundice, and poppies
for diseases of the head. Another belief of the ancients was that all
poisonous bodies possessed a powerful attraction for one another, and
that “like would cure like”. The hair of a mad dog was worn as a charm
to prevent hydrophobia, and the foot of the ape was used as a remedy
for its bite. On the same principle we are solemnly assured that three
scruples of the ashes of a witch, after she has been well and carefully
burnt at the stake, is a sure protection against the evil effects of
witchcraft.
Many ancient superstitions are so deeply rooted that they find
believers among the educated at the present day. Take, for instance,
the belief that many people have in the efficacy of red flannel. For
sore throat, rheumatism, or swelling, they believe it will cure when
flannel of no other colour will. This belief may be traced to the
colour of the cloth often used in incantations, which was always red.
In some parts of the country a wedding-ring is still believed to be a
universal cure for sore eyes.
A curious superstition is still practised in some parts of Wales for
the cure of the complaint called shingles. The term for shingles in
Welsh means “The Eagle.” It was supposed in ancient times that if
a person ate of the flesh of the eagle he would never suffer from
shingles, and his direct descendants down to the ninth generation could
not contract it, and furthermore had the power transmitted to them of
curing others so afflicted by blowing on them.