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Title: Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing

Author: George Barton Cutten

Release date: October 22, 2007 [eBook #23101]

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THREE
THOUSAND YEARS OF MENTAL HEALING ***

E-text prepared by David Clarke, Turgut Dincer,
and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
(http://www.pgdp.net)

THREE THOUSAND YEARS OF
MENTAL HEALING

BY
GEORGE BARTON CUTTEN, Ph.D.
(YALE)
PRESIDENT OF ACADIA UNIVERSITY

ILLUSTRATED

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1911

BAS-RELIEF REPRESENTING THE GALLIC ÆSCULAPIUS
DISPATCHING A DEMON

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY
OF
Artemus Wyman Sawyer, D.D., LL.D.
PRESIDENT OF ACADIA UNIVERSITY
1869-1896

HE HID FROM US HIS HEART WHILE WE THOUGHT THAT HE LOVED
ONLY HIS STUDIES; WE LATER LEARNED THAT HE LAID
EMPHASIS ON THAT WHICH HE LOVED ONLY LESS—TRUE
KNOWLEDGE, IN ORDER THAT HE MIGHT INTRODUCE
IT TO THOSE THAT HE LOVED MOST—HIS
PUPILS. HE TAUGHT AS NONE OTHER

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE
I. Introduction—Mental Healing 3
II. Early Civilizations 19
III. The Influence of Christianity 35
IV. Relics and Shrines 61
V. Healers 110
VI. Talismans 138
VII. Amulets 158
VIII. Charms 189
IX. Royal Touch 224
X. Mesmer and After 249
XI. The Healers of the Nineteenth Century 273
Index 273

PREFACE

The present decade has experienced an intense interest in mental healing.
This has come as a culmination of the development along these lines during
the past half century. It has shown itself in the beginning of new religious
sects with this as a, or the, fundamental tenet, in more wide-spread general
movements, and in the scientific study and application of the principles
underlying this form of therapeutics.

Many have been led astray because, being ignorant of the mental healing
movements and vagaries of the past, the late applications, veiled in
metaphysical or religious verbiage, have seemed to them to be new in origin
and principle. No one could consider an historical survey of the subject and
reasonably hold this opinion. It is on account of the ignorance of similar
movements, millenniums old, that so much, if any, originality can be
credited to the founders.
The object of this volume is to present a general view of mental healing,
dealing more especially with the historical side of the subject. While this is
divided topically, the topics are presented in a comparatively chronological
order, and thereby trace the development of the subject to the present
century.
The term "mental healing" is given the broadest possible use, and
comprehends any cures which may be brought about by the effect of the
mind over the body, regardless of whether the power back of the cure is
supposed to be deity, demons, other human beings, or the individual mind
of the patient.
It is hoped that this may contribute to the knowledge of a subject which is
of such wide-spread popular interest.
George Barton Cutten.
Wolfville, Nova Scotia,
December 1, 1910.

ILLUSTRATIONS

Bas-relief representing the Gallic Æsculapius Frontispiece
dispatching a demon
Facing
Page
Cure through the Intercession of a Healing Saint 72

Valentine Greatrakes 134
Sir Kenelm Digby 152
King's Touch-pieces 226
F. A. Mesmer 232
John Alexander Dowie 276
George O. Barnes 290
Mary Baker Eddy 302

THREE THOUSAND YEARS OF

MENTAL HEALING

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION—MENTAL HEALING

"'Tis painful thinking that corrodes our clay."—Armstrong.
"Oh, if I could once make a resolution, and determine to be well!"—Walderstein.
"The body and the mind are like a jerkin and a jerkin's lining, rumple the one and you rumple the
other."—Sterne.
"I find, by experience, that the mind and the body are more than married, for they are most intimately
united; and when the one suffers, the other sympathizes."—Chesterfield.
"Sublime is the dominion of the mind over the body, that for a time can make flesh and nerve
impregnable, and string the sinews like steel, so that the weak become so mighty."—Stowe.

"The surest road to health, say what they will,
Is never to suppose we shall be ill;
Most of those evils we poor mortals know
From doctors and imagination flow."—Churchill.

The fact that there is a reciprocal relation between mental states and bodily
conditions, acting both for good and ill, is nothing new in human
experience. Even among the most crude and unobserving, traditions and
incidents have given witness to this knowledge. For centuries stories of the
hair turning white during the night on account of fright or sorrow, the cause
and cure of diseases through emotional disturbances, and death, usually
directly by apoplexy, caused by anger, grief, or joy, have been current and
generally accepted. On the other hand, irritability and moroseness caused
by disordered organs of digestion, change of acumen or morals due to
injury of the brain or nervous system, and insanity produced by bodily
diseases, are also accepted proofs of the effect of the body on the mind.
Recent scientific investigation has been directed along the line of the
influence of the mind over the body, and to that phase of this influence
which deals with the cure rather than the cause of disease. In addition to
what the scientists have done along this line, various religious cults have
added the application of these principles to their other tenets and activities,
or else have made this the chief corner-stone of a new structure. There are
some reasons why this connection with religion should continue to exist,
and why it has been a great help both to the building up of these particular
sects and the healing of the bodies of those who combine religion with
mental healing.
We must not forget that in early days the priest, the magician, and the
physician were combined in one person, and that primitive religious notions
are difficult to slough off. Shortly before the beginning of the Christian era
there were some indications that healing was to be freed from the bondage
of religion, but the influence of Jesus' healing upon Christians, and the
overwhelming influence of Christianity upon the whole world, delayed this
movement, so that it did not again become prominent until the sixteenth
century. About this time, when therapeutics as a science began to shake off
the shackles of religion and superstition, another startling innovation was
noticeable, viz., the division of mental healing into religious and non-
religious healing. This change came gradually, and as is usual in all reform,
certain prophets saw and proclaimed the real truth which the people were
not able to follow or receive for centuries.

Paracelsus, who lived during the first half of the sixteenth century, wrote
these shrewd words: "Whether the object of your faith is real or false, you
will nevertheless obtain the same effects. Thus, if I believe in St. Peter's
statue as I would have believed in St. Peter himself, I will obtain the same
effects that I would have obtained from St. Peter; but that is superstition.
Faith, however, produces miracles, and whether it be true or false faith, it
will always produce the same wonders." We have also this penetrating
observation from Pierre Ponponazzi, of Milan, an author of the same
century: "We can easily conceive the marvellous effects which confidence
and imagination can produce, particularly when both qualities are reciprocal
between the subject and the person who influences them. The cures
attributed to the influence of certain relics are the effect of this imagination
and confidence. Quacks and philosophers know that if the bones of any
skeleton were put in the place of the saint's bones, the sick would none the
less experience beneficial effects, if they believed they were near veritable
relics."
What seemed to be a movement whereby mental healing should be divided
so that only a portion of it should be connected with religion proved to be
too far in advance of its time, and not until the advent of Mesmer was this
accomplished. Healing other than mental, however, did obtain its freedom
at this time. While Mesmer and his followers emphasized non-religious
mental healing, it should not be thought that mental therapeutics was ever
entirely separated from the church. There have always been found some
sects which laid particular emphasis on it, and both Roman Catholic and
Protestant orthodox Christianity have always admitted it. It has been
considered, even if not admitted, that the power of the Infinite was more
clearly shown by the healing of the body than by the restoration of the
moral life. It is natural, then, that the sects which showed this special proof
of God's presence and power would grow faster than their spiritual
competitors, but that they would decline more rapidly and surely than those
which espoused more spiritual doctrines.
On the other hand, it is not difficult to see why mental healing would be
helped by its connection with religion. Religion grips the whole mind more
firmly than any other subject has ever done, and when one accepts the
orthodox conception of God, he naturally expects to come in contact with
One whose sympathies are in favor of the cure of his diseases, and whose

power is sufficient to bring about this cure. With this basis there is set up in
the mind of the patient an expectancy which has always proven to be a most
valuable precursor of a cure. The devout religious attitude of mind is one
most favorable for the working of suggestion, and persons of the
temperament adapted to the religious expression most valued in the past are
those who could be most readily affected by mental means. For these
reasons, it can be easily understood why mental healing has continued to be
associated with religion, and why when thus associated it has been so
successful.
To those not very familiar with mental healing, it has seemed strange that
any law could be formulated which would comprehend every variety. In the
following pages many different forms will be described, and in examining
the subject it will be found that many and varied are the explanations given
for the results produced. We find also a general distrust of all the others, or
else a claim that this particular sect is the only real and true exponent of
mental healing, and that it produces the only genuine cures. Those which
claim to be Christian sects, however divergent the direct explanation of
their results, give the final credit to God, and base their modus operandi
upon the Bible —in fact, they claim to be the direct successors of Jesus and
his disciples in this respect.
We find, however, that the healer connected with the Christian sect has no
advantage over his Mohammedan or Buddhist brother, and that neither is
able to succeed better than the non-religious healer in all cases. We
recognize that when one class of healers fails in a case another may
succeed, but the successful one is just as liable to fail in a second case when
the first one cures. What particular form of suggestion is most effective in
any given case depends upon the temperament of the individual and his
education, religious training, and environment. When we consider the
whole matter we are forced to the conclusion that mental cures are
independent of any particular sect, religion, or philosophy; some are cured
by one form and some by another. Not the creed, but some force which
resides in the mind of every one accomplishes the cure, and the most that
any religion or philosophy can do is to bring this force into action.
As a general rule, one sharp distinction is noticed between the religious and
the non-religious healers, viz., the religious healer sees no limit to his

healing power, and affirms that cancer and Bright's disease are as easily
cured, in theory at least, as neuralgia or insomnia; the non-religious healer,
sometimes designated as the "scientific healer," on the contrary, recognizes
that there are some diseases which are more easily cured than others, and
that of those others some are practically incurable by psycho-therapeutic
methods.
The line has been drawn in the past between functional and organic
diseases, the former including diseases where there is simply a derangement
of function, like indigestion, and the latter comprehending the diseases
where the organ is affected, like ulcer of the stomach. The more we know
about diseases the less sure we seem to be about their classification; some
of which we were formerly sure have recently caused us considerable
doubt. For example, we have formerly classed cancer as an organic disease
and consequently incurable by mental means. The question is now asked,
"Is cancer an organic disease, or is it some functional derangement of the
epithelium tissue which causes it to grow indefinitely until it invades some
vital organ?"
A further question arises due to further study. Some of the latest
investigators claim that most if not all persons have cancer at some time in
life, but that anti-toxin or some other remedy is supplied by the body itself,
and the growth is stopped and the tissue absorbed. The question then seems
to be pertinent, "If the body can produce the cure within itself, and this
would be functional, why cannot mental means stimulate the body to
produce it?" or "Does not mental influence stimulate the body to produce
it?" What the cancer experts tell us of the wide-spread extension of the
disease and its spontaneous cure, the tuberculosis experts affirm of
tuberculosis, and certainly of the latter disease spontaneous cures are not
uncommon. We also know that mental influence may, in fact does, have an
indirect but no less beneficial influence in the cure of tuberculosis. From
these examples one seems to be forced to either one of two conclusions,
either of which is contrary to generally accepted ideas, viz., first, that these
are not organic diseases; or, second, organic diseases are aided or cured by
means of mental healing. In general, however, the distinction holds good;
the so-called functional cases are amenable to cure by mental means, and
the organic are much less so.

Coming back, then, to the common law which underlies all cases or forms
of mental healing, we find two general principles upon which it is built—
the power of the mind over the body, and the importance of suggestion as a
factor in the cure of the disease. The law may be tersely stated in the first
person as follows: My body tends to adjust itself so as to be in harmony
with my ideas concerning it. This law is equally applicable to the cause or
cure of disease by mental means. To apply this law in a universal way as far
as mental healing is concerned, we should notice that however the thought
of cure may come into the mind, whether by external or auto-suggestion, if
it is firmly rooted so as to impress the subconsciousness, that part of the
mind which rules the bodily organs, a tendency toward cure is at once set
up and continues as long as that thought has the ascendancy.
Hack Tuke quotes Johannes Müller, a physiologist who lived during the
first half of the last century, as follows: "It may be stated as a general fact
that any state of body which is conceived to be approaching, and which is
expected with certain confidence and certainty of occurrence, will be very
prone to ensue, as the mere result of the idea, if it do not lie beyond the
bounds of possibility." This is a fair statement of the law from the stand-
point of consciousness, but does not include all of the vast influence of
subconscious ideas which are so potent in the cure of diseases by mental
means. Müller's observation was in advance of his times, but could not be
expected to include the results of the latest researches of modern science.
For a great many years physicians have recognized that not only are all
diseases made worse by an incorrect mental attitude, but that some diseases
are the direct result of worry and other mental disturbances. The mental
force which causes colored water to act as an emetic, or postage-stamps to
produce a blister, can also produce organic diseases of a serious nature. The
large mental factor in the cause of diseases is generally admitted, and it
seems reasonable to infer that what is caused by mental influence may be
cured by the same means. There is no restriction in the power of the mind in
causing disease, and should we restrict the mind as a factor in the cure? The
trouble seems to be in the explanation. People ask, "How can the mind have
such an effect upon the body?" and to the answer of this question we must
now turn our attention.

We all recognize that involuntarily certain bodily effects take place. We
blush when we do not wish to; we betray our fears by our blanched faces.
Some other factors of mind than the conscious mental processes have
charge, and rule certain functions. The heart, the respiratory apparatus, the
glands, and digestive organs all carry on their regular functions during sleep
and also better without our direction when we are awake. What is the
explanation of this? We have recently been saying that the
subconsciousness rules these physical organs, and through this that the
effects already referred to take place. So much has been written recently
regarding the subconsciousness that anything more at this time would be
superfluous; suffice it to say that the general conclusions on that subject are
accepted as the basis of faith cure. We may, however, go further in our
endeavor to explain.
In such mental troubles as psychasthesia much has lately been heard about
psycho-analysis and re-education. What does that mean in the language of
the psychology of a few years ago? In cases of unreasonable fears or
phobias, for example, there is a firmly rooted system of ideas which refuses
to depart at the command of consciousness. We analyze the mental store to
find out the cause of the unreasonable persistence, and sometimes, quite
frequently in fact, have to resort to hypnosis or hypnodization to find the
initial trouble. It is then corrected, and re-education consists in living over
again from the first experience, the events connected with that fear and
correcting them up to date. In this process minutes only are used where the
original experiences took weeks. Putting it in other words, we have certain
systems of ideas; as a psychological fact of long standing we know that
other elements may be injected into that system so as to change it, or that
one system may be destroyed and another system built up to take its place.
This is the secret of cures of this nature—of mental troubles—the irritating
factor, the thorn in the mind, is extracted.
We have heard in modern psychology of the hot and cold places in
consciousness, or, to use other terms for the same idea, the central and
peripheral ideas, meaning the ideas which dominate consciousness, and
those which are in the background. The mind can readily attend to only one
thing at a time; if that be pain, for example, that takes up all of our
attention. On the other hand, if for some reason some other ideas suddenly
become central, then the pain is driven away to the periphery and we say we

have no pain, or we have less pain. The sufferer from neuralgia experiences
no pain as he responds to the fire alarm, and the toothache stops entirely as
we undergo the excitement and fear of entering the dentist's office. Serious
lesions yield to profound emotion born of persuasion, confidence, or
excitement; either the gouty or rheumatic man, after hobbling about for
years, finds his legs if pursued by a wild bull, or the weak and enfeebled
invalid will jump from the bed and carry out heavy articles from a burning
house. The central idea is sufficient to command all the reserve energy, and
that idea which has suddenly and unexpectedly become central may remain
so. What Chalmers called "the expulsive power of a new affection" in the
cure of souls, is the precise method of operation in the cure of some bodily
ills.
I have here made two suggestions which may help to show how mental
healing may be brought about. Not simply the alleviation of bodily ills, but
the complete cure may result from the influence on the subconsciousness. A
large number of cures are brought about by faith in certain religious
practices, this faith amounting to a certainty in the minds of the patients
before the cure is started or while it is in progress. Trustful expectation in
any one direction acts powerfully through the subconsciousness because it
absorbs the whole mind, and thus competition with other ideas, either
consciously or subconsciously, is largely excluded. It is this which acts in
mental healing under the caption of faith, although some abnormal
conditions may also arise to assist the suggestion.
That this confident expectation of a cure is the most potent means of
bringing it about, doing that which no medical treatment can accomplish,
may be affirmed as the generalized result of experiences of the most varied
kind, extending through a long series of ages. It is this factor which is
common to methods of the most diverse character. It is noticeable that any
system of treatment, however absurd, that can be puffed into public
notoriety for efficacy, any individual who by accident or design obtains a
reputation for a special gift of healing, is certain to attract a multitude of
sufferers, among whom will be many who are capable of being really
benefited by a strong assurance of relief. Thus, the practitioner with a great
reputation has an advantage over his neighboring physicians, not only on
account of the superior skill which he may have acquired, but because his
reputation causes this confident expectation, so beneficial in itself.

There have been fashions in cures as in other things. At one time a certain
relic, or healer, would attract and cure, and shortly afterward it would be
deserted and inefficacious, not because it had lost its power, but because it
had lost its reputation, and the people had consequently lost their faith in it.
Some other relics would then acquire a reputation, spring into popular
favor, and the crowds would flock to them. We have many modern
instances of this kind. If sufficient confidence in the power of a concoction,
a shrine, a relic, or a person can be aroused, genuine cures can be wrought
regardless of the healing properties of the dose.
The whole system of mental therapeutics may be divided into two parts;
what we may designate as metaphysical cure denies that either matter or
evil exists, and heals by inspiring the belief that the disease cannot assail
the patient because he is pure spirit; the other class, faith cure, recognizes
the disease, but cures by faith in the power of divinity, persons, objects, or
suggestion.
Without doubt the best example of the former theory and the most
successful application of it are found in Christian Science. Perhaps it is not
so difficult to understand the frame of mind which brought about this theory
on the part of Mrs. Eddy. Here was an hysterical, neurotic woman who
knew nothing all her life but illness and misfortune. She had suffered much
from many physicians and was none the better but rather worse. One
physician had called her disease one thing, another had designated it
another, until confusion and uncertainty were increased with every
physician consulted. She began to despair of ever either knowing about her
disease or of having it cured. As a last resort she went to Quimby, and he
told her there was no disease and no need of suffering. He denied the
suffering, and she accepted his teaching; she followed him in denying
disease and then matter, and kept on with her theory of negation and denial
until she evolved her present theory. It was a natural reaction from all
conceivable pains characteristic of hysteria, to no pain; from all conceivable
diseases which different physicians had opined, to no disease; from the
infirmity of body with its inhibitory discomfitures, to no body. The history
of the founder of Christian Science is its best raison d'être, especially from
a psychological stand-point, and the rather strange thing is that a reaction
from an abnormality, going as it naturally does to another abnormality,
should find a response in the religious cravings of so many; the philosophy

undoubtedly would not attract as it does were there not connected with it, in
the practical working of the system, the lure of mental healing.
Faith cure, the other form of mental healing, has such a variety of forms
that it is practically impossible to describe a typical one. Faith in some
power, or, what amounts to the same thing, the uncritical reception of
suggestions concerning the cure, is the common factor in all forms.
The question naturally arises, Which is the best form of mental healing?
There is no best form for all diseases and all persons. For example, it
matters not how new associational systems are formed so long as they are
substituted for the pernicious ones. It may be in the common experiences of
every-day life, through the pleading of a friend, during sleep or trance, in
some abnormal state of a hypnotic character, or during religious ecstasy,
and we cannot well say in any given case that one form will be more
efficacious than another. Mental healing creates nothing new, but simply
makes use of the normal mechanism of the mind and body. The question
then is, What method of mental healing is most likely to stimulate the
mental mechanism so that physiological processes will be set up leading to
a cure? The great power of faith and expectancy may decide the question,
and the answer may be in favor of the form in which the patient has the
most faith, either on account of its reputation, or on account of some
prejudice on the part of the patient.

CHAPTER II

EARLY CIVILIZATIONS

"The office of the physician extends equally to the purification of mind and body; to neglect the one
is to expose the other to evident peril. It is not only the body that by its sound constitution
strengthens the soul, but the well-regulated soul by its authoritative power maintains the body in
perfect health."—Plato.
"Aristotle mapped out philosophy and morals in lines the world yet accepts in the main, but he did
not know the difference between the nerves and the tendons. Rome had a sound system of
jurisprudence before it had a physician, using only priest-craft for healing. Cicero was the greatest
lawyer the world has seen, but there was not a man in Rome who could have cured him of a colic.

The Greek was an expert dialectician when he was using incantations for his diseases. As late as
when the Puritans were enunciating their lofty principles, it was generally held that the king's touch
would cure scrofula. Governor Winthrop, of colonial days, treated 'small-pox and all fevers' by a
powder made from 'live toads baked in an earthen pot in the open air.'"—Munger.
"There is nothing so absurd or ridiculous that has not at some time been said by some philosopher.
Fontenelle says he would undertake to persuade the whole republic of readers to believe that the sun
was neither the cause of light or heat, if he could only get six philosophers on his side."—Goldsmith.

A glance at the history of medicine will show three fairly well defined
periods. The beginning of the first is hidden in the uncertain days of
prehistoric ages and the period continues down to early Christian times—
perhaps the end of the second century when Galen died. The second period
extends from this time to the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries, and the third
period embraces the last three or four centuries. The second period was
almost wholly stationary, and this, we are ashamed to say, was largely due
to the prohibitive attitude of the church. The science of medicine, then, is
almost wholly the result of the investigations and study of the last period.
This means that medicine is one of the youngest of the sciences, while from
the very nature of the case it is one of the oldest of arts.
From the beginning of the art of therapeutics, mental healing has been a
large factor in the cure. This was not recognized, of course, for only in the
last century has the psychic element been admitted to any extent as a
therapeutic agent. We can read back now, however, and see what a large
element this really was. The cruder the art, the more powerful was the
mental influence. The ways of primitive therapeutics are completely hidden
from us except what we can gather from the races which retained their
primitive practices in historic times. We can well understand, though, that
the concoctions of medicine-men and witch-doctors could have little effect
except in a suggestive way. Snakes' heads, toads' toes, lizards' tails, and
beetles' wings have a small place in the pharmacopœia of to-day, except as
placebos, and it is extremely doubtful if they were ever valuable for any
other purpose.
The object of the primitive practitioner seems to have been to make an
impression upon the patient either by the explanation of his disease or by
the effort made to effect a cure. The explanation most frequently given was
that demons were responsible for the trouble, and the cure of the disease
was an attempted exorcism of the demon. The more fantastic the ceremony,

the more likely the cure, on account of the mental influence upon the
patient. The primitive man's religion and therapeutics were inextricably
interwoven and, unless we make an exception of the past few years, this has
always been an unprofitable union for one or both. All the early
civilizations with the exception of the Greeks, as well as the Christian
nations up to the sixteenth century, were handicapped by this partnership,
and it was only by divorcing the two that therapeutics was able to make the
great advance during the last period. The nature of the primitive religions
was responsible to a great extent for the nature of the method of healing,
therefore, appeasing the offended deity and exorcising the demon were
therapeutic as well as religious ceremonies.
The Chinese of to-day, except in some of the seaboard cities, must be
classed among the earliest civilizations, for their mode of living has not
changed much in the last two or three milleniums. Their system of medical
practice partakes of the character of that found among the early people, with
some slight modifications which show some relationship to the European
practice during the Dark Ages.
All sorts of disgusting doses are administered, and incantations and
exorcisms are among the most effective methods of healing. For example,
Hardy reports that a missionary told him of his being called in to see a man
suffering from convulsions; he found him smelling white mice in a cage,
with a dead fowl fastened on his chest, and a bundle of grass attached to his
feet. This had been the prescription of a native physician.
Medicines are made from asses' sinews, fowls' blood, bears' gall, shaving of
a rhinoceros' horn, moss grown on a coffin, and the dung of dogs, pigs,
fowl, rabbits, pigeons, and bats. Cockroach tea, bear-paw soup, essence of
monkey paw, toads' eye-brows, and earth-worms rolled in honey are
common doses. The excrement of a mosquito is considered as efficacious as
it is scarce, and here, as in Europe in the Middle Ages, the hair of the dog
that bit you is used to heal the bite and to prevent hydrophobia. An infusion
from the bones of a tiger is believed to confer courage, strength, and agility,
and the flesh of a snake is boiled and eaten to make one cunning and wise.
Chips from coffins which have been let down into the grave are boiled and
are said to possess great virtue for catarrh. Flies, fleas, and bed-bugs
prepared in different ways are given for various diseases. Medicines are

given in all forms, and not infrequently pills are as large as a pigeon's egg.
If any of these medicines ever had any beneficent effect it must have been
through mental rather than through physical means.
Nevius has left us in no doubt concerning the belief in demons among the
Chinese, and of the effect this belief has on their theory of disease. Certain
forms are daily observed to drive away the evil spirits. For this purpose
Taoist priests are hired to recite formulæ, ring bells, and manipulate bowls
of water, candles, joss-sticks, and curious charms. Sometimes the family
insists that one of the priests shall ascend a ladder, the rounds of which are
formed of swords or knives with the sharp edge uppermost, and go through
his exorcisms at the top. Instead of the priest, the mother may make a fire of
paper and wave a small garment of her sick child over it.
A relative or friend of a sick person will visit a temple and beat the drum,
which notifies the god that there is urgent need of his help. To be sure that
the god hears, his ears are tickled, and the part of the image which
corresponds to the afflicted part of the sick person's body is rubbed. Some
ashes from the censor standing before the image may be taken to the sick-
room and there reverenced. Holy water is brought from the temple, boiled
with tea, and drunk as a certain cure for disease. Spells are written on paper
and burned; the ashes are then put into water and drunk as medicine.
Charms and magical tricks of all kinds are tried in order to drive away the
demon.
There were schools of medicine in Egypt in the fifteenth century before the
Christian era, and the Egyptians made great progress in the study and
practice of medicine. Notwithstanding this, we find many examples of
mental healing, or at least attempts at healing by mental means, among the
recipes and prescriptions which have come down to us. Poor and
superstitious persons, especially, had recourse to dreams, to wizards, to
donations, to sacred animals, and to exvotos to the gods. Charms were also
written for the credulous, some of which have been found on small pieces
of papyrus, which were rolled up and worn, as by the modern Egyptians.
The Ebers papyrus, an important and very ancient manual of Egyptian
medicine, has thrown much light on early Egyptian practices. It shows that
an important part of the treatment prior to 1552 B. C., consisted in the

laying on of hands, combined with an extensive formulary and ceremonial
rites. The physicians were the priests, and among the interesting contents of
this manuscript are several formulæ to be used as prayers while
compounding medicaments. Some of the prescriptions given here are
accompanied by exorcisms which were to be used at the same time. Many
of the prescriptions could have had little but mental influence because the
remedies recommended consisted of horrible mixtures of unsavory
ingredients, the theory, if we can judge by the medicines, being that the
more disgusting the dose the more efficacious the remedy; this is true from
a mental stand-point.
Demonism was not unknown; in fact, it underlay much of the treatment.
People did not die, but they were assassinated. The murderer might belong
to this or to the spirit world. He might be a god, a spirit, or the soul of a
dead man that had cunningly entered a living person. The physician must
first discover the nature of the possessing spirit, and then attack it. Powerful
magic was the weapon used, and the healer must be an expert in reciting
incantations and skilful in making amulets. On account of this, the
Egyptians became the most skilled in magic of any people, and have their
equals only in the Hindus of to-day. The experiences of Joseph and Moses,
as recorded in the Bible, give us some idea of their skill at that time. After
the exorcism the physician used medicine to relieve the disorders which the
presence of the strange being had produced in the body.
Maspéro gives us the following information: "The cure-workers are divided
into several categories. Some incline towards sorcery, and have faith in
formulas and talismans only; they think they have done enough if they have
driven out the spirit. Others extol the use of drugs; they study the qualities
of plants and minerals, describe the diseases to which each of the
substances provided by nature is suitable, and settle the exact time when
they must be procured and applied; certain herbs have no power unless they
are gathered during the night at the full moon, others are efficacious in
summer only, another acts equally well in winter or summer. The best
doctors carefully avoid binding themselves exclusively to either method."1
Among the early Egyptians the human body was divided into thirty-six
parts, each of which was thought to be under the particular government of
one of the aerial demons, who presided over the triple divisions of the

twelve signs. The priests practised a separate invocation for each genius,
which they used in order to obtain for them the cure of the particular
member confided to their care. We have the authority of Origen for saying
that in his time when any part of the body was diseased, a cure was effected
by invoking the demon to whose province it belonged. Perhaps this is why
the different parts of the body were assigned to the different planets, and
later to different saints. It undoubtedly accounts for the fact that an
Egyptian physician treated only one part of the body and refused to infringe
on the domain of his brother physician.
Incubation was commonly practised at the temples of Isis and Serapis as it
was afterward among the Greeks. This "temple sleep" was closely akin in
its effects to hypnotism and was undoubtedly efficacious in the case of
some diseases.
The Babylonian system of therapeutics was not unlike the Egyptian as far
as incantations were concerned. Many of these have been discovered. The
formulas usually consist of a description of the disease and its symptoms, a
desire for deliverance from it, and an order for it to depart. Some draughts
were given which may have had some medicinal effect, but they were
supposed to be enchanted drinks. Knots were supposed to have some
magical effect on diseases, and conjurations were also wrought by the
power of numbers. The Book of Daniel shows the official recognition given
to magicians, astrologers, and sorcerers.
The Jews seem to have got their early medical knowledge from the
Egyptians, and changed it only in so far as their religion made it necessary,
for with them as with others the healing art was a part of the religion, and
the Levites were the sole practitioners. Much valuable medical knowledge
was mixed with much that could only have had a mental influence. Disease
was considered a punishment for sin, and hence the cure was religious
rather than medical. The disease might be inflicted by God direct, and the
cure would be a proof of his forgiveness; it might also be inflicted by Satan
or the spirits of the air with the permission of Jehovah, and the cure would
then be brought about by exorcism.
There seems to have been a rather elaborate system of demonology among
the Jews, who were at one time the chief exponents of the doctrine, and

consequently the principal exorcists. Among the Jews a prominent
"demoness of sickness is Bath-Chorin. She touches the hands and lower
limbs by night. Many diseases are caused by demons." According to
Josephus, "to demons may be ascribed leprosy, rabies, asthma, cardiac
diseases, nervous diseases, which last are the specialty of evil demons, such
as epilepsy." Incantations were in use among the later Jews, and amulets of
neck-chains like serpents and ear-rings were employed to protect the
wearers against the evil eye and similar troubles.
In India, medicine became a separate science very early, according to the
sacred books, the Vedas. Notwithstanding this, demonology played a large
part in the production of disease according to their theories, and religious
observances were helpful in the cures.
Among the oldest documents which we possess relative to the practice of
medicine, are the various treatises contained in the collection which bears
the name of Hippocrates (460-375 B. C.). He was the first physician to
relieve medicine from the trammels of superstition and the delusions of
philosophy.
The Greeks undoubtedly believed in demons, but, different from the nations
around them, considered the demons to be well-intentioned. Homer (c. 1000
B. C.) speaks frequently of demons, and in one instance in the Odyssey tells
of a sick man pining away, "one upon whom a hateful demon had gazed."
Empedocles (c. 490-430 B. C.) taught that demons "were of a mixed and
inconstant nature, and are subjected to a purgatorial process which may
finally end in their ascension to higher abodes." Yet he attributed to them
nearly all the calamities, vexations, and plagues incident to mankind. Plato
(427-347 B. C.) writes of demons good and bad, and Aristotle (384-322 B.
C.), the son of a physician, speaks directly of "demons influencing and
inspiring the possessed." Socrates (470-399 B. C.) claimed to have
continually with him a demon—a guardian spirit.
In Greece, in early days, physicians were looked upon as gods. Even after
the siege of Troy, the sons of the gods and the heroes were alone supposed
to understand the secrets of medicine and surgery. At a late period
Æsculapius, the son of Apollo, was worshipped as a deity. When we speak
of the art of healing in Greece, one naturally thinks of the apparent

monopoly of the Æsclepiades, who ministered unto the Grecian sick for
centuries.
The original seat of the worship of Æsculapius was at Epidaurus, where
there was a splendid temple, adorned with a gold and ivory statue of the
god, who was represented sitting, one hand holding a staff, the other resting
on the head of a serpent, the emblem of sagacity and longevity; a dog
crouched at his feet. The temple was frequented by harmless serpents, in the
form of which the god was supposed to manifest himself. According to
Homer, his sons, Machaon and Podalirius, who were great warriors, treated
wounds and external diseases only; and it is probable that their father
practised in the same manner, as he is said to have invented the probe and
the bandaging of wounds. His priests, the Æsclepiades, however, practised
incantations, and cured diseases by leading their patients to believe that the
god himself delivered his prescriptions in dreams and visions; for this
imposture they were roughly satirized by Aristophanes in his play of
"Plutus." It is probable that the preparations, consisting of abstinence,
tranquillity, and bathing, requisite for obtaining the divine intercourse, and,
above all, the confidence reposed in the Æsclepiades, were often productive
of benefit.
The excavations of Cavvadias at Epidaurus have furnished us with much
interesting material concerning the cures performed at this ancient shrine,
five hundred years before the beginning of the Christian era. If the modern
physician still recognizes Æsculapius as his patron saint, he must have great
respect for mental healing. It appears certain from inscriptions found upon
"stelæ" that were dug up at Epidaurus and published in 1891, that the
system of Æsculapius was based upon the miracle-working of a demi-god,
and not upon medical art as we now know it. The modus operandi was
unique in some details. The patients, mostly incurables, came laden with
sacrifices. After prayer, they cleansed themselves with water from the holy
well, and offered up sacrifices. Certain ceremonial acts were then
performed by the priests, and the patients were put to sleep on the skins of
the animals offered at the altar, or at the foot of the statue of the divinity,
while the priests performed further sacred rites. The son of Apollo then
appeared to them in dreams, attended to the particular ailments of the
sufferers, and specified further sacrifices or acts which would restore health.
In many cases the sick awoke suddenly cured. Large sums of money were

asked for these cures; from one inscription we learn that a sum
corresponding to $12,000 was paid as a fee. The record of the cure was
carved on the temple as at Lourdes to-day, e.g.:
"Some days back, a certain Caius, who was blind, learned from an oracle
that he should repair to the temple, put up his fervent prayers, cross the
sanctuary from right to left, place his five fingers on the altar, then raise his
hand and cover his eyes. He obeyed, and instantly his sight was restored,
amid the loud acclamations of the multitude. These signs of the
omnipotence of the gods were shown in the reign of Antoninus."
"A blind soldier, named Valerius Apes, having consulted the oracle, was
informed that he should mix the blood of a white cock with honey, to make
up an ointment to be applied to his eyes for three consecutive days. He
received his sight, and returned public thanks to the gods."
"Julian appeared lost beyond all hope, from a spitting of blood. The gods
ordered him to take from the altar some seeds of the pine, and to mix them
with honey, of which mixture he was to eat for three days. He was saved,
and came to thank the gods in the presence of the people."2
It was not until five centuries later, when credulity concerning miracles was
on the wane, that the priests began to study and to apply medical means in
order to sustain the reputation of the place, and to keep up its enormous
revenues.
Temples similar to this one at Epidaurus existed at numerous places, among
which were Rhodes, Cnidus, Cos, and one was to be found on the banks of
the Tiber. The temple at Cos was rich in votive offerings, which generally
represented the parts of the body healed, and an account of the method of
cure adopted. From these singular clinical records, Hippocrates, a reputed
descendant of Æsculapius, is reported to have constructed his treatise on
Dietetics.
For a long time after the age of Hercules and the heroic times, invalids in
Greece sought relief from their sufferings from these descendants of
Æsculapius in the temples of that god, which an enlightened policy had
raised on elevated spots, near medicinal springs, and in salubrious
vicinities. Those men who pretended in right of birth to hold the gift of

curing, finally learned the art of it. The preservation in the temple of the
history of those diseases, the cure of which had been sought by them, aided
greatly in this happy culmination.
Of Æsculapius himself, it is said that he employed the trumpet to cure
sciatica; he claimed that its continued sound made the fibres of the nerves to
palpitate, and the pain vanished. In line with this treatment, Democritus
affirmed that diseases are capable of being cured by the sound of a flute,
when properly played.
Herbs were also used among the Greeks, but almost wholly in the form of
charms rather than on account of what we claim now as real medicinal
value. For example, great virtues were ascribed to the herb alysson which
was pounded and eaten with meat to cure hydrophobia. If suspended in the
house, it promoted the health of the inmates and protected both men and
cattle from enchantments; when bound in a piece of scarlet flannel round
the necks of the latter, it preserved them from all diseases.
There seems to have been no independent school of Roman medicine. From
early times there was a very complicated system of superstitious medicine,
as a part of the religion, which is supposed to have been borrowed from the
Etruscans. This comprehended both the theory and cure of disease. The
Romans got along for centuries without doctors; in fact, doctors were a
Grecian importation, not made until about two centuries before Christ.
1 G. Maspéro, Life in Ancient Egypt and Assyria, chap. VII.
2 E. Berdoe, "A Medical View of the Miracles at Lourdes," Nineteenth Century,
October, 1895.

CHAPTER III

THE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY

"The Alchemist may doubt the shining gold His crucible pours out, But faith, fanatic faith, once
wedded fast To some dear falsehood, Hugs it to the last."

"Death is the cure of all diseases. There is no catholicon or universal remedy I know, but this, which
though nauseous to queasy stomachs, yet to prepared appetites is nectar, and a pleasant potion of
immortality."—Browne.
"I'll tell you what now of the Devil:
He's no such horrid creature; cloven-footed,
Black, saucer-ey'd, his nostrils breathing fire,
As these lying Christians make him."—Massinger.
"If the cure be wrought, what matters it to the happy invalid ... whether the cure is wrought by the
touch of the Divine hand or the overpowering influence of a great idea upon the nervous system? If
our hunger be appeased, it matters little whether it is by manna rained down from heaven, or a
wheaten loaf raised from the harvest field. Miraculous water from the rock does not quench the thirst
better than that which bubbles from the village spring."—Berdoe.

The advent of the Christian religion into the world, while purporting to
minister especially to the spiritual life, had a wide-reaching and potent
influence on the art of healing the body. We cannot sum up the effect by
saying that this influence was either wholly good or bad—its relation to
therapeutics was a mixed one. It can be truthfully said that nothing has
retarded the science of medicine during the past two thousand years so
much as the iron grip of decadent orthodoxy, and, on the other hand, no
power has caused men and women so to sacrifice time, money, and even
life itself for the care and nurture of the sick, as the example and precepts of
Jesus Christ.
For eighteen centuries this paradoxical position was held by the church, and
the antithetical attitudes of hindrance and help continued to exist. As
valuable as was the spirit instilled into the hearts of His followers by the
tenderness of the Master, it was never sufficient to counterbalance the
deterrent effects of the religion which they espoused. The retardation was
caused by two related beliefs which permeated the church: The first was the
doctrine of the power of demons in the lives of men, especially in the
production of disease; and the second was the prevalence of the idea of the
possibility and probability of the performance of miracles, particularly in
the healing of diseases.
A rather complicated science of demonology had come down from
primitive sources through Egyptian, Babylonian, and Greek civilization,
although the demons of the Greeks were principally good spirits. At the
time of Christ, however, the Jews were the most ardent advocates of
demonology, and hence the chief exorcists. They expelled demons partly by

adjuration and partly by means of a certain miraculous root named Baaras.
They considered it nothing at all out of the ordinary to meet men who were
possessed by demons, and just as common an experience to see them healed
by having the demon exorcised. Josephus assures us that in the reign of
Vespasian he had himself seen a Jew named Eleazar perform an exorcism;
by means of adjuration and the Baaras root he drew a demon through the
nostrils of a possessed person, who fell to the ground on the
accomplishment of the miracle, while on the command of the magician the
demon, to prove that it had really left its victim, threw down a cup of water
which had been placed at a distance.
Knowing as we do the close relationship between Judaism and Christianity,
it does not surprise us to discover that the Christians inherited the doctrine
and practice of the Jews in this matter. This is more readily understood
when we remember the connection of Jesus with cases of demoniacal
possession, and Paul's frequent references to the spirits of the air. Following
the example of their Master, Christians everywhere became exorcists.
Through the influence of Philo's writings, Jewish demonology was
propagated among Christian converts, and the Gnostics quickly absorbed
and spread the notion of preternatural interposition. Next to the belief in the
second coming of Christ, the doctrine which most influenced the action of
the early church was that of a spiritual world and its hierarchy. Terrestrial
things were ruled by all sorts of spiritual beings.
Some philosophers, as well as the founders of different religions, expelled
demons, and the Christians fully recognized the power possessed by the
Jewish and gentile exorcists; the followers of Christ, however, claimed to
be in many respects the superior of all others. The fathers maintained the
reality of all pagan miracles as fully as their own, except that doubt was
sometimes cast on some forms of healing and prophecy. Demons which had
resisted all the enchantments of the pagans might be cast out, oracles could
be silenced, and unclean spirits compelled to acknowledge the truth of the
Christian faith by the Christians, who simply made the sign of the cross, or
repeated the name of the Master.
The power of the Christian exorcists was shown by still more wonderful
feats. Demons, which were sometimes supposed to enter animals, were
expelled. St. Hilarion (288-371), we are told, courageously confronted and

relieved a possessed camel. "The great St. Ambrose [340-397] tells us that a
priest, while saying mass, was troubled by the croaking of frogs in a
neighboring marsh; that he exorcised them, and so stopped their noise. St.
Bernard [1091-1153], as the monkish chroniclers tell us, mounting the
pulpit to preach in his abbey, was interrupted by a crowd of flies;
straightway the saint uttered the sacred formula of excommunication, when
the flies fell dead upon the pavement in heaps, and were cast out with
shovels! A formula of exorcism attributed to a saint of the ninth century,
which remained in use down to a recent period, especially declares insects
injurious to crops to be possessed of evil spirits, and names, among the
animals to be excommunicated or exorcised, moles, mice, and serpents. The
use of exorcism against caterpillars and grasshoppers was also common. In
the thirteenth century a bishop of Lausanne, finding that the eels in Lake
Leman troubled the fishermen, attempted to remove the difficulty by
exorcism, and two centuries later one of his successors excommunicated all
the May-bugs in the diocese. As late as 1731 there appears an entry on the
municipal register of Thonon as follows: 'Resolved, that this town join with
other parishes of this province in obtaining from Rome an
excommunication against the insects, and that it will contribute pro rata to
the expense of the same.'"
Scripture was cited to prove the diabolical character of some animals during
the Middle Ages. Says White: "Did anyone venture to deny that animals
could be possessed by Satan, he was at once silenced by reference to the
entrance of Satan into the serpent in the Garden of Eden, and to the casting
of devils into swine by the Founder of Christianity himself."3
Notwithstanding the pleasing theory adopted by the earlier Christian writers
that the powers of darkness were unable to harm the faithful without the
permission of divinity, to whom demoniacal spirits were ultimately
subjected, unlimited power was conceded to those beings who existed under
divine sanction. Demoniacal æons or emanations were acknowledged to be
the primitive source of earthly sufferings, pestilence among men, sickness
and other bodily afflictions, but inflicted with the consent of God, whose
messengers they were.
Early Christian writers boldly asserted that all the disorders of the world
originated with the devil and his sinister companions, because they were

stirred with the unholy desire to obtain associates in their miseries. It was
impossible to fix a limit to the number of these malevolent spirits constantly
provoking diseases and infirmities upon men. They were alleged to
surround mankind so densely that each person had a thousand to his right
and ten thousand to the left of him. Endowed with the subtlest activity, they
were able to reach the remotest points of earth in the twinkling of an eye.
According to Salverte, Tatian, a sincere defender of Christianity, who lived
in the second century, "does not deny the wonderful cures effected by the
priests of the temples of the Polytheists; he only attempts to explain them
by supposing that the pagan gods were actual demons, and that they
introduced disease into the body of a healthy man, announcing to him, in a
dream, that he should be cured if he implored their assistance; and then, by
terminating the evil which they themselves had produced, they obtained the
glory of having worked the miracle."4
So firm was the belief that Christians could exorcise these demons that
from the time of Justin Martyr (100-163), for about two centuries, there is
not a single Christian writer who does not solemnly and explicitly assert the
reality and frequent employment of this power. In his Second Apology,
Justin says: "And now you can learn this from what is under your own
observation. For numberless demoniacs throughout the whole world, and in
your city, many of our Christian men exorcising them in the name of Jesus
Christ, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, have healed and do heal,
rendering helpless and driving the possessing demons out of the men,
though they could not be cured by all the other exorcists, and those who
used incantations and drugs."
Irenæus (130-202) held that mankind, through transgressions of divine
command, fell absolutely from the time of Adam into the power of Satan.
On the other hand, he assures us that all Christians possessed the power of
working miracles; that they prophesied, cast out devils, healed the sick, and
sometimes even raised the dead; that some who had been thus resuscitated
lived for many years among them, and that it would be impossible to reckon
the wonderful acts that were daily performed.5
Tertullian (160-220) insisted that a malevolent angel was in constant
attendance upon every person, but in writing to the pagans in a time of

persecution he challenged his opponents to bring forth any person who was
possessed by a demon or any of those prophets or virgins who were
supposed to be inspired by a divinity. He asserted that all demons would be
compelled to confess their diabolical character when questioned by any
Christians, and invited the pagans, if it were otherwise, to put the Christian
immediately to death, for this, he thought, was the simplest and most
decisive demonstration of the faith.
Lecky tells us of the attitude of the fathers toward demonism in the
following words: "Justin Martyr, Origen, Lactantius, Athanasius, and
Minucius Felix, all in language equally solemn and explicit, call upon the
pagans to form their own opinions from the confessions wrung from their
own gods. We hear from them, that when a Christian began to pray, to make
the sign of the cross, or to utter the name of his Master in the presence of a
possessed or inspired person, the latter, by screams and frightful
contortions, exhibited the torture that was inflicted, and by this torture the
evil spirit was compelled to avow its nature. Several of the Christian writers
declare that this was generally known to pagans."6
Origen (185-254) said: "It is demons which produce famine, unfruitfulness,
corruptions of the air, pestilence; they hover concealed in clouds in the
lower atmosphere, and are attracted by the blood and incense which the
heathen offer to them as gods." He thought, though, that Raphael had
special care of the sick and the infirm. Cyprian (186-258) charged that
demons caused luxations and fractures of the limbs, undermined the health,
and harassed with diseases. Up to this time it was the privilege of any
Christian to exorcise demons, but Pope Fabian (236-250) assigned a
definite name and functions to exorcists as a separate order. To-day the
priest has included in his ordination vows those of exorcist. Gregory of
Nazianzus (329-390) declared that bodily pains are provoked by demons,
and that medicines are useless, but that demoniacs are often cured by laying
on of consecrated hands. St. Augustine (354-430) said: "All diseases of
Christians are to be ascribed to these demons; chiefly do they torment fresh-
baptized Christians, yea, even the guiltless new-born infants."

Baltus7 says: "De tous les anciens auteurs ecclésiastiques, n'y en ayant pas
un qui n'ait parlé de ce pouvoir admirable que les Chrétiens avoient de
chasser les démons," and Gregory of Tours (538-594) says that exorcism

was common in his time, having himself seen a monk named Julian cure by
his words a possessed person. This testimony of Gregory's concerning the
prevalence of exorcisms at the end of the sixth century is interesting in view
of the facts that the Council of Laodicea, in the fourth century, forbade any
one to exorcise, except those duly authorized by the bishop, and that in the
very beginning of the fifth century a physician named Posidonius denied the
existence of possession. The fathers of the church, however, ridiculed the
solemn assertion of physicians that many of these alleged demoniacal
infirmities were attributable to material agencies, and were fully persuaded
in their own minds that demons took possession of the organism of the
human body.
At about this time, such a broad-minded man as Gregory the Great (540-
604) solemnly related that a nun, having eaten some lettuce without making
the sign of the cross, swallowed a devil, and that, when commanded by a
holy man to come forth, the devil replied: "How am I to blame? I was
sitting on the lettuce, and this woman, not having made the sign of the
cross, ate me along with it." This is but an example of the ideas concerning
the entrance of demons into the possessed.8 Besides the possibility of being
taken into the mouth with one's food, they might enter while the mouth was
opened to breathe. Exorcists were therefore careful to keep their mouths
closed when casting out evil spirits, lest the imps should jump into their
mouths from the mouths of the patients. Another theory was that the devil
entered human beings during sleep, and at a comparatively recent period a
king of Spain, Charles II (1661-1700), kept off the devil while asleep by the
presence of his confessor and two friars.9
Shortly before the reign of Gregory, there came into vogue the fashion of
exorcising demons by means of a written formula rather than by the earlier
means of making the sign of the cross and invoking the name of Jesus. The
theory of demonology was never very clear nor consistent. By some it was
claimed that in the practice of the magical arts evil spirits provided cure for
sickness, others maintained that they could not heal any diseases, and hence
the true test of Christianity was the ability to cure bodily ills. A compromise
position was that demons were only successful in eliminating diseases
which they had themselves caused. There was not a little doubt in some
cases about the character of the possessing spirits, and it behooved people

to be careful; demons might use men as habitations, and while posing as
good angels vitiate health and provoke disease.
At the beginning of the seventh century, we have an account of an exorcism
by St. Gall (556-640), and during the Carlovingian age the healing at Monte
Cassino was based on the Satanic origin of disease. When the conversion of
northern races to Christianity began, demonology received a stimulus. An
unlimited number of demons, similar in individuality and prowess, were
substituted for the pagan demons, and the pagan gods were added as
additional demons. When proselytes were taken into the church, care was
taken to exorcise all evil spirits. During the baptismal service the Satanic
hosts, as originators of sin, vice, and maladies, were expelled by
insufflation of the officiating clergyman, the sign of the cross, and the
invocation of the Triune Deity. The earliest formulas for such expulsion
directed a double exhalation of the priest.10
In all epidemics of the Middle Ages, such persons as were afflicted by
pestilent diseases were declared contaminated by the devil, and carried to
churches and chapels, a dozen at a time, securely bound together. They
were thrown upon the floor, where they lay, according to the attestation of a
pitying chronicler, until dead or restored to health.
Unsound mind was universally accepted as a specific distinction of
diabolical power, and caused by the corporeal presence of an impure spirit.
Imbeciles and the insane were, throughout the Middle Ages, especially
conceded to be the abode of avenging and frenzied demons. In aggravated
cases, the actual presence of the medicinal saint was necessary; in less
vexatious maladies, the bare imposition of hands, accompanied by plaintive
prayer, quickly healed the diseased.11
As early as the fifth century before Christ, Hippocrates of Cos asserted that
madness was simply a disease of the brain, but notwithstanding the
reiteration of this scientific truth the church repudiated it, and as late as the
Reformation, Martin Luther maintained that not only was insanity caused
by diabolical influences, but that "Satan produces all the maladies which
afflict mankind." Even much later, however, when other diseases were
assigned a physical origin, insanity was still thought to be demoniacal
possession. As late as Bossuet's time, lunacy was thought to be the work of

demons. The cultured and progressive Bishop of Meaux, while trying to
throw off the shackles of superstition, delivered and published two great
sermons in which demoniacal possession is defended. To show how the idea
has clung, notwithstanding the advancement and enlightenment of late
years, we may notice a trial which took place at Wemding, in southern
Germany, in 1892, of which White tells us.
"A boy had become hysterical, and the Capuchin Father Aurelian tried to exorcise him, and charged a
peasant's wife, Frau Herz, with bewitching him, on evidence that would have cost the woman her life
at any time during the seventeenth century. Thereupon the woman's husband brought suit against
Father Aurelian for slander. The latter urged in his defence that the boy was possessed of an evil
spirit, if anybody ever was; that what had been said and done was in accordance with the rules and
regulations of the Church, as laid down in decrees, formulas, and rituals sanctioned by popes,
councils, and innumerable bishops during ages. All in vain. The court condemned the good father to
fine and imprisonment."12

I cannot refrain from quoting in this connection the now famous epitaph of
Lord Westbury's, suggested by the decision given by him as Lord
Chancellor in the case against Mr. Wilson in which it was charged that the
latter denied the doctrine of eternal punishment. The court decided that it
did "not find in the formularies of the English Church any such distinct
declaration upon the subject as to require it to punish the expression of a
hope by a clergyman that even the ultimate pardon of the wicked who are
condemned in the day of judgment may be consistent with the will of
Almighty God." The following is the epitaph:
"RICHARD BARON WESTBURY,

Lord High Chancellor of England.
He was an eminent Christian,
An energetic and merciful Statesman,
And a still more eminent and merciful Judge.
During his three years' tenure of office
He abolished the ancient method of conveying land,
The time-honored institution of the Insolvents' Court,
And
The Eternity of Punishment.
Toward the close of his earthly career,
In the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council,
He dismissed Hell with costs,

And took away from Orthodox members of the
Church of England
Their last hope of everlasting damnation."13
In the Middle Ages there was a strange and incongruous mixture of
medicine and exorcism. Notice the following prescriptions:
"If an elf or a goblin come, smear his forehead with this salve, put it on his eyes, cense him with
incense, and sign him frequently with the sign of the cross."
"For a fiend-sick man: When a devil possesses a man, or controls him from within with disease, a
spew-drink of lupin, bishopwort, henbane, garlic. Pound these together, add ale and holy water." "A
drink for a fiend-sick man, to be drunk out of a church bell: Githrife, cynoglossum, yarrow, lupin,
flower-de-luce, fennel, lichen, lovage. Work up to a drink with clear ale, sing seven masses over it,
add garlic and holy water, and let the possessed sing the Beati Immaculati; then let him drink the
dose out of a church bell, and let the priest sing over him the Domine Sancte Pater Omnipotens."14

Three methods of driving out demons from the insane were used: the main
weapon against the devil and his angels has always been exorcism by
means of ecclesiastical formula and signs. These formulas degenerated at
one time to the vilest cursings, threatenings, and vulgarities. A second
means was by an effort to disgust the demon and wound his pride. This
might simply precede the exorcism proper. To accomplish this purpose of
offending the demons, the most blasphemous and obscene epithets were
used by the exorcist, which were allowable and perfectly proper when
addressing demons. Most of these are so indecent that they cannot be
printed, but the following are some examples:
"Thou lustful and stupid one,... thou lean sow, famine-stricken and most impure,... thou wrinkled
beast, thou mangy beast, thou beast of all beasts the most beastly,... thou mad spirit,... thou bestial
and foolish drunkard,... most greedy wolf,... most abominable whisperer,... thou sooty spirit from
Tartarus!... I cast thee down, O Tartarean boor,... into the infernal kitchen!... Loathsome cobbler,...
dingy collier,... filthy sow (scrofa stercorata),... perfidious boar,... envious crocodile,... malodorous
drudge,... wounded basilisk,... rust-colored asp,... swollen toad,... entangled spider,... lousy swineherd
(porcarie pedicose),... lowest of the low,... cudgelled ass," etc.15

The pride of the demon was also to be wounded by the use of the vilest-
smelling drugs, by trampling underfoot and spitting upon the picture of the
devil, or even by sprinkling upon it foul compounds. Some even tried to
scare the demon by using large-sounding words and names.
The third method of exorcism was punishment. The attempt was frequently
made to scourge the demon out of the body. The exorcism was more

effective if the name of the demon could be ascertained. If successful in
procuring the name, it was written on a piece of paper and burned in a fire
previously blessed, which caused the demons to suffer all the torments in
the accompanying exorcisms. All forms of torture were employed, and in
the great cities of Europe, "witch towers," where witches and demoniacs
were tortured, and "fool towers," where the more gentle lunatics were
imprisoned, may still be seen. The treatment of the insane in the Middle
Ages is one of the darkest blots on the growing civilization.
The exorcism being completed, when some of the weaker demons were put
to flight an after service was held in which everything belonging to the
patient was exorcised, so that the demon might not hide there and return to
the patient. The exorcised demons were forbidden to return, and the demons
remaining in the body were commanded to leave all the remainder of the
body, and to descend into the little toe of the right foot, and there to rest
quietly.
After the Reformation, two contests shaped themselves in the matter of
exorcisms. The Protestants and the Roman Catholics vied with each other in
the power, rapidity, and duration of the exorcisms. Both put forth
miraculous claims, and with as much energy denied the power of the other.
They agreed in one thing, and that was the erroneous position and teaching
of the physicians. This, however, was but a continuation of that rivalry
between the advancement of science and the conservation of theology,
which is as old as history. In our examination of the influence of
Christianity upon mental healing, it may be well for us to glance at the
discouraging attitude of Christianity toward medicine.16
The usurpation of healing by the church, which was a most serious
drawback to the therapeutic art, will be traced in the following chapters;
there are, however, some other ways in which the church retarded the work
of physicians. Chief among these was the theory propagated by Christians
that it was unlawful to meddle with the bodies of the dead. This theory
came down from ancient times, but was eagerly accepted by the church,
principally on account of the doctrine of the bodily resurrection. In addition
to this, surgery was forbidden because the Church of Rome adopted the
maxim that "the church abhors the shedding of blood." A recent English
historian has remarked that of all organizations in human history, the

Church of Rome has caused the spilling of most innocent blood, but it
refused to allow the surgeons to spill a drop.
Monks were prohibited the practice of surgery in 1248, and by subsequent
councils, and all dissections were considered sacrilege. Surgery was
considered dishonorable until the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries. The use of
medicine was also discouraged. Down through the centuries a few
churchmen and many others, especially Jews and Arabs, took up the study.
The church authorities did everything possible to thwart it. Supernatural
means were so abundant that the use of drugs was not only irreligious but
superfluous. Monks who took medicine were punished, and physicians in
the thirteenth century could not treat patients without calling in
ecclesiastical advice.
We are told that in the reign of Philip II of Spain a famous Spanish doctor
was actually condemned by the Inquisition to be burnt for having performed
a surgical operation, and it was only by royal favor that he was permitted
instead to expiate his crime by a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, where he
died in poverty and exile.
This restriction was continued for three centuries, and consequently threw
medical work into the hands of charlatans among Christians, and of Jews.
The clergy of the city of Hall protested that "it were better to die with Christ
than to be cured by a Jew doctor aided by the devil." The Jesuit professor,
Stengal, said that God permits illness because of His wish to glorify
Himself through the miracles wrought by the church, and His desire to test
the faith of men by letting them choose between the holy aid of the church
and the illicit resort to medicine.
There was another reason for the antagonism of the church to physicians;
the physicians in this case were inside the church. The monks converted
medicine to the basest uses. In connection with the authority of the church,
it was employed for extorting money from the sick. They knew little or
nothing about medicine, so used charms, amulets, and relics in healing. The
ignorance and cupidity of the monks led the Lateran Council, under the
pontificate of Calixtus II, in 1123, to forbid priests and monks to attend the
sick otherwise than as ministers of religion. It had little or no effect, so that
Innocent II, in a council at Rheims in 1131, enforced the decree prohibiting

the monks frequenting schools of medicine, and directing them to confine
their practice to their own monasteries. They still disobeyed, and a Lateran
Council in 1139 threatened all who neglected its orders with the severest
penalties and suspension from the exercise of all ecclesiastical functions;
such practices were denounced as a neglect of the sacred objects of their
profession in exchange for ungodly lucre. When the priests found that they
could no longer confine the practice of medicine to themselves, it was
stigmatized and denounced. At the Council of Tours in 1163, Alexander III
maintained that through medicine the devil tried to seduce the priesthood,
and threatened with excommunication any ecclesiastic who studied
medicine. In 1215, Innocent III fulminated an anathema against surgery and
any priest practising it. Even this was not effectual.17
What we see in connection with dissection and surgery and medicine was
repeated at a later date with inoculation, vaccination, and anæsthetics. There
were the same objections by the church on theological grounds, the same
stubborn battle, and the same inevitable defeat of the theological position.
So long as disease was attributed to a demoniacal cause, so long did
exorcisms and other miraculous cures continue, and so far as these cures
were efficacious, they must be classed as mental healing. Probably they
continued longer in insanity and mental derangement on account of the
beneficent and soothing effect of religion upon a diseased mind. Priestly
cures of all kinds were largely, if not wholly, suggestive, and no history of
mental healing would be complete without a résumé of ecclesiastical
therapeutics. Many vagaries of healing which the church introduced might
be mentioned to show to what extent the people may be misled in the name
of religion. For example, the doctrine of signatures, to be later discussed,
was disseminated by priests and monks, and if these medicines were ever
effective it must have been by mental means.
The demon theory of disease, which began before the age of history, and
continued down through the savage ages and religions, through the early
civilizations, through the gospel history, and dominated early Christianity,
was finally, in the sixteenth century, to be vigorously assailed and largely
overcome. The cost of this was considerable; attached as it was to the
Christian church, it seemed necessary to destroy the whole Christian fabric
in order to unravel this one thread. Atheism, therefore, was rampant, and

science and atheism became almost synonymous, and continued so until the
church freed science from its centuries of bondage and allowed it to
develop so as to be again in these days a co-laborer.
In pleasing contrast to the destructive and deterrent efforts of the church
against the development of medicine is the helpful care of the sick
exercised by Christians. The example of Jesus as shown by his tender
sympathy, his helpful acts, and his instruction to his followers, bore fruit in
the relief and care of sufferers by individuals and religious asylums. About
the year 1000 and later, the infirmaries which were attached to numerous
monasteries, and the hospitia along the routes of travel which opened their
doors to sick pilgrims, were but the development of a less portentous
attempt on the part of individuals and societies to care for the sick. The
Knights of St. John, or the Hospitalers as they were called, assumed as their
special duty the nursing and doctoring of those in need of such attention,
especially of sick and infirm pilgrims and crusaders.
Hospitals for the sick, orphanages for foundlings, and great institutions for
the proper care of paupers developed with immense strides, and during the
twelfth century expanded into gigantic proportions. In the ensuing age, the
mediæval mind was fired with a faith in the efficacy of unstinted charity;
members of society, from holy pontiff to the humblest recluse by the
wayside, rivalled each other in gratuities of clothing and food, founding of
hospitals, and endowment of beneficent public institutions. St. Louis's
highest claim to pious glory arose from his restless and unstinted charities
to the indigent and sick. Even the lepers, which were shunned or
segregated, were treated by Christian institutions; and saints and saintesses
found pious expression for their humility in personal attendance and even
loving embraces of these unsightly beings covered with repulsive sores. For
the last millennium there has not been a time when Christian love and
benevolence have not sought the opportunity of ministering to the sick.
One can easily recognize the effect which this fact would have on mental
healing. The church fostered the ideas of exorcism and the cures by relics
and shrines, and deprecated the use of medicine. If the hospitals and
infirmaries were almost wholly in the hands of the monks and churchmen,
there was little hope for the development of other than ecclesiastical mental
healing. The untold good which Christian ministrations to the sick

accomplished must be acknowledged, but it was not an unmixed benefit to
the race as a whole.
We may more easily see, perhaps, the connection between the church and
the development of medicine, and the despotic power of the church in this
regard, when we remember that physicians were formerly a part of the
clergy, and it was not until 1542 that the papal legate in France gave them
permission to marry. In 1552 the doctors in law obtained like permission.
An early priestly physician has survived to fame by the name of Elpideus,
sometimes confused with Elpidius Rusticus. He was both a deacon of the
church and a skilled surgeon, and was very favorably mentioned by St.
Ennodius as a person of fine culture. He was sufficiently dexterous and
skilful to heal the Gothic ruler, Theodoric, of a grievous illness.18 Salverte
gives us additional examples: "Richard Fitz-Nigel, who died Bishop of
London, in 1198, had been apothecary to Henry II. The celebrated Roger
Bacon, who flourished in the thirteenth century, although a monk, yet
practised medicine. Nicolas de Farnham, a physician to Henry III, was
created Bishop of Durham; and many doctors of medicine were at various
times elevated to ecclesiastical dignities."19
The grip of the church accomplished its purpose, and science, especially the
science of medicine, was strangled, almost to the death. Even the people of
the time recognized the shortcomings of the physicians. Henricus Cornelius
Agrippa (1486-1535), writing in 1530, said with pleasant irony that physic
was "a certaine Arte of manslaughter," and that "well neare alwaies there is
more daunger in the Physition and the Medicine than in the sicknesse
itselfe." He also gives the following picture of a fashionable doctor of his
time: "Clad in brave apparaile, having ringes on his fingers glimmeringe
with pretious stoanes, and which hath gotten fame and credence for having
been in farre countries, or having an obstinate manner of vaunting with
stiffe lies that he hath great remedies, and for having continually in his
mouth many wordes halfe Greeke and barbarous.... But this will prove to be
true, that Physitians moste commonlye be naught. They have one common
honour with the hangman, that is to saye, to kill menne and to be
recompensed therefore."20
3 A. D. White, History of the Warfare of Science with Theology, II, p. 113.
4 E. Salverte, Philosophy of Magic (trans. Thompson), II, p. 94.

5 W. E. H. Lecky, History of European Morals, I, p. 378.
6 Ibid., I, p. 383.
7 Réponse a l'histoire des oracles, p. 296.
8 A. D. White, History of the Warfare of Science with Theology, II, p. 101.
9 H. T. Buckle, History of Civilization in England, II, p. 270.
10 G. F. Fort, History of Medical Economy During the Middle Ages, p. 201.
11 For a full discussion of this subject, see A. D. White, History of the Warfare of
Science with Theology, II, pp. 97-134.
12 A. D. White, History of the Warfare of Science with Theology, II, p. 128.
13 Nash, Life of Lord Westbury, II, p. 78.
14 Cockayne, Leechdoms, Wort-cunning, and Star-craft of Early England, II, p.
177.
15 M. H. Dziewicki, "Exorcizo Te," Nineteenth Century, XXIV, p. 580.
16 For a full discussion of this subject, see A. D. White, History of the Warfare
of Science with Theology, II, pp. 1-167.
17 T. J. Pettigrew, Superstitions Connected with the History and Practice of
Surgery and Medicine, pp. 51 f.
18 G. F. Fort, History of Medical Economy During the Middle Ages, pp. 142 f.
19 E. Salverte, Philosophy of Magic (trans. Thompson), II, p. 96.
20 E. A. King, "Medieval Medicine," Nineteenth Century, XXXIV, p. 151.
For further references to the effect of demonism, see J. F. Nevius, Demon
Possession and Allied Themes; J. M. Peebles, The Demonism of the Ages and
Spirit Obsessions; articles on "Demon," "Demonism," "Demoniacal Possession,"
and "Devil," in the Catholic Encyclopedia, the New International Encyclopedia,
and the Encyclopedia Britannica.

CHAPTER IV

RELICS AND SHRINES

"A fouth o' auld knick-knackets,
Rusty airn caps and jinglin' jackets,
Wad haud the Lothians three, in tackets,
A towmond guid;

An' parritch pats, and auld saut backets,
Afore the flood."—Burns.

"For to that holy wood is consecrate
A virtuous well, about whose flowery banks
The nimble-footed fairies dance their rounds
By the pale moonshine, dipping oftentimes
Their stolen children, so to make them free
From dying flesh and dull mortality."—Fletcher.

"Ne was ther such another pardoner,
For in his male he hadde a pilwebeer,
Which that he saide was oure lady veyl;
He seide, he hadde a gobet of the seyl
That seynt Peter hadde, whan that he wente
Uppon the see, til Jhesu Crist him pente.
He hadde a cros of latoun ful of stones,
And in a glas he hadde pigges bones.
But with these reliques, whanne that he fond
A poure persoun dwelling uppon lond,
Upon a day he gat him more moneye
Than that the persoun gat in monthes tweye.
And thus with feyned flaterie and japes,
He made the persoun and the people his apes."
—Chaucer.

A wide-spread movement developed in the early church as a result of which
innumerable miracles of healing were credited to the power of saints,
indirectly through the medium of streams and pools of water which were
reputed to have some connection with a particular saint, or through the
efficacy still clinging to the relics of holy persons.
On account of the growth of the belief in demonism in the Christian church,
and the need of supernatural means to counteract diabolic diseases, saintly
relics came into common use for this purpose, and afterward when
demonism was not so thoroughly credited as the cause of diseases, relics
were still considered to hold their power over physical infirmities. In
addition to this, the missionary efforts and successes of the church had
some influence in establishing and continuing cures by relics and similar
means. The missionaries found that their converts had formerly employed
various amulets and charms for the healing of diseases, and that they
continued to have great faith in them for that purpose. To wean them from
their heathen customs, Christian amulets and charms had to be substituted,

or, as was sometimes the case, the heathen fetich was continued, but with a
Christian significance.
The early Scandinavians carried effigies carved out of gold or silver as
safeguards against disease, or applied those made out of certain other
materials, as the mandragora root or linen or wood, to the diseased part as a
cure of physical infirmities. Some of these images were carried over into
Christianity, for in Charlemagne's time, headache was frequently cured by
following the saintly recommendation to shape the figure of a head and
place it on a cross. Fort tells us that "The introduction of Christianity among
the Teutonic races offered no hindrance to a perpetuation, under new forms,
of those social observances with which Norse temple idolatry was so
intimately associated. Offering to proselytes an unlimited number of
demoniacal æons, similar in individuality and prowess to those peopling the
invisible universe, Northern mythology readily united with Christian
demonology."21
The relics of the saints came to be the favorite substitute for the heathen
charms. With the acceptance of the demoniacal cause of disease, exorcism
by relics gradually grew in importance until it was firmly established and a
preferred form in the sixth and subsequent centuries. Down to this time
there still existed a feeble recognition of a possible system adapted to the
cure of maladies, so far, perhaps, as the practice was restricted to
municipalities. The rapid advancement of saintly remedies, consecrated
oils, and other puissant articles of ecclesiastical appliance, enabled and
encouraged numerous churchmen to exercise the Æsculapian art; this,
together with the ban put upon physicians and scientific means, soon gave
the church the monopoly of healing. Perhaps the most thorough attestation
of the contempt into which physicians had fallen, compared with saintly
medicists, is the fact that cures were invariably attempted after earthly
medicine had been exhausted.22
Islam, Buddhism, and other religions have their shrines where some
pilgrims are undoubtedly cured, but Christianity seems to have had the most
varied and numerous collection. As early as the latter part of the fourth
century miraculous powers were ascribed to the images of Jesus and the
saints which adorned the walls of most of the churches of the time, and tales

of wonderful cures were related of them. The intercessions of saints were
invoked, and their relics began to work miracles.23
St. Cyril, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, and others of the early church fathers
of note maintained that the relics of the saints had great efficacy in the cure
of diseases. St. Augustine tells us: "Besides many other miracles, that
Gamaliel in a dream revealed to a priest named Lacianus the place where
the bones of St. Stephen were buried; that those bones being thus
discovered, were brought to Hippo, the diocese of which St. Augustine was
bishop; that they raised five persons to life; and that, although only a
portion of the miraculous cures they effected had been registered, the
certificates drawn up in two years in the diocese, and by the orders of the
saint, were nearly seventy. In the adjoining diocese of Calama they were
incomparably more numerous."24 This great and intellectual man also
mentions and evidently credits the story that some innkeeper of his time put
a drug into cheese which changed travellers who partook of it into domestic
animals, and he further asserts after a personal test that peacock's flesh will
not decay.
St. Ambrose declared that "the precepts of medicine are contrary to celestial
science, watching, and prayer." When the conflict between St. Ambrose and
the Arian Empress Justina was at its height, the former declared that it had
been revealed to him that relics were buried in a certain spot which he
indicated. When the earth was removed, there was exposed a tomb filled
with blood, and containing two gigantic skeletons with their heads severed
from their bodies. These were pronounced to be the remains of St.
Gervasius and St. Protasius, two martyrs of gigantic physical proportions,
who were said to have been beheaded about three centuries before. To
prove beyond doubt the genuineness of these relics, a blind man was
restored to sight by coming in contact with them, and demoniacs were also
cured thereby. Before being exorcised, however, the demons, who were
supposed to have supernatural and indubitable knowledge, declared that the
relics were genuine; that St. Ambrose was the deadly enemy of hell; that the
doctrine of the Trinity was true; and that those who rejected it would
certainly be damned. To be sure that the testimony of the demons should
have its proper weight in the controversy, on the following day St. Ambrose
delivered an invective against all who questioned the miracle.25

Late researches concerning the Catacombs of Rome have thrown much
light upon the early use of relics. The former opinion of the Catacombs was
that they were used for secret worship by the persecuted Christians, but now
we know that they were burial-places under the protection of Roman law,
with entrances opening on the public roads. Their chapels and altars were
for memorial and communion services. Great reverence was felt for the
bodies of all Christians, so that for the first seven centuries the bodies were
not disturbed, and relics, in the modern sense of the word, were unknown.
People prayed at the tombs, or if they wished to take something away, they
touched the tomb with a handkerchief, or else they took some oil from the
lamps which marked the tombs. These mementos were regarded as true
relics, so that when the Lombard Queen, Theodelinda, sent the abbot John
for relics to put in her cathedral at Monza, he came back with over seventy
little vials of oil, each with the name of the saint from whose tomb the oil
was procured, and many of them are still preserved.
The oil from altar lamps was of therapeutic value, as St. Chrysostom tells us
in speaking of the superiority of the church over ordinary houses. "For what
is here," he asks, "that is not great and awful? Thus both this Table [the
altar] is far more precious and delightful than that [any table at home], and
this lamp than that; and this they know, as many as have put away diseases
by anointing themselves with oil in faith and due season." If the body of a
saint lay beneath the altar, the oil was then known as the "Oil of the Saints,"
and was even more efficacious for healing. Notice the following quotations
on the subject taken from Dearmer's work.
"Far more common are stories of healing by oil from a lamp burnt in honor of Christ or the saints.
The following examples are from the East. The wounded hand of a Saracen was healed by oil from a
lamp before the icon of St. George."
"St. Cyrus and St. John appeared to a person suffering from gout, and bade him take a little oil in a
small ampulla from the lamp that burnt before the image of the Saviour, in the great tetrapyle at
Alexandria, and anoint his feet with it."
"Similar stories are found in Western writers. Thus Nicetius of Lyons, by means of the oil of the lamp
which burnt daily at his sepulchre, restored sight to the blind, drove demons from bodies possessed,
restored soundness to shrunken limbs," etc.
"An epileptic was cured by oil from the lamp that burnt night and day at the tomb of St. Severin."

"It was revealed to a blind woman, that oil from the lamp of St. Geneviève would restore her sight, if
the warden of the church were to anoint her with it. A week after she brought a blind man, who was
healed in the same manner."26

At the time of Gregory of Tours, application was made of sainted
reliquaries as a remedy against the devil and his demons. Gregory narrates
the miraculous efficacy of a small pellet of wax, taken from the tomb of St.
Martin, in extinguishing an incendiary fire started by his Satanic majesty,
which was instigated by malicious envy, because this omnipotent talisman
was in the custody of an ecclesiastic! This Turonese bishop records many
instances of cures being effected at Martin's tomb. He himself was relieved
of severe pains in the head by touching the disordered spot with the sombre
pall of St. Martin's sepulchre. This remedy was applied on three different
occasions with equal success. Once he was cured of an attack of mortal
dysentery by simply dissolving into a glass of water a pinch of dust scraped
from the tomb of St. Martin and drinking the strange concoction. At another
time, his tongue having become swollen and tumefied, it was restored to its
natural size and condition by licking the railing of the tomb of this saint. He
knew of others who had been equally successful. An archdeacon, named
Leonastes had sight restored to his blind eyes at the tomb of St. Martin, but
unfortunately the fact that he later applied to an Israelitish physician caused
his infirmity to return. Even a toothache was cured by St. Martin's relics.
The following is an apostrophe to the relics of St. Martin by Bishop
Gregory: "Oh ineffable theriac! ineffable pigment! admirable antidote!
celestial purge! superior to all drugs of the faculty! sweeter than aromatics!
stronger than unguents together; thou cleanest the stomach like scammony,
the lungs like hyssop, thou purgest the head like pyre-thrig!"27
From the end of the fifth century the exercise of the medical art was almost
exclusively appropriated by cloisters and monasteries, whose occupants
boldly vended the miraculous remedial properties of relics, chrism,
baptismal fluids, holy oil, rosy crosses, etc., as of unquestioned virtue. In
these early days living saints seem to have rivalled dead ones in their power
over diseases, but of these we shall speak in a later chapter.
A renewed interest sprang up when pilgrims began to return from their
journeys to Palestine, bringing with them, as was natural, some souvenirs of
their sojourn. A most interesting quotation from Mackay reveals the
condition of these times. "The first pilgrims to the Holy Land brought back
to Europe thousands of apocryphal relics, in the purchase of which they had
expended all their store. The greatest favorite was the wood of the true

cross, which, like the oil of the widow, never diminished. It is generally
asserted, in the traditions of the Romish Church, that the Empress Helen,
the mother of Constantine the Great, first discovered the veritable 'true
cross' in her pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The Emperor Theodosius made a
present of the greater part of it to St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, by whom it
was studded with precious stones and deposited in the principal church of
that city. It was carried away by the Huns, by whom it was burnt, after they
had extracted the valuable jewels it contained. Fragments, purporting to
have been cut from it, were, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, to be
found in almost every church in Europe, and would, if collected together in
one place, have been almost sufficient to have built a cathedral. Happy was
the sinner who could get a sight of one of them; happier he who possessed
one! To obtain them the greatest dangers were cheerfully braved. They were
thought to preserve from all evils and to cure the most inveterate diseases.
Annual pilgrimages were made to the shrines that contained them and
considerable revenues collected from the devotees.
"Next in renown were those precious relics, the tears of the Saviour. By
whom and in what manner they were preserved, the pilgrim did not enquire.
Their genuineness was vouched by the Christians of the Holy Land, and
that was sufficient. Tears of the Virgin Mary, and tears of St. Peter, were
also to be had, carefully enclosed in little caskets, which the pious might
wear in their bosoms. After the tears, the next most precious relics were
drops of the blood of Jesus and the martyrs, and the milk of the Virgin
Mary. Hair and toe-nails were also in great repute, and were sold at
extravagant prices. Thousands of pilgrims annually visited Palestine in the
eleventh and twelfth centuries, to purchase pretended relics for the home
market. The majority of them had no other means of subsistence than the
profits thus obtained. Many a nail, cut from the filthy foot of some
unscrupulous ecclesiastic, was sold at a diamond's price, within six months
after its severance from its parent toe, upon the supposition that it had once
belonged to a saint or an apostle. Peter's toes were uncommonly prolific, for
there were nails enough in Europe, at the time of the Council of Clermont,
to have filled a sack, all of which were devoutly believed to have grown on
the sacred feet of that great apostle. Some of them are still shown in the
cathedral of Aix-la-Chapelle. The pious come from a distance of a hundred
German miles to feast their eyes upon them."28

While some of these relics enumerated by Mackay seem to be such
apparent frauds that none could credit them, they were surpassed in
audacity by one offered for sale at a monastery in Jerusalem. Here was
presented to the prospective buyers one of the fingers of the Holy Ghost.29
In addition to the popular relics already noted, an extensive and lucrative
trade was carried on in iron filings from the chains with which, it was
claimed, Peter and Paul were bound. These filings were deemed by Pope
Gregory I as efficacious in healing as were the bones of saints or martyrs.30

CURE THROUGH THE INTERCESSION OF A
HEALING SAINT

As an example of healing at shrines in early days, I will reproduce Bede's
description of a cure effected at the tomb of St. Cuthbert in 698. "There was
in that same monastery a brother whose name was Bethwegan, who had for
a considerable time waited upon the guests of the house, and is still living,
having the testimony of all the brothers and strangers resorting thither, of
being a man of much piety and religion, and serving the office put upon him
only for the sake of the heavenly reward. This man, having on a certain day
washed the mantels or garments which he used in the hospital, in the sea,
was returning home, when on a sudden about half-way, he was seized with
a sudden distemper in his body, insomuch that he fell down, and having lain
some time, he could scarcely rise again. When at last he got up, he felt one-
half of his body from the head to the foot, struck with palsy, and with much
difficulty he got home with the help of a staff. The distemper increased by
degrees, and as night approached became still worse, so that when day

returned, he could not rise or walk alone. In this weak condition, a good
thought came into his mind, which was to go to church, the best way he
could, to the tomb of the reverend Father Cuthbert, and there on his knees,
to beg of the Divine Goodness either to be delivered from that disease, if it
were for his good, or if the Divine Providence had ordained him longer to
lie under the same for his punishment, that he might bear the pain with
patience and a composed mind. He did accordingly, and supporting his
weak limbs with a staff, entered the church, and prostrating himself before
the body of the man of God, he with pious earnestness, prayed, that through
his intercession, our Lord might be propitious to him. In the midst of his
prayers he fell as it were, into a stupor, and as he was afterwards wont to
relate, felt a large and broad hand touch his head where the pain lay, and by
that touch all the part of his body which had been affected with the
distemper, was delivered from the weakness, and restored to health down to
his feet. He then awoke, and rose up in perfect health, and returning thanks
to God for his recovery, told the brothers what had happened to him; and to
the joy of them all, returned the more zealously, as if chastened by his
affliction, to the service which he was wont before so carefully to perform.
The very garments which had been on Cuthbert's body, dedicated to God,
either while living, or after he was dead, were not exempt from the virtue of
performing cures, as may be seen in the book of his life and miracles, by
such as shall read it."31 It should be noticed that in this account God alone
seemed to have been the healer.
Nearly every country had its long list of saints, each with his special power
over some organ or disease. This saintly power, however, was not applied
directly, but through their relics or through shrines consecrated to them.
Melton, in his Astrologaster, says: "The saints of the Romanists have
usurped the place of the zodiacal constellations in their governance of the
parts of man's body, and that 'for every limbe they have a saint.' Thus St.
Otilia keepes the head instead of Aries; St. Blasius is appointed to governe
the necke instead of Taurus; St. Lawrence keepes the backe and shoulders
instead of Gemini, Cancer, and Leo; St. Erasmus rules the belly with the
entrayles, in the place of Libra and Scorpius; in the stead of Sagittarius,
Capricornus, Aquarius, and Pisces, the holy church of Rome hath elected St.
Burgarde, St. Rochus, St. Quirinus, St. John, and many others, which
governe the thighes, feet, shinnes, and knees."

But the influence of the saints is distributed more minutely, as e.g., "Right
Hand: the top joint of the thumb is dedicated to God, the second joint to the
Virgin; the top joint of the fore-finger to St. Barnabas, the second joint to
St. John, and the third to St. Paul; the top joint of the second finger to
Simon Cleophas, the second joint to Tathideo, the third to Joseph; the top
joint of the third finger to Zaccheus, the second to Stephen, the third to the
evangelist Luke; the top joint of the little finger to Leatus, the second to
Mark, the third to Nicodemus." Thus the body was cared for.
Pettigrew makes the following enumeration which shows the division of
labor among the saints in the Middle Ages. In this, not the different portions
of the body but the various diseases and infirmities are distributed.
"The following list, though doubtless very imperfect, will yet serve to show
how general was the appropriation of particular diseases to the Roman
Catholic saints:
St. Agatha, against sore breasts.
St. Agnan and St. Tignan, against scald head.
St. Anthony, against inflammations.
St. Apollonia, against toothache.
St. Avertin, against lunacy.
St. Benedict, against the stone, and also for poisons.
St. Blaise, against the quinsey, bones sticking in the throat, etc.
St. Christopher and St. Mark, against sudden death.
St. Clara, against sore eyes.
St. Erasmus, against the colic.
St. Eutrope, against dropsy.
St. Genow and St. Maur, against the gout.
St. Germanus, against diseases of children.
St. Giles and St. Hyacinth, against sterility.
St. Herbert, against hydrophobia.
St. Job and St. Fiage, against syphilis.
St. John, against epilepsy and poison.
St. Lawrence, against diseases of the back and shoulders.
St. Liberius, against the stone and fistula.
St. Maine, against the scab.
St. Margaret and St. Edine, against danger in parturition.
St. Martin, against the itch.
St. Marus, against palsy and convulsions.
St. Otilia and St. Juliana, against sore eyes and
the headache.
St. Pernel, against the ague.
St. Petronilla, St. Apollonia, and St. Lucy, against the toothache.
----, and St. Genevieve, against fevers.
St. Phaire, against hemorrhoids.

St. Quintan, against coughs.
St. Rochus, and St. Sebastian, against the plague.
St. Romanus, against demoniacal possession.
St. Ruffin, against madness.
St. Sigismund, against fevers and agues.
St. Valentine, against epilepsy.
St. Venise, against chlorosis.
St. Vitus, against madness and poisons.
St. Wallia and St. Wallery, against the stone.
St. Wolfgang, against lameness."32

Wax from the tapers illuminating the altar which enclosed St. Gall's mortal
remains was an instantaneous cure for toothache, diseased eyes, and total
deafness; a vase used by the martyred Willabrod for bathing thrice a year,
still holding its partially solidified water by divine invocation after her
death, had great remedial energy in diverse ailments; the water in which the
ring of St. Remigius was immersed cured certain obstinate fevers; and the
wine in which the bones of the saints were washed restored imbeciles to
instant health. In the thirteenth century, hairs of saints, especially of St.
Boniface, were used as a purge, and a single hair from the beard of St.
Vincent, placed about the neck of an idiot, restored normal mental
operations. With the water in which St. Sulpicius washed her hands
aggravated infirmities were instantly cured; and in the twelfth century, an
invalid being advised in a dream to drink the water in which St. Bernard
washed his hands, the Abbot of Clairvaux went to him, gave him the wash
water, and healed an incurable disease. Flowers reposing on the tomb of a
saint, when steeped in water, were supposed to be especially efficacious in
various diseases, and those blooming in aromatic beauty at the tomb of St.
Bernard instantly cured grievous sicknesses.33 The belt of St. Guthlac, and
the belt of St. Thomas of Lancaster, were sovereign remedies for the
headache, whilst the penknife and boots of Archbishop Becket, and a piece
of his shirt, were found most admirably to aid parturition. Fragments of the
veil of the saintess Coleta, and the use of her well-worn cloak, immediately
cured a terrible luxation, and a cataleptic patient was restored to sanity by
drinking from her cup.
To show how thoroughly the idea of the efficacy of these relics must have
been indued in the thought of the times, White quotes the following: "Two
lazy beggars, one blind, the other lame, try to avoid the relics of St. Martin,
borne about in procession, so that they may not be healed and lose their

claim to alms. The blind man takes the lame man on his shoulders to guide
him, but they are caught in the crowd and healed against their will." He also
says: "Even as late as 1784 we find certain authorities in Bavaria ordering
that anyone bitten by a mad dog shall at once put up prayers at the shrine of
St. Hubert, and not waste his time in any attempts at medical or surgical
cure."34
In addition to what Dr. White says here about the treatment for threatened
hydrophobia in the eighteenth century, we find a curious mixture of science
and superstition in the nineteenth century in connection with the same
trouble. Early in this century physicians discovered that the most effectual
remedy against the bite of a rabid animal was the cauterization of the
wound with a red-hot iron. In Tuscany, however, the iron which they heated
was one of the nails of the true cross, and in the French provinces it was the
key of St. Hubert. This, though, was only to be used in the hands of those
who could trace their genealogy to this noble saint. At the abbey of St.
Hubert, in the diocese of Liege, the intercession of the saint still continued
to be sufficient to effect a cure, provided it was seconded by some religious
ceremonies, and a diet which would reassure the patient.
After the discovery of the "true cross," portions of this relic were much used
for aid in any emergency. In addition to sanitary and healing powers,
fragments suspended to a tree manifested the proper location of sacred
edifices. St. Magnus, who seems to have carried pieces around with him,
completely vanquished demons who frequented a locality selected for a
chapel. Eyesight was restored to a humble merchant seeking the blood-
stained marks upon the chapel of this same St. Magnus. The blind man was
feeling his uncertain way to the place, where these discolorations
reappeared more distinctly after each washing with heavy layers of lime.
St. Louis, almost in the agonies of earthly dissolution, with rigid body,
rigorous limbs, and fluctuating spirit, was brought to full health by the
application to his moribund body of a piece of the true cross, about the year
1244; and later in the century miracles took place at his tomb. M. Littré, in
his Fragment de Medecine Rétrospective, describes seven miracles which
occurred at his tomb, some of which cures, however, were very gradual. We
are also told that when a humble hunchback bowed the knee in adoration at
the tomb of St. Andreas, his irresistible faith instantly released him from his

unnatural rotundity. In 1243 a Ferrara writer was at Padua, and while
attending vespers at the tomb where the sainted body of the Minorite
Anthony reposed, he affirms that he saw a person who had been mute from
his birth recover his voice and speak audibly.
Saintly remedies were used to cure hemorrhages, readjust luxations, unite
fractures, remove calculi, moderate the agonizing pangs of parturition,
restore vision to the blind, and hearing to the deaf—in fact, in an endeavor
to perform cures which modern medicine and surgery are counting among
their greatest and most recent triumphs. Some things even more strange
were attempted: paradoxical as it may seem, they were used to cover up
crime. Fort tells us that among nuns and consecrated women in convents,
some erring sisters applied the preventive talismanic influence of a sacred
shirt or girdle to suppress the manifestation of conventual irregularities of a
sexual character. Animals as well as human beings were treated for
sickness, and relics were used to free captive birds and animals. At a
banquet, a costly urn was shattered by ecclesiastics, and through the power
of Odilo it was restored to its original integrity. At the tombs of both St.
Severin and St. Gall, when the light had been quenched, miraculous fire
burst forth to renew the splendor.35
The allotment of certain diseases to certain saints did not end with the
Middle Ages. I have in my hand a little manual entitled: De l'Invocation
miraculeuse des Saints dans les maladies et les besoins particuliers, par
Mme. la Baronne d'Avout, published in 1884. An invocation is given for
every day in the year to some particular saint, who is thought to be
especially efficacious in the cure of some specific disease. I shall quote but
one for illustration.
"30 MAI
S. HUBERT DE BRÉTIGNY
Près Noyons (Oise).
Honoré au diocèse de Beauvais.
"L'illustre saint Hubert, apôtre des Ardennes, fut son protecteur et lui donna son nom. Il lui obtint les
plus heureuses dispositions pour la vertu. Lui aussi hérita du pouvoir de guérir de la rage.
"Les habitants de Noyon et des environs n'ont pas cessé de recourir à son intercession. Les personnes
qui touchent ses reliques ou portent sur elles son nom béni espérent échapper pendant leur vie aux
atteintes des démons, de la rage et du tonnerre.
"À Aire, diocèse de Fréjus, on invoque aussi sainte Quitère contre la rage.

INVOCATION
"Dieu tout-puissant, qui avez formé le cœur de vos saints avec une admirable bonté, afin qu'ils
deviennent pour nous une source de bienfaits et de consolation; assistez-nous dans le pressant besoin
où nous nous trouvons et sauvez-nous de la mort, par les prières at les mérites de saint Hubert de
Brétigny, afin que nous puissions vous louer et vous bénir. Par N.-S. J.-C. Ainsi soit-il."
"Saint Hubert, qui préservez de la morsure des bêtes enragées, ou qui guérissez leur morsures
mortelles, priez pour tous les affligés qui vous invoquent."

While there was probably some advance when the saints of the church took
the place of the zodiacal constellations in the government of the human
body, the church prevented the development along scientific lines, although
there were many ramifications of saintly influence. Not the least among
these was the healing efficacy of holy wells, pools, and streams, which had
been empowered in some way by the saints. In some cases the bones of
holy men have been buried in different parts of the continent, and after a
certain lapse of time, water was said to have oozed from them, which soon
formed a spring and cured all the diseases of the faithful.
Perhaps the cure of leprous Naaman by bathing in the Jordan, and the
restoration of the sight of the blind man by washing in the Pool of Siloam
may have served as examples which the credulous were only too ready to
follow. We must also note, however, as a reason for their use, that in
classical times the greater number of thermal waters, more frequently used
then than in the present day, remained consecrated to the gods, to Apollo, to
Æsculapius, and, above all, to Hercules, who was named Iatricos, or the
able physician. At any rate, many wells and fountains were dedicated to
different saints, and various rites were performed there at Easter and other
particular days, where offerings were also made to the saints.
In Ireland, many such sacred places have been visited by the sick for
centuries, and England and Scotland have them also. Not only in the British
Isles, but in all parts of Europe they were much frequented in the Middle
Ages, and they are not without their visitors to-day. As late as 1805 the
eminent Roman Catholic prelate, Dr. John Milner, gave a detailed account
of a miraculous cure performed at a sacred well in Flintshire. Gregory of
Tours was one of the first to notice the healing power of springs in
connection with the saints. He asserted that the diseases of the sick and
infirm were banished upon the contact of a few drops of water drawn from
a spring dug by St. Martin's own hands.

From Fosbrooke's British Monachism we learn that "on a spot called Nell's
Point, is a fine well, to which great numbers of women resort on Holy
Thursday, and, having washed their eyes in the spring, they drop a pin into
it. Once a year, at St. Mardrin's well, also, lame persons went on Corpus
Christi evening, to lay some small offering on the altar, there to lie on the
ground all night, drink of the water there, and on the next morning to take a
good draught more of it, and carry away some of the water each in a bottle
at their departure. At Muswell Hill was formerly a chapel, called our Lady
of Muswell, from a well there, near which was her image; this well was
continually resorted to by way of pilgrimage. At Walsingham, a fine green
road was made for the pilgrims, and there was a holy well and cross
adjacent, at which pilgrims used to kneel while drinking the water. It is
remarkable that the Anglo-Saxon laws had proscribed this as idolatrous.
Such springs were consecrated upon the discovery of cures effected by
them. In fact," Fosbrooke adds, "these consecrated wells merely imply a
knowledge of the properties of mineral waters, but, through ignorance, a
religious appropriation of their properties was made to supernatural causes."
"Holywell, in the county of Flint," we are informed by Salverte, "derives its
name from the Holy Well of St. Winifred, over which a chapel was erected
by the Stanley family, in the reign of Henry VII. The well was formerly in
high repute as a medicinal spring. Pennant says that, in his time, Lancashire
pilgrims were to be seen in deep devotion, standing in the waters up to the
chin for hours, sending up prayers, and making a prescribed number of
turnings; and this excess of piety was carried so far, as in several instances
to cost the devotees their lives."36
Pennant also tells us of a small spring outside the bathing well at Whiteford,
which was once famed for the cure of weak eyes. The patient made an
offering of a crooked pin, and at the same time repeated some words. The
well still remains, but the efficacy of its waters is lost. In recounting his tour
of Wales, the same author describes the church of St. Tecla, virgin and
martyr, at Llandegla. He says: "About two hundred yards from the church,
in a Quillet called Gwern Degla, rises a small spring. The water is under the
tutelage of the Saint, and to this day held to be extremely beneficial in the
falling sickness. The patient washes his limbs in the well; makes an offering
into it of four-pence; walks round it three times; and thrice repeats the
Lord's Prayer. These ceremonies are never begun till after sun-set, in order

to inspire the votaries with greater awe. If the afflicted be of the male sex,
like Socrates, he makes an offering of a cock to his Æsculapius, or rather to
Tecla Hygeia; if of the fair sex, a hen. The fowl is carried in a basket, first
round the well; after that into the church-yard; when the same orisons and
the same circum-ambulations are performed round the church. The votary
then enters the church; gets under the communion table; lies down with the
Bible under his or her head; is covered with the carpet or cloth, and rests
there till break of day; departing after offering sixpence, and leaving the
fowl in the church. If the bird dies, the cure is supposed to have been
effected, and the disease transferred to the devoted victim."37
"At Withersden," says Hasted, "is a well, which was once famous, being
called St. Eustache's well, taking its name from Eustachius, Abbot of Flai,
who is mentioned by Matt. Paris, An. 1200, to have been a man of learning
and sanctity, and to have come and preached at Wye, and to have blessed a
fountain there, so that afterwards its waters were endowed by such
miraculous power, that by it all diseases were cured."38 Unfortunately, wells
do not always benefit the bathers. Lilly39 relates that in 1635 Sir George
Peckham died in St. Winifred's Well, "having continued so long mumbling
his pater nosters and Sancta Winifreda ora pro me, that the cold struck into
his body, and after his coming forth of that well he never spoke more."
The people of the Highlands of Scotland regarded fountains with particular
veneration. According to the Statistical Account of Scotland, the minister of
Kirkmichael, Banffshire, said: "The sick who resort to them for health,
address their vows to the presiding powers, and offer presents to conciliate
their favor. These presents generally consist of a small piece of money, or a
few fragrant flowers. The same reverence in ancient times seems to have
been entertained by every people in Europe." Near Kirkmichael there was a
fountain dedicated to St. Michael, and once celebrated for its cures. "Many
a patient have its waters restored to health, and many more have attested the
efficacy of their virtues. But, as the presiding power is sometimes
capricious, and apt to desert his charge, it now lies neglected, choked with
weeds, unhonored and unfrequented."40
The most noted well in Perthshire is in Trinity Gask. Again from the
Statistical Account we quote: "Superstition, aided by the interested artifices
of Popish Priests, raised, in times of ignorance and bigotry, this well to no

small degree of celebrity. It was affirmed that every person who was
baptized with the water of this well would never be seized with the plague.
The extraordinary virtue of Trinity Gask well has perished with the
downfall of superstition."41
Pinkerton, in speaking of the river Fillan in Scotland, says: "In this river is a
pool consecrated by the ancient superstition of the inhabitants of this
country. The pool is formed by the eddying of the stream round a rock. Its
waves were many years since consecrated by Fillan, one of the saints who
converted the ancient inhabitants of Caledonia from paganism to the belief
of Christianity. It has ever since been distinguished by his name, and
esteemed of sovereign virtue in curing madness. About two hundred
persons afflicted in this way are annually brought to try the benefits of its
salutary influence. These patients are conducted by their friends, who first
perform the ceremony of passing with them thrice through a neighbouring
cairn: on this cairn they then deposit a simple offering of clothes, or perhaps
a small bunch of heath. More precious offerings used once to be brought.
The patient is then thrice immerged in the sacred pool. After the immersion,
he is bound hand and foot, and left for the night in a chapel which stands
near. If the maniac is found loose in the morning, good hopes are conceived
of his full recovery. If he is still bound, his cure remains doubtful. It
sometimes happens that death relieves him, during his confinement, from
the troubles of life."

Mrs. Macaulay,42 speaking of a consecrated well in St. Kilda, called
Tobirnimbuadh, or the spring of diverse virtues, says that "near the fountain
stood an altar, on which the distressed votaries laid down their oblations.
Before they could touch sacred water with any prospect of success, it was
their constant practice to address the genius of the place with supplication
and prayer. No one approached him with empty hands.... Shells and
pebbles, rags of linen or stuffs worn out, pins, needles, or rusty nails were
generally all the tribute that was paid."

Collinson43 mentions a well in the parish Wembton, called St. John's Well,
to which in 1464 "an immense concourse of people resorted: and ... many
who had for years labored under various bodily diseases, and had found no
benefit from physick and physicians, were, by the use of these waters (after
paying their due offerings), restored to their primitive health."

Brome, in his Travels, 1700, observes: "In Lothien, two miles from
Edinburg southward, is a spring called St. Katherine's Well, flowing
continually with a kind of black fatness, or oil, above the water, proceeding
(as it is thought) from the parret coal, which is frequent in these parts; 'tis of
a marvellous nature, for as the coal, whereof it proceeds, is very apt quickly
to kindle into a flame, so is the oil of a sudden operation to heal all scabs
and tumors that trouble the outward skin, and the head and hands are
speedily healed by virtue of this oil, which retains a very sweet smell; and
at Aberdeen is another well very efficacious to dissolve the stone, to expel
sand from the reins and bladder, being good for the collick and drunk in
July and August, not inferiour, they report, to the Spaw in Germany."44
Grose tells us of a well dedicated to St. Oswald, between the towns of Alton
and Newton. The neighbors have the opinion that a sick person's shirt
thrown into the well will prognosticate the outcome of the disease; if it
floats the sick one will recover, if it sinks he will die. To reward the saint for
the information, they tear a rag off the shirt and hang it on the briers near
by; "where," says the writer, "I have seen such numbers as might have made
a fayre rheme in a paper-myll." Similar practices are related by other
authors. Ireland formerly had a sanctified well in nearly every parish. They
were marked by rude crosses and surrounded by fragments of cloth left as
memorials. St. Ronague's Well, near Cork, was very popular at one time.
Near Carrick-on-Suir is the holy well of Tubber Quan, the waters of which
are reputed to have performed many miraculous cures. The well was
dedicated to two patron saints, St. Quan and St. Brogawn. These saints are
supposed to exert a special influence the last three Sundays in June. "It is
firmly believed," says Brand, "that at this period the two saints appear in the
well in the shape of two small fishes, of the trout kind; and if they do not so
appear, that no cure will take place. The penitents attending on these
occasions ascend the hill barefoot, kneel by the stream and repeat a number
of paters and aves, then enter it, go through the stream three times, at a slow
pace, reciting their prayers. They then go on the gravel walk, and traverse it
round three times on their bare knees, often till the blood starts in the
operation, repeat their prayers, then traverse three times round a tree on
their bare knees, but upon the grass. Having performed these exercises they
cut off locks of their hair and tie them on the branches of the tree as
specifics against headache."

After being three times admonished in a dream, a man washed in St.
Madern's Well in Cornwall and was miraculously cured, so say Bishop Hall
and Father Francis. Ranulf Higden, in his Polychronicon, relates the
wonderful cures performed at the holy well at Basingwerk. The red streaks
in the stones surrounding it were symbols of the blood of St. Wenefride,
martyred by Carodoc.
The Scotch considered certain wells to have healing properties in the month
of May. In the Sessions Records (June 12, 1628) it is reported that a number
of persons were brought before the Kirk Sessions of Falkirk, accused of
going to Christ's Well on the Sundays of May to seek their health, and the
whole being found guilty were sentenced to repent "in linens" three several
sabbaths. "In 1657 a number of persons were publicly rebuked for visiting
the well at Airth. The custom was to leave a piece of money and a napkin at
the well, from which they took a can of water, and were not to speak a word
either in going or returning, nor on any account to spill a drop of the water.
Notwithstanding these proceedings, many are known to have lately
travelled many miles into the Highlands, there to obtain water for the cure
of their sick cattle."45
To-day, probably the most efficacious waters are to be found at the sacred
fountain at La Salette and at the holy spring at Lourdes.
We have another specific form of healing which should be noticed. It was
especially common in Eastern churches, and was found to some extent in
the West. I refer to Incubation, or "Temple-sleep." This practice came down
through early civilizations and was an adopted practice among Christians.
The patient went to some church well known for its cures, which was
provided with mattresses or low couches, and attended by priests and
assistants. Devotions being finished he lay down to sleep. Sometimes he
slept immediately, at other times sleep must be wooed by fast and vigil. At
any rate, during the sleep he dreamed that the saint touched him, or
prescribed some remedy, and in the first case he awoke cured, and in the
second the prescribed medicine brought about the relief.
Sophronius, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, wrote about 640 as follows: "Cyrus
appeared to the sick man in the form of a monk, not in a dream, as he
appears to many; but in a waking vision, just as he was and is represented.

He told the patient to rise and to plunge into the warm water. Zosimos said
it was impossible for him to move, but when the order was repeated, he slid
like a snake into the bath. When he got into the water, he saw the saint at his
side, but when he came out, the vision had vanished." Beside the cure of
this paralytic at the church of Cyrus and John, he mentions the cure of many
other diseases by this method of incubation. Among them are dumbness,
blindness, barrenness, possession, scrofula, dyspepsia, a broken leg,
deformities of limbs, lameness, gout, diseases of the eyes, cataract, ulcer,
and dropsy.
Among the churches of Greece and southern Italy incubation is still
common. The climate may have some effect in limiting the area of this
practice. Miss M. Hamilton furnishes us with some modern examples. In
speaking of a new picture of St. George in the church at Arachova, she says:
"It is a votive offering of a Russian, who came a paralytic to Arachova in
July, 1905. He spent several weeks praying and sleeping in the church, and
departed completely cured. The festival of St. George is held on April 23rd.
They have three days of dancing and feasting, and at night all suppliants
bring their rugs and sleep round the shrines in the church. Every year many
of the sick are found to be cured when morning comes."
The Church of the Evangelestria, our Lady of the Annunciation, is visited
by about forty-five thousand pilgrims every year. It is situated at Tenos, and
Miss Hamilton tells us what she saw during her visit there in 1906:

"On the morning before Annunciation Day this year, the pilgrims could be seen making their way to
the church. Among them were cripples, armless, and legless, half-rolling up the street; blind people
groping their way along; men and women with deformities of every kind; one or two showing the
pallor of death on their faces were being carried up on litters. These evidently were coming to Tenos
as a last resource, when doctors were of no avail. Other pilgrims were ascending after their own
fashion, according to vows they had made. One woman toiled laboriously along on her knees, kissing
the stones of the way, and clasping a silver Madonna and Child. Last year her daughter had been
seized with epilepsy, and she vowed to carry in this way this offering to the Madonna of Tenos if she
would cure her daughter. The girl recovered and the other now with thankful heart was fulfilling her
part of the bargain.
"The eve of Annunciation Day is the time when the Panagia is believed to descend among the sick
and work miraculous cures among them. Then all the patients are gathered together in the crypt or in
the upper church. The Chapel of the Well is the popular place for incubation. There is more chance
for miraculous cure there than in the church. The little crypt can accommodate only a comparatively
small number, but they are packed together as tightly as possible. From the entrance up to the altar,
they lie in two lines of three or four deep, with a passage down the middle large enough for only one
person. Down the narrow way two streams of people press the whole evening. They worship at the
shrines along the wall, purchase holy earth from the spot where the picture was discovered, drink at
the sacred well, and are blessed by the priest at the altar. The cripples and the sick desiring healing
have been engaged all day in such acts of worship; they have received bread and water from the
priests in the upper church, paid homage to the all-powerful picture, offered their candles to the
Madonna, and all the time sought to endue themselves with her presence. Now at night, still fixing
their thoughts upon her, and permeated by this spirit of worship, they settle down to sleep in order
that she may appear to them in a dream.
"Disappointment, of course, awaits the vast majority, but on the evening of the vigil all are filled with
hope. They know the precedents of former years, how such things have happened to some
unfortunate people among the pilgrims every year. Usually eight or nine miracles take place, and lists
of them are published for distribution....
"The church records contain accounts of the miracles which now amount to many hundreds. They are
practically all of the type I have described—cure during a vision while incubation was being
practised. For example, the case of a man from Moldavia is on record. He had become paralyzed
during a night-watch, and the doctor could effect no relief. He was taken to the Chapel of the Well,
and when asleep he thought he heard a voice telling him to arise. He awoke, thought it was a dream,
and fell asleep again. A second time he heard a voice, and saw a white-robed woman of great beauty
entering the church. In his fear he rose and walked about. His recovery was so complete that he could
walk in the procession round the town the following day."46

The medicinal power imputed to the sainted relics and shrines would
naturally be considered very valuable. So it proved. Wealth flowed to a
conventual treasury or a cathedral chapter where were deposited fragments
of the martyred dead endowed with miraculous puissance. When the
Frankish forces sacked Constantinople at the beginning of the thirteenth
century, the principal object of their ferocious cruelties and vigilant
searches was the acquisition of precious relics. Concerning these relics Fort
gives the following account:

"These relics, captured in Constantinople, were divided by the troops under
Marquis de Montfort, with the same justice as prevailed in the division of
other booty. In this way the Venetians were enabled to enrich their
metropolis with a piece of the sainted cross, an arm of St. George, part of
the head of St. John the Baptist, the entire skeleton of St. Luke, that of the
prophet St. Simeon, and a small bottle of Jesus Christ's blood. The Greek
capital from the remotest times appears to have monopolized this traffic in
sacred wares, claiming to possess a fragment of the stone on which Jacob
slept, and the staff transformed into a serpent by Moses.
"Here also were guarded the Holy Virgin's vestments, her spindle, drops of
her milk, the cradle in which the Saviour had lain, a tooth from his
adolescent jaw, a hair of his beard, a particle of the bread used in the Last
Supper, and a portion of the royal purple worn by him before Pilate.
Naturally clerical adventurers among the occidental Crusaders, pending the
sacking of the Byzantine city, sought out most zealously these valuable
remnants of pristine glory, and in obtaining them were by no means
scrupulous with menaces and violence. When scattered through Western
Europe, in the monasteries and other religious places, their curative
properties increased the pilgrimages thither of the sick and diseased."47

He further gives us more in detail48 an idea of the continual accumulation
of riches which were derived from the exposure of these relics to the sick
and infirm and the consequent growth in wealth of the monasteries and
cathedrals. The monastic system was probably most responsible for the
change from the simple adoration of the early Christians to the use of relics
as a miraculous means of healing. Those which were transported with
elaborate ceremonies, enclosed in a magnificent stone sarcophagus, and
covered by an edifice of imposing proportions were almost sure to bring to
their custodians great wealth. It is said that when the body of St. Sebastian,
which was legitimately obtained from Rome, together with the purloined
remains of St. Gregory, reached the cloister of Soissons, so great was the
crowd of invalids who were cured, and so generous were they in their
donations, that the monks actually counted eighty measures of money and
one hundred pounds in coin. The great value of such objects may be
calculated when it is remembered that in the year 1056 securities amounting
to ten thousand solidi were pledged for the production of the relics of St.
Just and St. Pastor, consequent upon the legal decision of ownership

between Berenger, a French ruler, and a Narbonnese archbishop. The
Reichberg annals provide a further example. They state that the emperor
demanded certain hostages, or the holy arm of St. George, as a suitable
guarantee for the institution of a public mart in Germany.
Venetian merchants were among the first to realize the commercial value of
relics, and enjoyed a lucrative traffic in this holy merchandise. It was not
until the eleventh century, however, that the government of Venice founded
public marts or fairs for the commercial exchange of saintly relics, although
Rome and Pavia had long conducted such enterprises. These fairs were
placed under the tutelary protection of some patron saint, the Venetians, of
course, thus honoring St. Mark. They were not always particular how these
relics were procured, for it is stated that when negotiations for the exchange
of a well-preserved body of St. Tairise proved unsuccessful, because the
Greek monks who possessed it refused absolutely to sell or barter, these
enterprising traders quietly stole the desired skeleton.
Relics provided a suitable method of acquiring ecclesiastical fortunes for
denuded cloisters or impoverished nunneries; and if the old relics lost their
power it was not difficult to procure episcopal assurance of the miraculous
powers of new ones. For the procuring of special funds the venerated
objects were taken from place to place, under priestly surveillance,
presented to the sick and infirm with assurance of relief, and with the
demand for large sums of money.
We can easily understand, then, why such donations were regarded as most
precious presents, and chronicled in the conventual records as events of
high importance. As early as the ninth century, documentary evidence of
authenticity frequently accompanied a gift of relics, and furnished legal
proof of ownership.
The gift of St. Peter's knife to a German monastery by a benevolent abbot
was deemed a most illustrious act. About the same time a noble pilgrim
succeeded, after great importunity and a lavish outlay of money, in
obtaining trifling particles of the relics of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, which
he enclosed in a priceless box and donated to the monastery of St. Gall.
This gift was considered the greatest event of the year, but when it is
considered that this and similar presents insure in the community, where

they are deposited uninterrupted peace, unstinted plenty, absence of
catastrophies, and the cure of diseases, their value is explained.
The commercial aspect of ecclesiastical cures, however, was discovered by
other than priestly or monkish eyes, and different forms began to be
presented. Of these White says: "Very important among these was the
Agnus Dei, or piece of wax from the Paschal candles, stamped with the
figure of a lamb and consecrated by the Pope. In 1471 Pope Paul II
expatiated to the Church on the efficacy of this fetich in preserving men
from fire, shipwreck, tempest, lightning, and hail, as well as in assisting
women in childbirth; and he reserved to himself and his successors the
manufacture of it. Even as late as 1517 Pope Leo X issued, for a
consideration, tickets bearing a cross and the following inscription: 'This
cross measured forty times makes the height of Christ in his humanity. He
who kisses it is preserved for seven days from falling-sickness, apoplexy,
and sudden death.'"49
The enormous revenues procured through the means of relics, and the lack
of certain means of identifying them, would naturally encourage the
imposition of fraud. The crime would not appear so great after one
experience, for the perpetrators could readily see that it really made no
difference so far as efficacy in the cure of diseases was concerned, whether
or not the relics were genuine. The history of some of the relics
unfortunately proves them not to be relics at all, or at least not to be the
relics which the faithful supposed them to be. Notice a few instances. In a
magnificent shrine in the cathedral at Cologne are the skulls of the three
kings, or wise men from the East, who brought gifts to the infant Lord.
They have rested here since the twelfth century and have been the source of
enormous wealth and power to the cathedral chapter. Not to be outdone by
the cathedral, for the church of St. Gereon a cemetery has been
depopulated, and the bones thus procured have been placed upon the walls
and are known as the relics of St. Gereon and his Theband band of martyrs!
Further competition arose in the neighboring church of St. Ursula. Another
cemetery was despoiled and the bones covering the interior of the walls are
known as the relics of St. Ursula and her eleven thousand virgin martyrs.
Anatomists now declare that many of the bones are those of men, but this
made no more difference in their healing efficacy in the Middle Ages than
the fact that the relics of St. Rosalia at Palermo, famed for their healing

power, have lately been declared by Professor Buckland, the eminent
osteologist, to be the bones of a goat.
Two different investigations have been conducted by the French courts
concerning the fountain of La Salette, and in both cases the miracles which
make the shrine famous were pronounced to be fraudulent. The recent
restoration of the cathedral at Trondhjem has revealed a tube in the walls,
not unlike the apparatus discovered in the Temple of Isis at Pompeii; the
healing power of this sacred spring was augmented by angelic voices which
issued from the supposedly solid walls.50
While the golden age of the therapeutic use of relics was from the sixth to
the sixteenth centuries, modern times, with its physicians, hospitals, and
drugs, has not been deprived of this method of cure. Mackay, writing in the
latter half of the past century, touches this subject.
At Port Royal, in Paris, is kept with great care a thorn, which the priests of
that seminary assert to be one of the identical thorns that bound the holy
head of the Son of God. How it came there, and by whom it was preserved,
has never been explained. This is the famous thorn which the long
dissensions of the Jansenists and the Molenists have made celebrated, and
which worked the miraculous cure upon Mademoiselle Perier, an account of
which is so interesting that I give it. The cure occurred on March 14, 1646.
"A young pensioner in the monastery, by name Margaret Perier, who for three years and a half had
suffered from a lachrymal fistula, came up in her turn to kiss it; and the nun, her mistress, more
horrified than ever at the swelling and deformity of her eye, had a sudden impulse to touch the sore
with the relic, believing that God was sufficiently able and willing to heal her. She thought no more
of the matter, but the little girl having retired to her room, perceived a quarter of an hour after that her
disease was cured; and when she told her companions, it was indeed found that nothing more was to
be seen of it. There was no more tumor; and her eye, which the swelling (continuous for three years)
had weakened and caused to water, had become as dry, as healthy, as lively as the other. The spring
of the filthy matter, which every quarter of an hour ran down from nose, eye, and mouth, and at the
very moment before the miracle had fallen upon her cheek (as she declared in her deposition), was
found to be quite dried up; the bone, which had been rotted and putrified, was restored to its former
condition; all the stench, proceeding from it, which had been so insupportable that by order of the
physicians and surgeons she was separated from her companions, was changed into a breath as sweet
as an infant's; and she recovered at the same moment her sense of smell....
"Mons. Felix, Chief Surgeon to the King, who had seen her during the month of April, was curious
enough to return on the 8th of August, and having found the cure as thorough and marvellous as it
had seemed to him at the time, declared under his hand that 'he was obliged to confess that God alone
had the power to produce an effect so sudden and extraordinary.'"51

Mackay gives the following account of the distribution of relics about the
middle of the nineteenth century: "Europe still swarms with these religious
relics. There is hardly a Roman Catholic Church in Spain, Portugal, France,
or Belgium, without one or more of them. Even the poorly endowed
churches of the villages boast the possession of miraculous thighbones of
the innumerable saints of the Romish calendar. Aix-la-Chapelle is proud of
the veritable châsse, or thighbone of Charlemagne, which cures lameness.
Halle has a thighbone of the Virgin Mary; Spain has seven or eight, all said
to be undoubted relics. Brussels at one time preserved, and perhaps does
now, the teeth of St. Gudule. The faithful who suffered from the toothache,
had only to pray, look at them, and be cured."52
The miracles performed at the tomb of the Deacon Paris in the cemetery of
St. Médard are of comparatively recent occurrence, and well attested. For
example, we have the case of "la demoiselle Coirin," which, to say the least,
is out of the ordinary. "In 1716," says Dearmer, "this lady, then aged thirty-
one, fell from her horse; paralysis and an ulcer followed; by 1719 the ulcer
was in a horrible condition; in 1720 her mother refused an operation
preferring to let her die in peace. In 1731—after fifteen years of an open
breast—she asked a woman to say a novena at the tomb of François de
Paris, to touch the tomb with her shift, and to bring back some earth. This
was done on August 10th; on the 11th she put on the shift and at once felt
improved; on the 12th she touched the wound with the earth and it at once
began to heal. By the end of August the skin was completely healed up, and
on September 24th she went out of doors."53
Among the most noted relics at the present time are the Holy Coat of
Treves,54 the Winding-sheet of Christ at Besançon, and the Santa Scala at
Rome. The last are said to be the steps which Jesus ascended and descended
when he was brought before Pontius Pilate, and are held in great veneration.
It is sacrilegious to walk upon them; the knees of the faithful alone must
touch them, and that only after they have reverently kissed them. Cures are
still performed by all these relics.
The two shrines at present best known and which have proved most
efficacious are those of Lourdes in France55 and St. Anne de Beaupré in the
province of Quebec. Lourdes owes its reputed healing power to a belief in a
vision of the Virgin received there during the last century. Over 300,000

persons visit there every year, and no small proportion of them return with
health restored as a reward for their faith. At Lourdes and many other
shrines bathing forms a part of the ceremony, and on account of the
unsanitary conditions in the former place, there is some danger that the
French Government will cause its abandonment. Charcot, who established
the Salpétrière hospital where hypnotism was so successfully used, sent
fifty or sixty patients to Lourdes every year. He was firmly convinced of the
healing power of faith. One commendable feature of the management at
Lourdes is the opportunity given for investigation; in fact, this is courted.
Most of the sick bring medical details of their diseases; an examining
committee of medical men examine them after they arrive there and after
the cure. About two hundred and fifty doctors visit there every year, and the
widest opportunity is given to them for examination of the cases, regardless
of their nationality or religious belief or scepticism. This attitude might well
be assumed by these in control of other shrines or of healing cults.
In America thousands flock to the shrine of St. Anne de Beaupré annually.
Here are to be found bones, supposed to be the wrist bones of the holy
mother of the Virgin, and many sufferers are able to testify to their value in
the healing of various diseases.
On all parts of the Continent there are shrines of more or less renown as
healing centres. In Normandy the springs of Fécamp or Grand-Andely are
much frequented; in Austria, at Mariazell, Styria, the church is visited by
two hundred thousand pilgrims a year, and has been a centre of healing
since 1157; in Italy, the church of S. Maria dell' Arco, near Naples, has been
a local Lourdes for four hundred years, and here, as at Amalfi, Palermo, and
other places, the ancient practice of incubation is still prevalent. The
adherents of the Eastern Church also have their shrines, and among the
visitors to the shrines of Greece, many pilgrims are rewarded for their faith
by being healed.
It is curious to remark the avidity manifested in all ages, and in all
countries, to obtain possession of some relic of any person who had been
much spoken of, if for nothing more than for his crimes.56 Snuff-boxes
made from Shakespeare's mulberry-tree, twigs from Napoleon's willow, or
bullets from the field of Waterloo have all been much sought after.
Souvenirs of everything and anything are still much in demand. It is within

the last decade that a foreign war-ship anchored in New York harbor, and
after the officers courteously opened the ship for the inspection of visitors
they found that even their silver toilet articles and plate had been carried
away by the relic maniacs. A United States admiral, rather more facetiously
than patriotically, remarked that "the American people of to-day would steal
anything but a cellarful of water." I suppose the remark, so far as it applies
to the relic-crazed crowd, would be as applicable to any other people of any
other time.
We have a right to ask, in closing this chapter, how it was possible for men
to believe in the power of relics to cure diseases. The practice seems to have
developed from the reasoning that the saints who helped men while in the
imperfections of the flesh, could be of even more benefit when they were
with God in the perfections of the spiritual life. St. Augustine (426), for
example, speaks of comparing the wonders performed by pagan "deities
with our dead men," and that the miracles wrought by idols "are in no way
comparable to the wonders wrought by our martyrs." Some might agree
with this, and yet find no warrant for using relics. There was, however, the
remembrance of the dead man who was restored to life by contact with the
bones of Elisha, and of the handkerchiefs and aprons which touched Paul's
body and were thereby filled with healing efficacy. Even to-day we do not
fail to recognize the value of the association of places and objects, and one
finds it difficult to enter Westminster Abbey, for instance, without feeling a
thrill on account of the sacred clay reposing there. When we remember the
beginning of the use of relics in the catacombs we can better understand the
development of the practice.
21 G. F. Fort, History of Medical Economy During the Middle Ages, p. 201.
22 Ibid., pp. 142 and 156.
23 G. P. Fisher, History of the Christian Church, p. 117.
24 W. E. H. Lecky, History of European Morals, I, pp. 378 f.
25 Ibid., I, p. 379.
26 P. Dearmer, Body and Soul, pp. 268 f.
27 J. Moses, Pathological Aspects of Religions, p. 133.
28 C. Mackay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions, II, pp. 303 f.
29 J. W. Draper, History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science, p. 270.

30 J. Moses, Pathological Aspects of Religions, pp. 132 f.
31 Bede, Ecclesiastical History, ed. J. A. Giles, bk. IV, chap. XXXI.
32 T. J. Pettigrew, Superstitions Connected with the History and Practice of
Medicine and Surgery, pp. 55-57.
33 G. F. Fort, History of Medical Economy During the Middle Ages, pp. 224 f.,
273-277, 457.
34 A. D. White, History of the Warfare of Science with Theology, II, pp. 40 f.
35 G. F. Fort, History of Medical Economy During the Middle Ages, p. 273.
36 E. Salverte, The Philosophy of Magic (trans. Thompson), II, p. 93.
37 Tour of Wales, I, p. 405.
38 Hasted, Kent, III, p. 176.
39 History of His Life and Times, p. 32.
40 Statistical Account of Scotland, VII, p. 213, and XII, p. 464.
41 Ibid., XVIII, p. 487.
42 C. S. Macaulay, History of St. Kilda, p. 95.
43 Somersetshire, III, p. 104.
44 I am much indebted to J. Brand, Popular Antiquities, pp. 1-17, for some of
the quotations used in the discussion of this subject.
45 Superstitions Connected with ... Medicine and Surgery, pp. 57-61.
46 I am indebted to P. Dearmer, Body and Soul, pp. 278-281, 314-318, for the
material on incubation. For fuller study, see L. Deubner, De Incubatione, and M.
Hamilton, Incubation.
47 G. F. Fort, History of Medical Economy During the Middle Ages, p. 227.
48 Ibid., pp. 210-214, 226 f., 278.
49 A. D. White, History of the Warfare of Science with Theology, II, p. 30.
50 Ibid., II, pp. 21, 29, 43.
51 P. Dearmer, Body and Soul, pp. 374 f.
52 C. Mackay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions, II, p. 304.
53 P. Dearmer, Body and Soul, pp. 105 f.
54 R. F. Clarke, The Holy Coat of Treves.
55 A. T. Myers and F. W. H. Myers, "Mind Cure, Faith Cure, and the Miracles at
Lourdes," Proceedings Society Psychical Research, IX, pp. 160-409; E. Berdoe,
"A Medical View of the Miracles at Lourdes," Nineteenth Century, October,
1895; J. B. Estrade, Les apparitions de Lourdes, Souvenirs intimes d'un témoin;

H. Bernheim, Suggestive Therapeutics, pp. 200-202; A. Imbert-Gourbyzee, La
Stigmatisation, l'extase divine, et les miracles de Lourdes, II, chaps. XXI and
XXVII; E. Zola, Lourdes.
56 C. Mackay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions, II, p. 306.

CHAPTER V

HEALERS

"This is an art
Which doth mend nature—but
The art itself is nature."—Winter's Tale.
"Some are molested by Phantasie; so some, again, by Fancy alone and a good conceit, are as easily
recovered.... All the world knows there is no virtue in charms, &c., but a strong conceit and opinion
alone, as Pomponatius holds, which forceth a motion of the humours, spirits, and blood, which takes
away the cause of the malady from the parts affected. The like we may say of the magical effects,
superstitious cures, and such as are done by montebanks and wizards. As by wicked incredulity many
are hurt (so saith Wierus), we find, in our experience, by the same means, many are relieved."

In discussing the subject of healers one must keep in mind the fact that the
healers of the first millennium of our era were almost wholly exorcists, on
account of the prevailing theory, and even after that time exorcism, on the
one hand, and the faith in relics and shrines on the other, formed the
principal means of cure. It is therefore difficult to differentiate the other
healers from the exorcists, and to decide whether certain cures were
performed by healers or by relics.
Another difficulty confronts us. Many authentic cures have probably been
wrought by saints, but unfortunately most of those performed by them have
little contemporary evidence to support them, but rest on the very shaky
testimony of tradition. White,57 in a keen analysis, shows how the legends
of miraculous cures have grown around great benefactors of humanity,
taking Francis Xavier as a pertinent example.
We must also remember, however, that what are called miracles formed part
of the evidence which led to the canonization of a saint, and a large number
of healing miracles was usually included in the list. The procedure of the

court connected with the canonization was conducted with the greatest
rigor. Sitting as examiners were learned and upright men from all nations,
and the witness must be irreproachable as far as character was concerned.
The two witnesses required for each miracle must testify concerning the
nature of the disease and the cure, and sign the deposition after it had been
read to them. Following that, the examiners sifted the evidence in a
hypercritical way and emphasized the weak places. Benedict XIV justly
said: "The degree of proof required is the same as that required for a
criminal case, since the cause of religion and piety is that of the
commonweal." Some consideration must be thus given to this testimony,
but the value of it depends on the number of years elapsing after the cures
were performed and the direct connection of the witnesses with the cure in
question.
The craving for the miraculous in bodily cures prejudiced many historians,
especially when the desire to emphasize the importance of the church was
uppermost in the minds of the writers. We can consider, though, the
material at hand, always recognizing that marvellous cures can be
performed when the authority of the physician has all the weight of an
infallible church behind it and the patient is credulous. We must notice in
this connection that the healers up to the time of the magnetizers depended
on religious ceremonies for their efficiency, with the exception of those who
endorsed and propagated "sympathetic cures."
As we well know, the first healing among Christians was done by Jesus
himself and the apostles; after this for two centuries the exorcists performed
most of the cures. We have accounts of one non-Christian healer whose
cures have probably been handed down to us on account of his exalted
position. Tacitus and Suetonius describe how Vespasian (9-79) healed in at
least two cases. The first was a blind man well known in Alexandria. In the
second case the historians disagree; one says it was a leg and the other a
hand which was diseased and cured. According to the story, the god Serapis
revealed to the patients that they would be cured by the emperor. Tacitus
says that Vespasian did not believe in his own power and it was only after
much persuasion that he was induced to try the experiment.58
The Christians, however, were not to be outdone as healers. Irenæus (130-
202) gives a long list of infirmities which were cured by the representatives

of the church, and in writing, about the year 180, draws a comparison
between them and the heretics. "For they [the heretics] can neither confer
sight on the blind nor hearing on the deaf, nor chase away all sorts of
demons (except those which are sent into others by themselves—if they can
ever do as much as this): nor can they cure the weak, or the lame, or the
paralytic; or those who are distressed in any other part of the body, as has
often been done in regard to bodily infirmity. Nor can they furnish effective
remedies for those external accidents which may occur. And so far are they
from being able to raise the dead, as the Lord raised them (and the Apostles
did by means of prayer, as has been frequently done in the brotherhood on
account of some necessity—the entire church in that particular locality
entreating with much fasting and prayer, the spirit of the dead man has
returned, and he has been bestowed in answer to the prayers of the saints—)
that they do not even believe that this could possibly be done." He further
says: "Others again heal the sick by laying their hands upon them, and they
are made whole. Yea, moreover, as I have said, the dead even have been
raised up, and remained among us for many years."
The great Origen (185-254), writing when he would be certain to have his
words most severely criticised, says, after referring to the miracles of the
apostles: "And there are still preserved among Christians traces of that Holy
Spirit which appeared in the form of a dove. They expel evil spirits, and
perform many cures, and foresee certain events, according to the will of the
Logos." In another of his works we find the following: "For they [the Jews]
have no longer prophets or miracles, traces of which to a considerable
extent are still found among Christians, and some of them more remarkable
than ever have existed among the Jews; and these we ourselves have
witnessed."
As has already been seen, different methods were used by various healers,
and we must not omit a brief account of healing by unction. The very
definite instructions laid down in the Epistle of James were evidently
strictly carried out in the early church, but the first definite mention of
anointing after that made by Mark and James is found in the writings of
Tertullian (160-220). He speaks of the pagan emperor Severus being
graciously mindful of Christians: "For he sought out the Christian Proculus,
surnamed Torpacion, the steward of Euhodias, and in gratitude for his

having once cured him by anointing, he kept him in his palace till the day of
his death."59
If the Christians anointed pagans it is legitimate to suppose that they also
anointed fellow-Christians, and that if this was performed without special
mention about the end of the second century, it must have been common
from the time of James to that period. It is probable that during the first
seven centuries of our era the practice of praying with the sick and
anointing them with oil never ceased. There may be some objection to our
considering the subject of anointing with oil as purely mental healing, but
according to the instructions given for its use there was scarcely enough oil
employed to be of benefit otherwise, and especially as food. Mental
healing, then, is the rationale of the cures.

Puller60 gives us three of the earliest incidents of healing by unction, the
original accounts all being written by contemporaries and friends. Some
time between the years 335 and 355, St. Parthenius, Bishop of Lampsacus,
anointed a man who was described as "altogether withered." The account
says: "Then getting up, he gently and gradually softened the man's body
with the holy oil, and straightway made him to rise up healed." Refinus, a
well-known writer and an eye-witness to this healing, tells of St. Macarius
of Alexandria and four monks restoring, about the year 375, "a man,
withered in all his limbs and especially in his feet." He says: "But when he
had been anointed all over by them with oil in the Name of the Lord,
immediately the soles of his feet were strengthened. And when they said to
him, 'In the name of Jesus Christ ... arise, and stand on thy feet, and return
to thy house,' immediately arising and leaping, he blessed God." Some
years later, Palladius, the friend of St. Chrysostom, writes of another of St.
Macarius's cures which he witnessed: "But at the time that we were there,
there was brought to him from Thessalonica a noble and wealthy virgin,
who during many years had been suffering from paralysis. And when she
had been presented to him, and had been thrown down before the cell of the
blessed man, he, being moved with compassion for her, with his own hands
anointed her during twenty days with holy oil, pouring out prayers for her
to the Lord, and so sent her back cured to her own city."
The Sacramentary of Serapion, Bishop of Thmuis, Egypt, written about
350, provides for the consecration of bread and water, as well as oil, for

healing; and in a prayer concerning oil and water there contained, the
following words are used: "Grant healing power upon these creatures, that
every fever and every demon and every sickness may depart through the
drinking and the anointing, and that the partaking of these creatures may be
a healing medicine and a medicine of complete soundness in the Name of
the Only begotten, Jesus Christ," etc. The Apostolic Constitutions of about
375 contain a prayer of consecration used over oil and water brought by
members of the congregation, as follows: "Do thou now sanctify this water
and this oil, through Christ, in the name of him that offered or of her that
offered, and give to these things a power of producing health and of driving
away diseases, of putting to flight demons, of dispersing every snare
through Christ our Hope," etc.
About 390, St. Jerome wrote a life of St. Hilarion (291-371) in which the
latter is thus set forth as a healer: "But lo! that parched and sandy district,
after the rain had fallen, unexpectedly produced such vast numbers of
serpents and poisonous animals that many, who were bitten, would have
died at once if they had not run to Hilarion. He therefore blessed some oil,
with which all the husbandmen and shepherds touched their wounds and
found an infallible cure."
Oil was not always employed for anointing, but might be drunk by the sick,
and this use of it was made in healing a girl, by St. Martin of Tours, about
395. St. Germain, Bishop of Auxerre (418-448), when the physicians were
powerless during a plague, blessed some oil and anointed the swollen jaws
of those who were sick, whereupon they recovered; and St. Genevieve of
Paris, who died about 502, used to heal the sick with oil.
In Bede's biography of St. Cuthbert we find an instance of this saint healing
a girl about the year 687. A young woman was troubled for a whole year
with an intolerable pain in her head and side which the physicians were
unable to relieve. Cuthbert "in pity anointed the wretched woman with oil.
From that time she began to get better, and was well in a few days."
At the beginning of the eighth century the anointing of the sick began to
decline, largely on account of the changed attitude of the church. At this
time this ceremony began to be used for spiritual ills rather than for bodily
diseases. Before long, anointing was monopolized by the church for

spiritual advantage, and is still so used by the Roman Catholic Church in
the ceremony of Extreme Unction.
In returning to the more direct methods of healing, we find that St. Gregory
of Nazianzus (329-390) confirmed the reports of the marvellous cures
wrought by the martyrs, Cosmo and Damian, who were beheaded in 303.
During the life of Gregory of Tours (538-594), the healing efficacy of the
saints' relics was rivalled by the miraculous aid rendered to the sick by St.
Julian. The solitude of the holy anchorite was interrupted by the persistent
and despairing clamor of the sick to whom he gave health. The great
Turonese pontiff also tells us that one day Aredius, traversing Paris, found
Chilperic prostrate with a grievous fever. The royal sufferer sought the
saint's prayers as an irresistible curative.
The daughter of a Teutonic nobleman was brought to St. Gall (556-640)
seriously ill with an incurable disorder, presenting the livid appearance of
an animated cadaver. The saint approached the unconscious invalid as she
reclined on her mother's knee, and assuming the bended attitude of
invocation by her side, made a fervent prayer and evoked the demon
producing the sickness to instantly depart. The effort was all that was
desired. Shortly after this, about the year 648, St. Vardrille, the founder of
Fontanelle, exercised his remedial potency in healing the palsied arm of a
forester whose indiscreet zeal had induced him to transfix the sainted abbot
with a lance.
We have rather a strange case from the beginning of the seventh century,
where the moral and mental element seems to have been strong. Abbe
Eustasius returning from Rome, whither a mission of Clothair II had called
him, was urgently summoned by the sorrowful parent of a Burgundian
maiden, in the last agonies of a frightful malady, to appear and cure the
moribund daughter. On answering the call he found that the child had in her
youth been consecrated by the vows of chastity, and on account of this
shrunk from a marriage sanctioned by her parents. Eustasius reproached the
father for his efforts to violate the solemn obligations of the0 virgin, and
upon obtaining a formal renunciation of further attempts to coerce her into
matrimony, the saint, by personal intercession, obtained a complete cure.

It was found that certain remedies in the hands of certain saints were
efficacious, but they did not have the same power if administered by others.
For instance, Franciscus de Paula succored an anchylosed joint by the
energetic surgery of three dried figs which he gave the suffering patient to
eat. Similarly, a maiden grieving under a cancerous disease which surgical
skill had frankly admitted was incurable, was restored to robust vigor by the
administering of some mild herbs. This savored rather too much of
medicine, and other holy healers used more orthodox means. Hugo the Holy
abstracted a serpent from the infirm body of a woman by the use of holy
water, and Coleta, the saintess, awakened from the dreamless slumber of
death more than one hundred slain infants by the efficacy of a cross.
Even such a serious disorder as leprosy was said to have been healed by
saintly care. St. Martin, who gave special attention to sufferers with this
disease, cured a leper by kissing him, we are told. Toward the middle of the
sixth century, St. Radegonde displayed her faith by first washing the
repulsive sores and afterward applying her pure lips to them. On one
occasion an insolent leper asserted that unless his putrefying limbs were
kissed by this candidate for canonical honors he could not be cured.61
Bede (673-735), the great English historian, in his careful way tells us of
cures performed by St. John of Beverly during the first part of the eighth
century. According to this record, St. John cured a dumb youth, who had
never spoken a word, by the sign of the cross on his tongue, and he
afterward had "ready utterance." He used holy water on a woman so that,
like Peter's wife's mother, she arose and ministered to them, healed a friend
who was injured by being thrown from a horse, cured a nun of a grievous
complaint, and restored a servant, an account of which I shall give in Bede's
words:
"The bishop went in and saw him in a dying condition, and the coffin by his side, whilst all present
were in tears. He said a prayer, blessed him, and on going out, as is the usual expression of
comforters, said, 'May you soon recover.' Afterwards when they were sitting at table, the lad sent to
his lord, to desire he would let him have a cup of wine, because he was thirsty. The earl, rejoicing
that he could drink, sent him a cup of wine, blessed by the bishop; which, as soon as he had drunk, he
immediately got up, and shaking off his late infirmity, dressed himself, and going in to the bishop,
saluted him and the other guests, saying, 'He would also eat and be merry with them.' They ordered
him to sit down with them at the entertainment, rejoicing at his recovery. He sat down, ate and drank
merrily, and behaved himself like the rest of the company; and living many years after, continued in
the same state of health."62

Skipping a few centuries, we find that Bernard of Clairvaux (1091-1153),
the most prominent figure of the twelfth century, performed an abundance
of cures, as his biographers testify. "The cures were so many that the
witnesses themselves were unable to detail them all. At Doningen, near
Rheinfeld, where the first Sunday of Advent was spent, Bernard cured, in
one day, nine blind persons, ten who were deaf or dumb, and eighteen lame
or paralytic. On the following Wednesday, at Schaffhausen, the number of
miracles increased."63 Concerning these cures Morison says: "Thirty-six
miraculous cures in one day would seem to have been the largest stretch of
supernatural power which Bernard permitted to himself. The halt, the blind,
the deaf, and the dumb were brought from all parts to be touched by
Bernard. The patient was presented to him, whereupon he made the sign of
the cross over the part affected, and the cure was perfect."64
The following case in which details are more fully given is of much
interest: "At Toulouse, in the church of St. Saturninus, in which we were
lodged, was a certain regular canon, named John. John had kept his bed for
seven months, and was so reduced that his death was expected daily. His
legs were so shrunken that they were scarcely larger than a child's arms. He
was quite unable to rise to satisfy the wants of nature. At last his brother
canons refused to tolerate his presence any longer among them, and thrust
him out into the neighbouring village. When the poor creature heard of
Bernard's proximity, he implored to be taken to him. Six men, therefore,
carrying him as he lay in bed, brought him into a room close to that in
which he was lodged. The abbot heard him confess his sins, and listened to
his entreaties to be restored to health. Bernard mentally prayed to God:
'Behold, O Lord, they seek for a sign, and our words avail nothing, unless
they be confirmed with signs following.' He then blessed him and left the
chamber, and so did we all. In that very hour the sick man arose from his
couch, and running after Bernard, kissed his feet with a devotion which
cannot be imagined by any one who did not see it. One of the canons,
meeting him, nearly fainted with fright, thinking he saw his ghost."
St. Francis of Assisi (1182-1226), the great founder of the Franciscan Order,
was not less famed for his miracles of healing than for his Christ-like life
and his stigmata. Among those cured were epileptics, paralytics, and the
blind. A typical case of cure by this humble saint is given to show his
method and its results: "Once when Francis the Saint of God was making a

long circuit through various regions to preach the gospel of God's kingdom
he came to a city called Toscanella. Here ... he was entertained by a knight
of that same city whose only son was a cripple and weak in all his body.
Though the child was of tender years he had passed the age of weaning; but
he still remained in a cradle. The boy's father, seeing the man of God to be
endued with such holiness, humbly fell at his feet and besought him to heal
his son. Francis, deeming himself to be unprofitable and unworthy of such
power and grace, for a long time refused to do it. At last, conquered by the
urgency of the knight's entreaties, after offering up prayer, he laid his hand
on the boy, blessed him, and lifted him up. And in the sight of all, the boy
straightway arose whole in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and began to
walk hither and thither about the house."65
St. Thomas of Hereford (1222-1282) was the last Englishman to be
officially canonized. The extant documents of his canonization record no
less than four hundred and twenty-nine miracles alleged to have been
performed by him. The following case of resurrection from the dead
occurred, however, twenty-one years after his death. I quote the account in
full:
"On the 6th of September, 1303, Roger, aged two years and three months, the son of Gervase, one of
the warders of Conway Castle, managed to crawl out of bed in the night and tumble off a bridge, a
distance of twenty-eight feet; he was not discovered till the next morning, when his mother found
him half naked and quite dead upon a hard stone at the bottom of the ditch, where there was no water
or earth, but simply the rock, which had been quarried to build the castle. Simon Waterford, the vicar,
who had christened the child, John de Bois, John Guffe, all sworn witnesses, took their oaths on the
Gospel that they saw and handled the child dead. The King's Crowners (Stephen Ganny and William
Nottingham) were presently called and went down into the moat. They found the child's body cold
and stiff, and white with hoar-frost, stark dead, indeed. While the Crowners, as their office requires,
began to write what they had seen, one John Syward, a near neighbour, came down and gently
handled the child's body all over, and finding it as dead as ever any, made the sign of the cross upon
its forehead, and earnestly prayed after this manner: 'Blessed St. Thomas Cantelope, you by whom
God has wrought innumerable miracles, show mercy unto this little infant, and obtain he may return
to life again. If this grace be granted he shall visit your holy sepulchre and render humble thanks to
God and you for the favor.' No sooner had Syward spoken these words, than the child began to move
his head and right arm a little, and forthwith life and vigor came back again into every part of his
body. The Crowners, and many others who were standing by, saw the miracle, and in that very place,
with great admiration, returned humble thanks to God and St. Thomas for what they had seen. The
mother, now overjoyed, took the child in her arms, and went that day to hear mass in a church not far
off, where, upon her knees, she recognized with a grateful heart that she owed the life of her infant to
God and St. Thomas. Her devotion ended, she returned home, and the child, feeling no pain at all,
walked as he was wont to do up and down the house, though a little scar still continued in one cheek,
which after a few days, quite vanished away."66

St. Catharine of Siena (1347-1380) obtained considerable reputation as a
healer, principally, however, in the line of exorcism; this, though, meant the
cure of any disease. Like St. Paul, she was one of a large number of saints
who healed others but did not cure herself; she died at the age of thirty-
three. A woman was presented to the immaculate saintess for prompt
remedy; by the virtue of divine magic a demon was forced from each part
of her body where he had taken refuge, but resisting absolute ejectment
from this carnal abode, made a desperate conflict in the throat, where by
uninterrupted scratches he reproduced himself in the form of an abscess.
On another occasion the saint was more successful. Laurentia, a maiden of
youthful years, placed by her father within the sheltering walls of a cloister,
to assume ultimately monastic vows, was quickly captured by an errant
demon. As an irrefutable demonstration of the impure origin of her
infirmity, an annalist asserts, this spirit promptly answered in elegant
Latinity all questions propounded; but the strongest confirmation of this
belief was the miraculous ability which enabled her to disclose the most
secret thoughts of others, and divulge the mysterious affairs of her
associates. St. Catharine at length liberated the suffering female from her
diabolical tenant. More extraordinary claims are made for her. It is said that
she stayed a plague at Varazze, and healed a throng at Pisa.67
Raimondo da Capua, her faithful friend and constant companion, wrote her
biography and gives us different instances of remarkable cures performed
by her. For example, he tells us that Father Matthew of Cenni, the director
of the Hospital of la Misericordia, was stricken when the plague was raging
in Siena in 1373, and of his marvellous cure.
Perhaps we had better allow him to tell of Catharine's power in his own
words:
"One day on entering, I saw some of the brothers carrying Father Matthew like a corpse from the
chapel to his room; his face was livid, and his strength was so far gone that he could not answer me
when I spoke to him. 'Last night,' the brothers said, 'about seven o'clock, while ministering to a dying
person, he perceived himself stricken, and fell at once into extreme weakness.' I helped to put him on
his bed; ... he spoke afterwards, and said that he felt as if his head was separated into four parts. I sent
for Dr. Senso, his physician; Dr. Senso declared to me that my friend had the plague, and that every
symptom announced the approach of death. 'I fear,' he said, 'that the House of Mercy (Misericordia)
is about to be deprived of its good director.' I asked if medical art could not save him. 'We shall see,'
replied Senso, 'but I have only a very faint hope; his blood is too much poisoned.' I withdrew, praying
God to save the life of this good man. Catharine, however, had heard of the illness of Father

Matthew, whom she loved sincerely, and she lost no time in repairing to him. The moment she
entered the room, she cried, with a cheerful voice, 'Get up, Father Matthew, get up! This is not a time
to be lying idly in bed.' Father Matthew roused himself, sat up on his bed, and finally stood on his
feet. Catharine retired; and the moment she was leaving the house, I entered it, and ignorant of what
had happened, and believing my friend to be still at the point of death, my grief urged me to say, 'Will
you allow a person so dear to us, and so useful to others, to die?' She appeared annoyed at my words,
and replied, 'In what terms do you address me? Am I like God, to deliver a man from death?' But I,
beside myself with sorrow, pleaded, 'Speak in that way to others if you will, but not to me; for I know
your secrets; and I know you obtain from God whatever you ask in faith.' Then Catharine bowed her
head, and smiled just a little; after a few minutes she lifted up her head and looked at me full in the
face, her countenance radiant with joy, and said, 'Well, let us take courage; he will not die this time,'
and she passed on. At these words I banished all fear, for I understood that she had obtained some
favor from heaven. I went straight to my sick friend, whom I found sitting on the side of his bed. 'Do
you know,' he cried, 'what she has done for me?' He then stood up and narrated joyfully what I have
here written. To make the matter more sure, the table was laid, and Father Matthew seated himself at
it with us; they served him with vegetables and other light food, and he, who an hour before could
not open his mouth, ate with us, chatting and laughing gaily."

None of Catharine's biographers fail to relate wonderful instances of her
healing power.68
Martin Luther (1483-1546), the great leader of the Reformation, and St.
Francis Xavier (1506-1552), the leader of the Counter-Reformation, were
both healers, so it is said. Luther's cure of his friend and helper,
Melanchthon, by prayer for and encouragement of the patient, is well
known. Xavier's miracles were legion, but have been somewhat discredited
by a recent author.69 I add but one example. "A certain Tomé Paninguem, a
fencing-master, says, I knew Antonio de Miranda, who was a servant of the
Father Francis, and assisted him when saying Mass. He told me that when
going one night on business to Combature, he was bitten by a venomous
serpent. He immediately fell down as though paralyzed and became
speechless. He was found thus lying unconscious. Informed of the fact,
Father Francis ordered Antonio to be carried to him: and when he was laid
down speechless and senseless, the Father prayed with all those present.
The prayer finished, he put a little saliva with his finger on the bitten place
on Antonio's foot, and at the same moment, Antonio recovered his senses,
his memory and his speech, and felt himself healed. I have since heard
details of this occurrence from the mouths of several eye-witnesses."70

If we accept Görres's account,71 the most remarkable instance of curative
power possessed by a saint is that afforded by St. Sauveur of Horta (1520-
1567). Outside of this one work I have been unable to find any reference to

this saint, so I will give a sketch of his apparently remarkable life. He was
born in Catalonia, and received the first part of his name from a
presentiment of his sponsors that he was to be a savior of men, and the
second part because he entered the monastery at Horta. A short time after he
finished his novitiate, people in some way got the idea that he had a
wonderful gift of healing, and soon patients came to him in crowds from all
parts of the country. He continued healing for several years. At one time
during the feast of the Annunciation he cured six thousand persons, and at
another time he found ten thousand patients, from viceroy to laborer,
waiting for him at Valencia before the convent of St. Marie de Jesus.
Notwithstanding his apparently great success, his brother monks
complained to the bishop concerning the dirt and disorder caused by the
crowds, and after a reprimand he was sent at midnight to the monastery at
Reus, where he was known as Alphonse and assigned to the kitchen. In
spite of this, crowds continued to come and he was transferred from
monastery to monastery, but always with the same result—the crowd sought
him to be healed. He was known as simple, open, and obedient in his
relations with men, and austere toward himself. He was patient and
resigned, compassionate toward the poor and sick, and full of zeal for their
conversion. The number of patients he is said to have cured is incredible,
and it is even said that he resuscitated three dead persons. After his death
miracles were performed at his tomb. Why he was not in favor with his
superiors and his brother monks is unknown; his friends say they were
jealous; his enemies, that his cures were not genuine.
St. Philip Neri (1551-1595), the founder of the Oratorians, was renowned as
a healer. He cured Clement VIII of gout by touching and prayer, a woman
of cancer of the breast by the mere touch and assurance, a man of grievous
symptoms such as loss of speech and internal pain by simply laying on of
hands, and many similar and equally serious cases. The following case was
counted nearly equal to a resurrection: "In 1560 Pietro Vittrici of Parma,
being in the service of Cardinal Boncompagni, afterward Pope Gregory
XIII, fell dangerously ill. He was given up by the physicians, and was
supposed to be as good as dead. In this extremity he was visited by Philip
who, as soon as he entered the sick man's room, began, as was his wont, to
pray for him. He then put his hand on Pietro's forehead, and at the touch he
instantly revived. In two days' time he was out of the house perfectly well

and strong and went about telling people how he had been cured by Father
Philip."72
George Fox (1624-1691), the founder of the Quakers, performed some
simple cures of which he himself tells us. The most famous case was that of
the cure of a lame arm by command, the account of which we take from his
pen. He thus records it: "After some time I went to the meeting at Arnside
where Richard Meyer was. Now he had been long lame of one of his arms;
and I was moved by the Lord to say unto him, among all the people,
'Prophet Meyer stand up upon thy legs' (for he was sitting down) and he
stood up and stretched out his arm that had been lame a long time, and said:
'Be it known unto all you people that this day I am healed.' But his parents
could hardly believe it, but after the meeting was done, had him aside and
took off his doublet; and then they saw it was true. He soon after came to
Swarthmore meeting, and there declared how the Lord had healed him. But
after this the Lord commanded him to go to York with a message from him;
and he disobeyed the Lord; and the Lord struck him again, so that he died
about three-quarters of a year after."73 The cure evidently was not
permanent.
Valentine Greatrakes (1628-1683) was born in Affane, Ireland. He was the
son of an Irish gentleman, had a good education, and was a Protestant. In
1641, at the outbreak of the Irish rebellion, he fled to England, and from
1649-1656 he served under Cromwell. In 1661, after a period of
melancholy derangement, he believed that God had given him power of
curing "king's evil" by touching or stroking and prayer. After some success
with this disease, he added to his list ague, epilepsy, convulsions, paralysis,
deafness, ulcers, aches, and lameness, and for a number of years he devoted
three days in every week, from 6 A. M. to 6 P. M., to the exercise of his
healing gifts. The crowds which thronged around him were so great that the
neighboring towns were not able to accommodate them. He thereupon left
his house in the country and went to Youghal, where sick people, not only
from all parts of Ireland but from England, continued to congregate in such
great numbers that the magistrates were afraid they would infect the place
with their diseases.

VALENTINE GREATRAKES

In some instances he exorcised demons; in fact, he claimed that all diseases
were caused by evil spirits, and every infirmity was, with him, a case of
diabolic possession. The church endeavored to prohibit his operations but
without avail. He was invited to London, and, notwithstanding that an
exhibition before the nobility failed, thousands flocked to his house in
Lincoln's Inn Fields. In the "Miscellanies" of St. Evremond a graphic sketch
is given of his work. The results of his healing are there summed up as
follows:
"So great was the confidence in him, that the blind fancied they saw the light which they did not see
—the deaf imagined that they heard—the lame that they walked straight, and the paralytic that they
had recovered the use of their limbs. An idea of health made the sick forget for a while their
maladies; and imagination, which was not less active in those merely drawn by curiosity than in the
sick, gave a false view to the one class, from the desire of seeing, as it operated a false cure on the
other from the strong desire of being healed. Such was the power of the Irishman over the mind, and
such was the influence of the mind over the body. Nothing was spoken of in London but his
prodigies; and these prodigies were supported by such great authorities that the bewildered multitude

believed them almost without examination, while more enlightened people did not dare to reject them
from their own knowledge."

That there were real cures, however, seems most probable. The Bishop of
Dromore testifies thus from his own observation: "I have seen pains
strangely fly before his hands till he had chased them out of the body;
dimness cleared, and deafness cured by his touch. Twenty persons at several
times, in fits of the falling sickness, were in two or three minutes brought to
themselves.... Running sores of the 'King's evil' were dried up; grievous
sores of many months' date in a few days healed, cancerous knots dissolved,
etc." 74
The celebrated Flamstead, the astronomer, when a lad of nineteen, went into
Ireland to be touched by Greatrakes, and he testifies that he was an
eyewitness of several cures, although he himself was not benefited. In a
letter to Lord Conway, Greatrakes says: "The King's doctors, this day (for
the confirmation of their majesties' belief), sent three out of the hospital to
me, who came on crutches; but, blessed be God! they all went home well, to
the admiration of all people, as well as the doctors."75
Several pamphlets were issued by medical men and others criticising his
work, and in 1666 he published a vindication of himself entitled "A Brief
Account." This contained numerous testimonials by Bishop Wilkins, Bishop
Patrick, Dr. Cudworth, Dr. Whichcote, and others of distinction and
intelligence. After the retirement of Greatrakes, John Leverett, a gardener,
succeeded to the "manual exercise," and declared that after touching thirty
or forty a day, he felt so much goodness go out of him that he was fatigued
as if he had been digging eight roods of ground.
About the same time that Greatrakes was working among the people of
London, an Italian enthusiast, named Francisco Bagnone, was operating in
Italy with equal success. He had only to touch the sick with his hands, or
sometimes with a relic, to accomplish cures which astonished the people.
Hardly less famous than Greatrakes was Johann Jacob Gassner (1727-
1779). He was born at Bratz, near Bludenz, and became Roman Catholic
priest at Klösterle. He believed that most diseases were caused by evil
spirits which could be exorcised by conjuration and prayer. He began
practising and soon attracted attention. In 1774 he received a call from the

bishop at Ratisbon to Ellwangen, where by the mere word of command,
"Cesset" (Give over), he cured the lame and blind, but especially those who
were afflicted with epilepsy and convulsions, and who were thereby
supposed to be obsessed. His cures were not permanent in some cases, and
before he died he lost power and respect.
57 A. D. White, History of the Warfare of Science with Theology, II, pp. 5-22.
58 W. E. H. Lecky, History of European Morals, I, pp. 347 f.
59 P. Dearmer, Body and Soul, pp. 252 f. I am indebted to this excellent book for
my material on the subject of Unction, as well as for many other quotations in
this chapter.
60 F. W. Puller, Anointing of the Sick, pp. 155-158.
61 G. F. Fort, History of Medical Economy During the Middle Ages, gives this
and the other incidents just quoted. See pp. 155, 160, 272, 275, 327.
62 Bede, Ecclesiastical History, bk. V, chap. V.
63 Quoted by P. Dearmer, Body and Soul, p. 359.
64 J. Cotter Morison, Life and Times of St. Bernard, pp. 422 and 460, for this and
the following incident.
65 Thomas of Celano, Lives of St. Francis of Assisi (trans. A. G. F. Howell).
66 Dublin Review, January, 1876, pp. 8-10.
67 G. F. Fort, History of Medical Economy During the Middle Ages, pp. 278 f.
68 See J. Butler, Life of St. Catharine of Siena, for many examples.
69 See A. D. White, History of the Warfare of Science with Theology, already
referred to.
70 Jos. Marie Cros, St. François de Xavier, Sa vie et ses lettres, II, p. 392.
71 Görres, La mystique divine naturelle et diabolique (trans. Sainte-foi), I, pp.
470-473.
72 P. J. Bacci, Life of St. Philip Neri (trans. Antrobus), II, p. 168.
73 G. Fox, Journal, I, p. 103.
74 J. Moses, Pathological Aspects of Religions, p. 188.
75 E. Salverte, The Philosophy of Magic (trans. Thompson), II, p. 81.

CHAPTER VI

TALISMANS

"He had the ring of Gyges, the talisman of invisibility."—Hamerton.
"The quack astrologer offers, for five pieces, to give you home with you a Talisman against Flies; a
Sigil to make you fortunate at gaining; and a Spell that shall as certainly preserve you from being
rob'd for the future; a sympathetic Powder for violent pains of the Tooth-ache."—Character of a
Quack Astrologer.
"So far are they distant from the true knowledge of physic which are ignorant of astrology, that they
ought not rightly to be called physicians, but deceivers; for it hath been many times experimented
and proved that that which many physicians could not cure or remedy with their greatest and
strongest medicines, the astronomer hath brought to pass with one simple herb, by observing the
moving of the signs."—Fabian Withers.

In the minds of most persons the terms talisman, amulet, and charm are
synonymous. This may be more or less true as far as they are used to-day,
but in the days when these terms meant something in real life there was a
distinction. The talisman was probably at first an astronomical figure, but
later the term became more comprehensive. Pope portrays this astrological
import in his couplet,
"Of talismans and sigils knew the power,
And carefully watch'd the planetary hour."

The amulet was always carried about the person, while the other two might
be in the possession of the person in the case of the talisman, or, in the case
of the charm, if a material object it could be placed entirely outside of one's
care. The talisman and amulet must be a compound of some substance, the
charm might be a gesture, a look, or a spoken word. Notice the example of
charms according to Tennyson's words,
"Then, in one moment, she put forth the charm
Of woven paces and of waving hands."

They were all used for defensive purposes, i. e., to keep away evil, in the
form of demons, disease, or misfortune, but they might, especially the
talisman, also attract good. Their power was of a magical character, and was
exercised in a supernatural manner.

The idea of the talisman probably originated from the belief that certain
properties or virtues were impressed upon substances by planetary
influences. "A talisman," says Pettigrew, "may in general terms be defined
to be a substance composed of certain cabalistic characters engraved on
stone, metal, or other material, or else written on slips of paper." Hyde
quotes a Persian writer who defines the Telesm or Talismay as "a piece of
art compounded of the celestial powers and elementary bodies, appropriated
to certain figures or positions, and purposes and times, contrary to the usual
manner."
We are told by Maimonides that images or idols were called Tzelamim on
account of the power or influence which was supposed to reside in them,
rather than on account of their particular figure or form. Townley has
opined that the reason for the production of astrological or talismanic
images was probably the desire of early peoples to have some
representation of the planets during their absence from sight, so that they
might at all times be able to worship the planetary body itself or its
representative. To accomplish this purpose, the astrologers chose certain
colors, metals, stones, trees, etc., to represent certain planets, and
constructed the talismans when the planets were in their exaltation and in a
happy conjunction with other heavenly bodies. In addition to this,
incantations were used in an endeavor to inspire the talisman with the
power and influence of the planet for which it stood.
Pettigrew says: "The Hebrew word for talisman (magan) signifies a paper
or other material, drawn or engraved with the letters composing the sacred
name Jehovah, or with other characters, and improperly applied to
astrological representations, because, like the letters composing 'The
Incomparable Name,' they were supposed to serve as a defence against
sickness, lightning, and tempest. It was a common practice with magicians,
whenever a plague or other great calamity infested a country, to make a
supposed image of the destroyer, either in gold, silver, clay, wax, etc., under
a certain configuration of the heavens, and to set it up in some particular
place that the evil might be stayed."76
The Jewish phylacteries must therefore be considered talismans and not
amulets. The writings contained in them are portions of the law and are
prepared in a prescribed manner. Three different kinds are used: one for the

head, another for the arm, and the third is attached to the door-posts. The
following is a Hebrew talisman supposed to have considerable power: "It
overflowed—he did cast darts—Shadai is all sufficient—his hand is strong,
and is the preserver of my life in all its variations."77
Arnot gives an account of some Scottish talismans not unlike the
phylacteries of the Jews, which were for use on the door-posts. "On the old
houses still existing in Edinburgh," he says, "there are remains of talismanic
or cabalistical characters, which the superstitious of earlier days had caused
to be engraven on their fronts. These were generally composed of some text
of Scripture, of the name of God, or, perhaps, of an emblematic
representation of the resurrection."78
The connection of astrology, or, as he calls it, "astronomy," and the talisman
with medicine is well portrayed by Chaucer in his picture of a good
physician of his day. He says:
"With us there was a doctor of phisike;
In al the world, was thar non hym lyk
To speke of physik and of surgerye,
For he wos groundit in astronomie.
He kept his pacient a ful gret del
In hourys by his magyk naturel;
Wel couth he fortunen the ascendent
Of his ymagys for his pacient."

Fosbrooke has divided talismans into five classes, examples of some of
which I have already given. They are: "1. The astronomical, with celestial
signs and intelligible characters. 2. The magical, with extraordinary figures,
superstitious words, and names of unknown angels. 3. The mixed, of
celestial signs and barbarous words, but not superstitious, or with names of
angels. 4. The sigilla planetarum, composed of Hebrew numeral letters,
used by astrologers and fortune-tellers. 5. Hebrew names and characters.
These were formed according to the cabalistic art."
The doctrine of signatures bears a close resemblance to talismans, and some
believe that talismans have largely grown out of this doctrine. Dr. Paris79
defines the doctrine as the belief that "every natural substance which
possesses any medical virtues indicates, by an obvious and well-marked
external character, the disease for which it is a remedy or the object for

which it should be employed." Southey says,80 "The signatures [were] the
books out of which the ancients first learned the virtues of herbs—Nature
having stamped on divers of them legible characters to discover their uses."
Some opined that the external marks were impressed by planetary
influences, hence their connection with talismans; others simply reasoned it
out that the Almighty must have placed a sign on the various means which
he had provided for curing diseases.
Color and shape were the two principal factors in interpreting the
signatures. White was regarded as cold and red as hot, hence cold and hot
qualities were attributed to different medicines of these colors respectively.
Serious errors in practice resulted from this opinion. Red flowers were
given for disorders of the sanguiferous system; the petals of the red rose,
especially, bear the "signature" of the blood, and blood-root, on account of
its red juice, was much prescribed for the blood. Celandine, having yellow
juice, the yellow drug, turmeric, the roots of rhubarb, the flowers of saffron,
and other yellow substances were given in jaundice; red flannel, looking
like blood, cures blood taints, and therefore rheumatism, even to this day,
although many do not know why red flannel is so efficacious.
Lungwort, whose leaves bear a fancied resemblance to the surface of the
lungs, was considered good for pulmonary complaints, and liverwort,
having a leaf like the liver, cured liver diseases. Eye-bright was a famous
application for eye diseases, because its flowers somewhat resemble the
pupil of the eye; bugloss, resembling a snake's head, was valuable for snake
bite; and the peony, when in bud, being something like a man's head, was
"very available against the falling sickness." Walnuts were considered to be
the perfect signature of the head, the shell represented the bony skull, the
irregularities of the kernel the convolutions of the two hemispheres of the
brain, and the husk the scalp. The husk was therefore used for scalp
wounds, the inner peel for disorders of the meninges, and the kernel was
beneficial for the brain and tended to resist poisons. Lilies-of-the-valley
were used for the cure of apoplexy, the signature reasoning being, as Coles
says, "for as that disease is caused by the drooping of humors into the
principal ventrices of the brain, so the flowers of this lily, hanging on the
plants as if they were drops, are of wonderful use herein."

Capillary herbs naturally announced themselves as good for diseases of the
hair, and bear's grease, being taken from an animal thickly covered with
hair, was recommended for the prevention of baldness. Nettle-tea is still a
country remedy for nettle rash; prickly plants like thistles and holly were
prescribed for pleurisy and stitch in the side, and the scales of the pine were
used in toothache, because they resemble front teeth. "Kidney-beans," says
Berdoe, "ought to have been useful for kidney diseases, but seem to have
been overlooked except as articles of diet." Poppy-heads were used "with
success" to relieve diseases of the head, and the root of the "mandrake,"
from its supposed resemblance to the human form, was a very ancient
remedy for barrenness and was evidently so esteemed by Rachel, in the
account given in Genesis 30:14 ff.
In the treatment of small-pox red bed coverings were employed in order to
bring the pustules to the surface of the body. The patient must be indued
with red; the bed furniture and hangings should be red and red substances
were to be looked upon by the patient; burnt purple, pomegranate seeds,
mulberries or other red ingredients were dissolved in their drink. John of
Gladdesden, physician to Edward II, prescribed the following treatment as
soon as the eruption appeared: "Cause the whole body of your patient to be
wrapped in scarlet cloth, or any other red cloth, and command everything
about the bed to be made red." He further says that "when the son of the
renowned King of England (Edward II) lay sick of the small-pox I took care
that everything around the bed should be of a red color; which succeeded so
completely that the Prince was restored to perfect health, without a vestige
of a pustule remaining."
The Emperor Francis I, when infected with smallpox, was rolled up in a
scarlet cloth, by order of his physicians, as late as 1765; notwithstanding
this treatment he died. Kampfer says that "when any of the Japanese
emperor's children are attacked with the small-pox, not only the chamber
and bed are covered with red hangings, but all persons who approach the
sick prince must be clad in scarlet gowns." By a course of reasoning similar
to that used in the treatment of small-pox, it was supposed that flannel dyed
nine times in blue was efficacious in removing glandular swellings.81
The astrological factor in talismans was most important because it was
considered that certain stars and planets in certain relations produced

certain diseases and contagious disorders. Astrologers, for example,
attributed the plague to a conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in Sagittarius,
on the tenth of October, or to a conjunction of Saturn and Mars in the same
constellation, on the twelfth of November. Burton makes the most generous
melancholy, as that of Augustus, to come from the conjunction of Saturn
and Jupiter in Libra; the bad, as that of Catiline, from the meeting of Saturn
and the moon in Scorpio. If these disorders were produced by planets it was
reasonable to suppose that they could be cured by planets.
The virtue of herbs depended upon the planet under which they were sown
or gathered. For example, verbena or vervain should be gathered at the
rising of the dog-star, when neither the sun nor the moon shone, but an
expiatory sacrifice of fruit and honey should previously have been offered
to the earth. If this was carried out it had power to render the possessor
invulnerable, to cure fevers, to eradicate poison, and to conciliate
friendship. Notice also, that black hellebore, to be effective, was to be
plucked not cut, and this with the right hand, which was then to be covered
with a portion of the robe and secretly to be conveyed to the left hand. The
person gathering it was to be clad in white, to be barefooted, and to offer a
sacrifice of bread and wine.
Not only the planets and the stars, but the moon has had a potent influence
on medicine. For instance, mistletoe was to be cut with a golden knife, and
when the moon was only six days old. Brand82 quotes from The
Husbandman's Practice, or Prognostication Forever, published in 1664, the
following curious passage, "Good to purge with electuaries, the moon in
Cancer; with pills, the moon in Pisces; with potions, the moon in Virgo;
good to take vomits, the moon being in Taurus, Virgo, or the latter part of
Sagittarius; to purge the head by sneezing, the moon being in Cancer, Leo,
or Virgo; to stop fluxes and rheumes, the moon being in Taurus, Virgo, or
Capricorne; to bathe when the moon is in Cancer, Libra, Aquarius, or
Pisces; to cut the hair off the head or beard when the moon is in Libra,
Sagittarius, Aquarius, or Pisces."
The Loseley manuscripts provide us with further examples. "Here begyneth
ye waxingge of ye mone, and declareth in dyvers tymes to let blode, whiche
be gode. In the furste begynynge of the mone it is profetable to yche man to
be letten blode; ye ix of the mone, neyther be nyght ne by day, it is not

good." They also tell of a physician named Simon Trippe, who wrote to a
patient in excuse for not visiting him, as follows: "As for my comming to
you upon Wensday next, verely my promise be past to and old pacient of
mine, a very good gentlewoman, one Mrs. Clerk, wch now lieth in great
extremity. I cannot possibly be with you till Thursday. On Fryday and
Saterday the signe wilbe in the heart; on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, in
the stomake; during wch time it wilbe no good dealing with your ordinary
physicke untill Wensday come sevenight at the nearest, and from that time
forwards for 15 or 16 days passing good."83
Not unlike this is an incident of the year 686, given by Bede, where "a holy
Bishop having been asked to bless a sick maiden, asked 'when she had been
bled?' and being told that it was on the fourth day of the moon, said: 'You
did very indiscreetly and unskilfully to bleed her on the fourth day of the
moon; for I remember that Archbishop Theodore, of blessed memory, said
that bleeding at that time was very dangerous, when the light of the moon
and the tide of the ocean is increasing; and what can I do to the girl if she is
like to die?'"84
"So great, indeed," says Fort, "became the abuse of medical astrology,
whether by the direct juxtaposition of stellar influence, or through apposite
images, that a celebrated Church Council at Paris declared that images of
metal, wax, or other materials fabricated under certain constellations or
according to fixed characters—figures of peculiar form, either baptized,
consecrated, or exorcised, or rather desecrated by the performance of
formal rites at stated periods which it was asserted, thus composed,
possessed miraculous virtues set forth in superstitious writings—were
placed under the ban and interdicted as errors of faith."85
We shall see that magnetism developed from astrology, and some other
forms of mental healing from magnetism. One of these, sympathetic cures,
was talismanic in its character, and therefore I give a brief account of its
method of working, in this place.
Sympathetic cures probably started with Paracelsus, although Von Helmont
tells us that the secret was first put forth by Ericcius Wohyus, of Eburo. As a
development from magnetism the former originated the "weapon salve"
which excited so much attention about the middle of the seventeenth

century. The following was a receipt given by him for the cure of any
wound inflicted by a sharp weapon, except such as had penetrated the heart,
the brain, or the arteries. "Take the moss growing on the head of a thief who
has been hanged and left in the air; of real mummy; of human blood, still
warm—of each, one ounce; of human suet, two ounces; of linseed oil,
turpentine, and Armenian bole—of each, two drachms. Mix all well in a
mortar, and keep the salve in an oblong, narrow urn." With the salve the
weapon (not the wound), after being dipped in blood from the wound, was
to be carefully anointed, and then laid by in a cool place. In the meantime,
the wound was washed with fair, clean water, covered with a clean soft
linen rag, and opened once a day to cleanse off purulent matter. A writer in
the Foreign Quarterly Review says there can be no doubt about the success
of the treatment, "for surgeons at this moment follow exactly the same
method, except anointing the weapon!"

SIR KENELM DIGBY

The weapon-salve continued to be much spoken of on the Continent, and
Dr. Fludd, or A Fluctibus, the Rosicrucian, introduced it into England. He
tried it with great success in several cases, but in the midst of his success an
attack was made upon him and his favorite remedy, which, however, did
little or nothing to diminish the belief in its efficacy. One "Parson Foster"
wrote a pamphlet entitled "Hyplocrisma Spongus; or a Spunge to wipe
away the Weapon-salve," in which he declared that it was as bad as
witchcraft to use or recommend such an unguent; that it was invented by the
devil, who, at the last day, would seize upon every person who had given it
the least encouragement. "In fact," said Parson Foster, "the Devil himself
gave it to Paracelsus; Paracelsus to the emperor; the emperor to the courtier;
the courtier to Baptista Porta; and Baptista Porta to Dr. Fludd, a doctor of
physic, yet living and practising in the famous city of London, who now
stands tooth and nail for it." Dr. Fludd, thus assailed, took up his pen and
defended the unguent in a caustic pamphlet.
The salve changed into a powder in the hands of Sir Kenelm Digby, the son
of Sir Edward Digby who was executed for his participation in the
Gunpowder Plot. Sir Kenelm was an accomplished scholar and an able
man, but at the same time a most extravagant defender of the powder of
sympathy for the healing of wounds. This powder came into sudden and
public notoriety through an accident to a distinguished person. Mr. James
Howell, the well-known author of the Dendrologia, in endeavoring to part
two friends in a duel, received a severe cut on the hand. Alarmed by the
accident, one of the combatants bound up the cut with his garter and
conveyed him home. The king sent his own surgeon to attend Mr. Howell,
but in four or five days the wound was not recovering very rapidly and he
made application to Sir Kenelm. The latter first inquired whether he
possessed anything that had the blood upon it, upon which Mr. Howell
produced the garter with which his hand had been bound. A basin of water
in which some powder of vitriol had been dissolved was procured, and the
garter immediately immersed in it, whereupon, to quote Sir Kenelm, Mr.
Howell said, "I know not what ails me, but I find that I feel no more pain.
Methinks that a pleasing kind of freshness, as it were a wet cold napkin, did
spread over my hand, which hath taken away the inflammation that

tormented me before." He was then advised to lay away all plasters and
keep the wound clean and in a moderate temperature.
To prove conclusively the efficacy of the powder of sympathy, after dinner
the garter was taken out of the basin and placed to dry before the fire. No
sooner was this done than Mr. Howell's servant came running to Sir Kenelm
saying that his master's hand was again inflamed, and that it was as bad as
before. The garter was again placed in the liquid and before the return of the
servant all was well and easy again. In the course of five or six days the
wound was cicatrized and a cure performed.
This case excited considerable attention at court, and on inquiry Sir Kenelm
told the king that he learned the secret from a much-travelled Carmelite
friar who became possessed of it while journeying in the East. Sir Kenelm
communicated it to Dr. Mayerne, the king's physician, and from him it was
known to even the country barbers. Even King James, the Prince of Wales,
the Duke of Buckingham, and many other noble personages believed in its
efficacy.
It would be a waste of time, had we space, to present fully Sir Kenelm's
profound and lengthy explanation of the cure. He tried to make the cure
more reasonable and acceptable by bringing forth certain alleged
phenomena which he thought proved sympathy, and were therefore
analogous in character. Surgeon-General Hammond calls attention to the
fact that these inferences were invariably false. "It is a very curious
circumstance," says he, "that of these, there is not one which is true. Thus
he is wrong when he says that if the hand be severely burnt, the pain and
inflammation are relieved by holding it near a hot fire; that a person who
has a bad breath is cured by putting his head over a privy and inhaling the
air which comes from it; that those who are bitten by vipers or scorpions are
cured by holding the bruised head of either of those animals, as the case
may be, near the bitten part; that in times of great contagion, carrying a
toad, or a spider, or arsenic or some other venomous substance, about the
person is a protection; that hanging a toad about the neck of a horse affected
with farcy dissipates the disease; that water evaporated in a close room will
not be deposited on the walls, if a vessel of water be placed in the room;
that venison pies smell strongly at those periods in which the 'beasts which
are of the same nature and kind are in rut'; that wine in the cellar undergoes

a fermentation when the vines in the field are in flower; that a table-cloth
spotted with mulberries or red wine is more easily whitened at the season in
which the plants are flowering than at any other; that washing the hands in
the rays of moonlight which fall into a polished silver basin (without water)
is a cure for warts; that a vessel of water put on the hearth of a smoky
chimney is a remedy for the evil, and so on—not a single fact in all that he
adduces. Yet these circumstances were regarded as real, and were spoken of
at the times as irrefragable proofs of the truth of Sir Kenelm's views."86
We need have no doubt concerning the operation of sympathetic cures, for
Sir Kenelm has told us of their virtue in his own words.87 His method was
what was called the cure by the wet way, but the cure could also be effected
in a dry way. Straus, in a letter to Sir Kenelm, gives an account of a cure
performed by Lord Gilbourne, an English nobleman, upon a carpenter who
had cut himself severely with his axe. "The axe, bespattered with blood,
was sent for, besmeared with an anointment, wrapped up warmly, and
carefully hung up in a closet. The carpenter was immediately relieved, and
all went well for some time, when, however, the wound became
exceedingly painful, and, upon resorting to his lordship it was ascertained
that the axe had fallen from the nail by which it was suspended, and thereby
become uncovered."
Dryden in "The Tempest" (Act V, Sc. I) makes Ariel say, in reference to the
wound received by Hippolito from Ferdinand:
"He must be dress'd again, as I have done it.
Anoint the sword which pierced him with this weapon-salve,
and wrap it close from air, till I have
time to visit him again."

And in the next scene we have the following dialogue between Hippolito
and Miranda:
"Hip. O my wound pains me.

Mir. I am come to ease you.

[She unwraps the sword.

Hip. Alas! I feel the cold air come to me;
My wound shoots worse than ever.

[She wipes and anoints the sword.

Mir. Does it still grieve you?

Hip. Now methinks, there's something
Laid just upon it.

Mir. Do you find ease?

Hip. Yes, yes, upon the sudden, all the pain
Is leaving me. Sweet heaven, how I am eased!"

Werenfels says: "If the superstitious person be wounded by any chance, he
applies the salve, not to the wound, but, what is more effectual, to the
weapon by which he received it. By a new kind of art, he will transplant his
disease, like a scion, and graft it into what tree he pleases."
The practice at the time was varied and general. All sorts of disgusting
ingredients were gathered together to form the salve. Some idea of the
condition of the science of medicine at that time may be gathered when we
remember that a serious discussion was long maintained between two
factions in the sympathetic school concerning the question "whether it was
necessary that the moss should grow absolutely in the skull of a thief who
had hung on the gallows, and whether the ointment, while compounding,
was to be stirred with a murderer's knife."
There is no doubt that the sympathetic cures were really the most rapid and
effective. The modern surgeon wonders how a wound ever healed prior to
this treatment. There seemed to be little that could be imagined to prevent a
wound from healing that the pre-sympathetic surgeon did not try. When the
manipulations, doses, and treatments were transferred from the wound to
the weapon, they did not injure the weapon, and did give the wound a
chance to heal. In fact, leaving out the weapon part of the treatment, which
could have none but a mental influence, the treatment would be
recommended to-day. The wound was kept clean, the edges were brought in
apposition, temperature was modified, and rest given. Under these
circumstances, wounds which the surgeon had irritated so as to take weeks
to heal, united in as many days. Mark this, however: the wounds treated
were simple incisions, the ones which most readily united if cleansed,
brought together, and left alone. Gunshot and similar wounds were not
treated by this process.88

76T. J. Pettigrew, Superstitions Connected with ... Medicine and Surgery, pp. 63
f.
77Gentleman's Magazine, LVIII, pp. 586 and 695.
78H. Arnot, History of Edinburgh.
79 Pharmacologia, p. 51.
80 The Doctor, p. 59.
81 For a discussion on the doctrine of signatures see T. J. Pettigrew,
Superstitions, etc., pp. 33 f.; E. Berdoe, Origin and Growth of the Healing Art,
pp. 327 and 416 f.; A. D. White, History of the Warfare of Science with
Theology, II, pp. 38 f.; Eccles, Evolution of Medical Science, pp. 140 f.
82 J. Brand, Popular Antiquities, III, p. 153. In references to this work, the
edition used was that edited by W. Carew Hazlitt.
83 The Loseley Manuscripts, pp. 263 f., quoted by Berdoe.
84 Bede, Ecclesiastical History, bk. V, chap. III.
85 G. F. Fort, History of Medical Economy During the Middle Ages, p. 299
86 W. A. Hammond, Spiritualism and Nervous Derangement, p. 175.
87 Sir Kenelm Digby, A late discovery made in solemne assembly of nobles and
learned men, at Montpellier, in France, touching the cure of wounds, by the
Powder of Sympathy, etc.
88 I am indebted to T. J. Pettigrew, Superstitions Connected with the History and
Practice of Surgery and Medicine, pp. 201-213; C. Mackay, Extraordinary
Popular Delusions, pp. 266-268; W. A. Hammond, Spiritualism and Nervous
Derangement, pp. 170-176; for the material on the subject of sympathetic cures.

CHAPTER VII

AMULETS

"He loved and was beloved; what more could he desire as an amulet against fear?"—Bulwer-
Lytton.
"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 Pomponatius proves; or the Devil's policy, who is the
first founder and teacher of them."—Burton.
"Old wives and starres are his councellors; his nightspell is his guard, and charms his physician. He
wears Paracelsian characters for the toothache; and a little hallowed wax is his antidote for all

evils."—Bishop Hall.
"Neither doth Fansie only cause, but also as easily cure Diseases; as I may justly refer all magical and
jugling Cures thereunto, performed, as is thought, by Saints, Images, Relicts, Holy-Waters, Shrines,
Avemarys, Crucifixes, Benedictions, Charms, Characters, Sigils of the Planets and of Signs, inverted
Words, &c., and therefore all such Cures are rather to be ascribed to the Force of the Imagination,
than any virtue in them, or their Rings, Amulets, Lamens, &c."—Ramesey.

Attention has already been called to the fact that the characteristic of the
amulet is that it must be worn about the person, while the talisman may
simply be in possession of a person wherever it may be, or deposited at a
certain place by or for the person. The Arabic equivalent of the word
Amulet means "that which is suspended."
The derivation of the word is uncertain, but there are at least two Latin
antecedents claimed for it. Some claim that it is derived from the barbarous
Latin word "amuletum," from amolior, to remove; others consider that it
comes from "amula," the name of a small vessel with lustral water in it,
which the Romans sometimes carried in their pockets for purification and
expiation. Pliny says that many of these amulæ were carved out of pieces of
amber and hung about children's necks. Whatever the derivation of the
word, it is doubtless of Eastern origin.
There is also little doubt concerning the early belief in the efficacy of an
amulet to ward off diseases, and to protect against supernatural agencies. So
powerful were they supposed to be that an oath was formerly administered
to persons about to fight a legal duel "that they had ne charme ne herb of
virtue." St. Chrysostom and others of the church fathers condemned the
practice very severely, and the Council of Laodicea (366) wisely forbade
the priesthood from studying and practising enchantments, mathematics,
astrology, and the binding of the soul by amulets.89
Burton has the following passage on the subject: "Amulets, and Things to
be borne about, I find prescribed, taxed by some, approved by Renodeus,
Platerus, and others; looke for them in Mizaldus, Porta, Albertus, &c. ... A
Ring made of the Hoofe of an Asse's right fore-foot carried about, &c.
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, &c. ... Some 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 Pomponatius proves; or the
Devil's policy, who is the first founder and teacher of them."90
"To this kind," says Bingham, "belong all Ligatures and Remedies, which
the Schools of Physitians reject and condemn; whether in Inchantments or
in certain marks, which they call Characters, or in some other things which
are to be hanged and bound about the Body, and kept in a dancing posture.
Such are Ear-rings hanged upon the tip of each ear, and Rings made of an
Ostriche's bones for the Finger; or, when you are told, in a fit of
Convulsions or shortness of Breath, to hold your left Thumb with your right
hand."91
Unfortunately the wearing of amulets did not stop with the early
civilizations or even with the Middle Ages. People in our own supposedly
enlightened age indulge in them. The negro carries the hind foot of a rabbit,
and the children see great virtue in a four-leafed clover; men carry luck
pennies, and certain stones are worn in rings and scarf pins; camphor is
worn about the person to avert febrile contagion, and anodyne necklaces of
"Job's tears" and other equally harmless and inefficacious substances are
placed on babies to assist them in teething. The camphor and necklaces are
probably not supposed to be endowed with magical power, but a mistaken
medical virtue is assigned to them.
There was neither rule nor reason for the composition of most amulets, and
one would have to be well acquainted with the superstitions of the various
ages to account for them. Sometimes the shape, rather than the material of
which they were composed or the inscription on them, was the efficacious
factor. Perhaps material, shape, and inscription would be combined in one
object; or many objects, each purporting to contain magical properties,
might be grouped for special efficacy, as when inscribed pieces of different
stones of peculiar shape were formed into necklaces or bracelets.
Precious stones were often employed as amulets, and some even ground
them up and took them internally in order to be more sure of their magical
effects. "Butler quotes from Encelius, who says that the Garnet, if hung
about the neck or taken in drink, much assisteth sorrow and recreates the
heart; and the chrysolite is described as the friend of wisdom and the enemy
of folly. Renodeus admires precious stones because they adorn king's

crowns, grace the fingers, enrich our household stuff, defend us from
enchantments, preserve health, cure diseases, drive away grief, cares, and
exhilarate the mind."92
Some further quotations portray to us the efficacy of other stones:
"Heliotropius stauncheth blood, driveth away poisons, preserveth health; yea, and some write that it
provoketh raine, and darkeneth the sunne, suffering not him that beareth it to be abused."
"A topaze healeth the lunaticke person of his passion of lunacie."
"Corneolus (cornelian) mitigateth the heate of the minde, and qualifieth malice, it stancheth bloodie
fluxes."
"A sapphire preserveth the members and maketh them livelie, and helpeth agues and gowts, and
suffereth not the bearer to be afraid; it hath virtue against venoms, and staieth bleeding at the nose,
being often put thereto."
Aetius "attributed great obstetrical properties to the lapis aetites, and gagates stone. The sapphire
when taken as a potion pulverized in milk, cured internal ulcers and checked excessive perspiration.
The amargdine was highly recommended for strabismus...."
"Jasper, hematite and hieratite stones were strongly recommended for unusual sanative virtues, but
the sapphire excelled as a remedy for scorpion bites."
"The Bezoar stone had a great reputation in melancholic affections. Manardus says it removes
sadness and makes him merry that useth it."

"Noblemen wore the smargdum attached to a chain, in the belief of its potential virtues against
epilepsy. The sard prevented terrible dreams, and the cornelian worn on the finger or suspended from
the neck pacified anger and provoked contentment. Onyx superinduced troubled sleep, but fastened
to the throat, stimulated the salivary glands. Saphirs cured internal ulcers and excessive perspiration,
when taken as a potion dissolved in lacteal fluids."
"Of the stone which hight agate. It is said that it hath eight virtues. One is when there is thunder, it
doth not scathe the man who hath this stone with him. Another virtue is, on whatsoever house it is,
therein a fiend may not be. The third virtue is, that no venom may scathe the man who hath the stone
with him. The fourth virtue is, that the man, who hath on him secretly the loathly fiend, if he taketh in
liquid any portion of the shavings of the stone, then soon is exhibited manifestly in him, that which
before lay secretly hid. The fifth virtue is, he who is afflicted with any disease, if he taketh the stone
in liquid, it is soon well with him. The sixth virtue is, that sorcery hurteth not the man who has the
stone with him. The seventh virtue is, that he who taketh the stone in drink, will have so much the
smoother body. The eighth virtue of the stone is, that no bite of any kind of snake may scathe him
who tasteth the stone in liquid."

Even as late as 1624, Sir John Harrington, writing in his "School of
Salerne," says: "Alwaies in your hands use eyther Corall or yellow Amber,
or a chalcedonium, or a sweet Pommander, or some like precious stone to
be worne in a ring upon the little finger of the left hand; have in your rings
eyther a Smaragd, a Saphire, or a Draconites, which you shall bear for an

ornament; for in stones, as also in hearbes, there is great efficacie and
vertue, but they are not altogether perceived by us; hold sometime in your
mouth eyther a Hyacinth, or a Crystall, or a Garnat, or pure Gold, or Silver,
or else sometimes pure Sugar-candy. For Aristotle doth affirme, and so doth
Albertus Magnus, that a Smaragd worne about the necke, is good against
the Falling-sickness; for surely the virtue of an hearbe is great, but much
more the vertue of a precious stone, which is very likely that they are
endued with occult and hidden vertues."
Precious metals as well as precious stones were used in the manufacture of
amulets. The Scandinavians carried metal effigies carved out of gold or
silver, or incised upon tiles, perpetually as amulets. They were safeguards
against diseases and physical infirmities. They were also administered
internally in cases where powerful cures were needed. Chaucer says:
"For gold in physic is a cordial,
Therefore he loved gold in special."

The Basilideans, and other sects developed from the Gnostic systems,
assigned great power to stone amulets, and prepared them for their initiates,
who used them for identification and for curative purposes. They quickly
acquired a celebrity undiminished for ages, and were known under the
general name of Abraxas. They were composed of various materials, glass,
paste, sometimes metals, but principally of various kinds of stones. Through
the irresistible might of Abrax, their supreme divinity, the Basilideans were
protected and cured. Clement of Alexandria strictly interdicted the use of
gems for personal ornamentation, with evident allusion to the Abraxas
stones. These stones had various inscriptions carved upon them, most of
which had some hidden meaning of great puissance. One of them, for
example, is engraven with Armenian letters, and contains a standing
invocation for fruitful delivery; in its medicinal property it was evidently a
cure for sterility.93
From the stone itself the word "Abraxas" came to be used as an amulet
when written on paper. The numerical equivalent of the Greek letters when
added together thus, A = 1, B = 2, P = 100, A = 1, Ξ = 60, A = 1, Σ = 200, is
365. The significance of this was that the deity was the ruler of 365
heavens, or of the angels inhabiting these heavens; he was also ruler over

the 365 days of the year. Notwithstanding the fact that it was referred to by
the Greek fathers, the name was evidently Egyptian in origin, some of the
figures on the stones being strictly Egyptian.
Amulets in the form of inscriptions were called "Characts," the word
Abraxas being an example. The very powerful word "Abracadabra" was
derived from Abraxas, and when written in the proper way and worn about
the person was supposed to have a magical efficacy as an antidote against
ague, fever, flux, and toothache. Serenus Samonicus, a physician in the
reign of Caracalla, recommends it very highly for ague, instructing how it
should be written, and commanding it to be worn around the neck. It might
be written in either of two ways: reading down the left side and up the right
must spell the same word as at the top; or, having the left side always start
the same, reading up the right side should be the same as the top line.
Below are the two forms:

ABRACADABRA ABRACADABRA
BRACADABR ABRACADABR
RACADAB ABRACADAB
ACADA ABRACADA
CAD ABRACAD
A ABRACA
ABRAC
ABRA
ABR
AB
A

Julius Africanus says that pronouncing the word in the same manner is as
efficacious as writing it. The Jews attributed an equal virtue to the word
"Aracalan" employed in the same way.94
Bishop Pilkington, writing in 1561, protests against a then current practice
in this way: "What wicket blindenes is this than, to thinke that wearing
Prayers written in rolles about with theym, as S. Johns Gospell, the length
of our Lord, the measure of our Lady, or other like, thei shall die no sodain
death, nor be hanged, or yf he be hanged, he shall not die. There is so
manye suche, though ye laugh, and beleve it not, and not hard to shewe

them with a wet finger." The same author observes that our devotion ought
to "stande in depe sighes and groninges, wyth a full consideration of our
miserable state and Goddes majestye, in the heart, and not in ynke or paper:
not in hangyng writtin Scrolles about the Necke, but lamentinge
unfeignedlye our Synnes from the hart."
The following charact was found in a linen purse belonging to a murderer
named Jackson, who died in Chichester jail in February, 1749. He was
"struck with such horror on being measured for his chains that he soon after
expired."
"Ye three holy Kings,
Gaspar, Melchior, Balthasar,
Pray for us now, and in the hour of our death."

"These papers have touched the three heads of the holy Kings at Cologne. They are to preserve
travellers from accidents on the road, headaches, falling sickness, fevers, witchcraft, all kinds of
mischief, and sudden death."

Belgrave prescribes a cure of agues, by a certain writing which the patient
wears, as follows: "When Jesus went up to the Cross to be crucified, the
Jews asked him, saying Art thou afraid? or hast thou the ague? Jesus
answered and said, I am not afraid, neither have I the ague. All those which
bear the name of Jesus about them shall not be afraid, nor yet have the ague.
Amen, sweet Jesus, Amen, sweet Jehovah, Amen." He adds: "I have known
many who have been cured of the ague by this writing only worn about
them; and I had the receipt from one whose daughter was cured thereby,
who had the ague upon her two years."95
Among other written amulets, the first Psalm, when written on doeskin, was
supposed to be efficacious in childbirth. It was necessary, however, for the
writer of such amulets to plunge into a bath as soon as he had written one
line, and after every new line it was thought necessary that he should repeat
the plunge.
The following process for avoiding inflamed eyes is taken from Marcellus,
380 A. D.: "Write on a clean sheet of paper ουβαικ, and hang this round the
patient's neck, with a thread from the loom. In a state of purity and chastity
write on a clean sheet of paper φυρφαραν and hang it round the man's neck;
it will stop the approach of inflammation. The following will stop

inflammation coming on, written on a clean sheet of paper: ρουβος,
ρνονειας ρηελιος ως' καντεφορα και παντες ηακοτει; it must be hung to the
neck by a thread; and if both the patient and operator are in a state of
chastity, it will stop inveterate inflammation. Again, write on a thin plate of
gold with a needle of copper, ορνω ουρωδη; do this on a Monday; observe
chastity; it will long and much avail."96
In Africa, prayers taken from the Koran are written and worn as amulets at
the present time.
After the death of the philosopher Pascal some manuscript was found sewed
in his doublet. This was a "profession of faith" which he always wore
stitched in his clothing as a sort of amulet.
In the East, generally, the amulet consists of certain names of the Deity,
verses of the Koran, or particular passages compressed into a very small
space, and is to be found concealed in the turban. The Christians wore
amulets with verses selected from the Old and New Testaments, and
particularly from the Gospel of John. The amulets or charms, called
"grigris" by the African priests, are of similar description. These were used
for preservatives against thunderbolts and diseases, to procure many wives
and to give them easy deliveries, to avert shipwreck or slavery, and to
secure victory in battle. One, to be used for the last purpose, which had
belonged to a king of Brak, in Senegal, was found on his body after he had
the misfortune to be killed in battle with the amulet upon him. It had the
following sentences from the Koran: "In the name of the merciful God!
Pray to God through our Lord Mohammed. All that exists is so only by his
command. He gives life, and also calls sinners to an account. He deprives
us of life by the sole power of his name: these are undeniable truths. He that
lives owes his life to the peculiar clemency of his Lord, who by his
providence takes care of his subsistence. He is a wise prince or governor."97
The Jews used as amulets some sacred name, such as the true pronunciation
of the name of Jehovah, written down. The Mischna permitted the Jews to
wear amulets provided they had been found efficacious in at least three
cases by an approved person. One of the most famous amulets is that
known as "Solomon's Seal."

Ligatures, similar to the earlier amulets, a heritage from the northern pagan
races, were freely applied for the prevention and cure of maladies.
After imposing invocations and the addition of mystical characters, these
medical charms were presumed to be of the greatest efficacy, and ready for
suspension from the neck. Their efficacy was admitted by Christians, but
they were condemned on account of their pagan and consequently satanic
origin.
Alexander of Tralles recommended a number of amulets, some of which I
will mention later, but admits that he had no faith in them, but merely
ordered them as placebos for rich and fastidious patients who could not be
persuaded to adopt a more rational treatment. Baas tells us that "A regular
Pagan amulet was found in 1749 on the breast of the prince bishop Anselm
Franz of Würzburg, count of Ingolstadt, after his death."
Amulets were also worn to protect the wearer from charms exercised by
others. The "Leech Book" gives us one to be worn and another to be taken
internally for this purpose. To be used "against every evil rune lay, and one
full of elvish tricks, writ for the bewitched man, this writing in Greek
letters: Alfa, Omega, Iesvm, BERONIKH. Again, another dust and drink
against a rune lay; take a bramble apple, and lupins, and pulegium, pound
them, then sift them, put them in a pouch, lay them under the altar, sing
nine masses over them, administer this to drink at three hours."
The powers of the mandragora, as an amulet, place it almost in a class by
itself. Fort tells us that in addition to its power to protect herds of cattle and
horses, to prevent misfortunes of various kinds, to preserve the exhilarating
wine and beer against loss of their intoxicating property, to render
successful commercial negotiations, and promote infallibly, rapid and
enormous influence, "other virtues of a surprising character were awarded
the omnipotent mandragora. It conciliated affection and maintained
friendship, preserved conjugal fealty and developed benevolence. The
immensity of worth inherent in this mystical medicament, its vital essence,
was by no means confined to sustaining health and providing certain
remedies for infirmities; its power manipulated tribunals and secured
judicial favor at court; and when this resistless amulet was held under the

arm by a suitor at law, however unjust his cause, the vegetable Rune
controlled the forum and obtained the verdict."98
It may be well at this point to enumerate at least a number of the most noted
amulets, according to the disease for which they were supposed to be
efficacious.
Ague.—On account of the periodic character of this disease it was
considered to be a supernatural complaint and hence many unnatural cures
were suggested, among which were a number of amulets. The Abracadabra
amulet was supposed to be especially efficacious in ague. The chips of a
gallows put into a bag and worn around the neck, or next the skin, have
been said to have served as a cure, at least, so reports Brand.99 Millefolium
or yarrow, worn in a little bag on the pit of the stomach is reported to have
cured this disease, and Alexander of Tralles advises, for a quartan ague, that
the patient must carry about some hairs from a goat's chin.100
Elias Ashmole, in his Diary, April 11, 1681, has entered the following: "I
tooke early in the morning a good dose of Elixir, and hung three spiders
about my neck, and they drove my Ague away. Deo Gratias!"101
Wristbands, called pericarpia, were employed in the cure. Robert Boyle
says he was cured of a violent quotidian ague, after having in vain resorted
to medical aid, by applying to his wrists "a mixture of two handfuls of bay
salt, the same quantity of fresh English hops, and a quarter of a pound of
blue currants, very diligently beaten into a brittle mass, without the addition
of anything moist, and so spread upon linen and applied to his wrists."102
Burton gives us a leaf from his own experience.103 "Being in the country in
the vacation time, not many years since, at Lindly, in Leicestershire, my
father's house, I first observed this amulet of a spider in a nut-shell,
wrapped in silk, &c., so applyed for an ague by my mother; whom,
although I knew to have excellent skill in chirurgery, sore eyes, aches, &c.,
and such experimental medicines, as all the country where she dwelt can
witness, to have done many famous and good cures upon divers poor folks
that were otherwise destitute of help, yet among all other experiments, this
methought was most absurd and ridiculous. I could see no warrant for it.
Quid aranea cum Febre? For what antipathy? till at length rambling

amongst authors (as I often do), I found this very medicine in Dioscorides,
approved by Matthiolus, repeated by Aldrovandus, cap. de Aranea, lib. de
Insectis, I began to have a better opinion of it, and to give more credit to
amulets, when I saw it in some parties answer to experience."
A narrative of not a little interest, concerning Sir John Holt, Lord Chief
Justice of the Court of King's Bench, 1709, should be given in this
connection. He was extremely wild in his youth, and being once engaged
with some of his rakish friends in a trip into the country, in which they had
spent all their money, it was agreed they should try their fortune separately.
Holt arrived at an inn at the end of a straggling village, ordered his horse to
be taken care of, bespoke a supper and a bed. He then strolled into the
kitchen, where he observed a little girl of thirteen shaking with ague. Upon
making inquiry respecting her, the landlady told him that she was her only
child, and had been ill nearly a year, notwithstanding all the assistance she
could procure for her from physic. He gravely shook his head at the doctors,
bade her be under no further concern, for that her daughter should never
have another fit. He then wrote a few unintelligible words in a court hand
on a scrap of parchment, which had been the direction fixed to a hamper,
and rolling it up, directed that it should be bound upon the girl's wrist and
there allowed to remain until she was well. The ague returned no more; and
Holt, having remained in the house a week, called for his bill. "God bless
you, sir," said the old woman, "you're nothing in my debt, I'm sure. I wish,
on the contrary, that I was able to pay you for the cure which you have
made of my daughter. Oh! if I had had the happiness to see you ten months
ago, it would have saved me forty pounds." With pretended reluctance he
accepted his accommodation as a recompense, and rode away. Many years
elapsed, Holt advanced in his profession of the law, and went a circuit, as
one of the judges of the Court of King's Bench, into the same county,
where, among other criminals brought before him, was an old woman under
a charge of witchcraft. To support this accusation, several witnesses swore
that the prisoner had a spell with which she could either cure such cattle as
were sick or destroy those that were well, and that in the use of this spell
she had been lately detected, and that it was now ready to be produced in
court. Upon this statement the judge desired that it might be handed up to
him. It was a dirty ball, wrapped round with several rags, and bound with
packthread. These coverings he carefully removed, and beneath them found

a piece of parchment which he immediately recognized as his own youthful
fabrication. For a few moments he remained silent. At length, recollecting
himself, he addressed the jury to the following effect: "Gentlemen, I must
now relate a particular of my life, which very ill suits my present character
and the station in which I sit; but to conceal it would be to aggravate the
folly for which I ought to atone, to endanger innocence, and to countenance
superstition. This bauble, which you suppose to have the power of life and
death, is a senseless scroll which I wrote with my own hand and gave to this
woman, whom for no other reason you accuse as a witch." He then related
the particulars of the transaction, with such an effect upon the minds of the
people that his old landlady was the last person tried for witchcraft in that
county.104

Calculus.—Boyle tells us105 that the Lapis Nephriticus, a species of jasper,
when bound to the left wrist, was a cure for this trouble. Others have borne
evidence to its efficacy.
Childbirth.—Among the ancient Britons, when a birth was difficult or
dangerous, a girdle, made for this purpose, was put around the woman and
afforded immediate relief. Until quite recently they were kept by many
families in the Highlands of Scotland. They were marked with certain
figures and were applied with certain ceremonies derived from the Druids.
Women in labor were also supposed to be quickly delivered if they were
girded with the skin which a snake has sloughed off.106
Cholera.—Bontius declared the Lapis Porcinus to be good for cholera, but
dangerous to pregnant women. If the females of Malaica held the stone in
their hands an abortion was produced. When cholera was prevalent during
the early part of the last century, it was common in many parts of Austria,
Germany, and Italy to wear an amulet at the pit of the stomach, in contact
with the skin. Pettigrew describes one of these which was sent to him from
Hungary. "It consists merely of a circular piece of copper two inches and a
half in diameter, and is without characters."
Colic.—Says Pliny, the extremity of the intestine of the ossifrage, if worn as
an amulet, is well known to be an excellent remedy for colic. A tick from a
dog's left ear, worn as an amulet, was recommended to allay this and all
other kinds of pain, but one must be careful to take it from a dog that is

black. Alexander of Tralles recommended the heart of a lark to be fastened
to the left thigh as a remedy for colic. Mr. Cockayne, the editor of Saxon
Leechdoms, gives us further remedies for colic which Alexander prescribed.
"Thus for colic, he guarantees by his own experience, and the approval of
almost all the best doctors, dung of a wolf, with bits of bone in it if possible,
shut up in a pipe, and worn during the paroxysm, on the right arm, or thigh,
or hip, taking care it touches neither the earth or a bath."107
Cramp.—The following amulets are mentioned as specifics against cramp:

"—Wear bone Ring on thumb, or tye
Strong Pack-thread below your thigh."

The subject of cramp rings will be considered in another connection.
Demoniacal Possession.—In the sixth century exorcists frequently wrote
the formula on parchment and suspended it from the neck of the patient.
This was as efficacious as the uttered words.
Epilepsy.—The elder tree has been the foundation of many superstitions,
chief among which have been some connected with epilepsy. Blochwick108
tells us how to prepare an amulet from an elder growing on a sallow. "In the
month of October, a little before the full moon, you pluck a twig of the
elder, and cut the cane that is betwixt two of its knees, or knots, in nine
pieces, and these pieces being bound in a piece of linen, be in a thread, so
hung about the neck, that they touch the spoon of the heart, or the sword-
formed cartilage; and that they may stay more firmly in that place, they are
to be bound thereon with a linen or silken roller wrapt about the body, till
the thread break of itself. The thread being broken and the roller removed,
the amulet is not at all to be touched with bare hands, but it ought to be
taken hold on by some instrument and buried in a place that nobody may
touch it." Some hung a cross, made of the elder and the sallow entwined,
about the children's neck.
Rings of various kinds have always been supposed to have some
superstitious power. Brand109 tells us of some of their uses. A ring made
from a piece of silver collected at the communion is a cure for convulsions
and fits of every kind. If the silver is collected on Easter Sunday its efficacy
is greatly increased. This was the receipt in Berkshire, but in Devonshire
silver was not necessary. Here they prefer a ring made from three nails or
screws dug out of a church-yard, which had been used to fasten a coffin. We
are also informed that another kind of ring will cure fits. It must be made
from five sixpences collected from five different bachelors, conveyed by
the hand of a bachelor to a silversmith who is a bachelor. None of the
persons who gave the sixpences, however, are to know for what purpose, or
to whom, they gave them.110

A silver ring contributed by twelve young women, and constantly worn on
one of the pattens fingers, has been successfully employed in the cure of
epilepsy after various medical means failed.111 Lupton says: "A piece of a
child's navel-string borne in a ring is good against the falling-sickness, the
pains of the head, and the collick."112
Alexander of Tralles recommended for epilepsy a metal cross tied to the
arm, or, in lieu of that, bits of sail-cloth from a shipwrecked vessel might be
tied to the right arm and worn for seven weeks; the latter was a preventive
as well as a cure. Among the ancients, Serapion prescribed crocodile's dung
and turtle's blood as a cure for this disease.113 Lemius remarks that "Coral,
Piony, Misseltoe, drive away the falling Sicknesse, either hung about the
neck or drunk with wine."
Erysipelas.—The elder seems to have been efficacious in erysipelas as well
as in epilepsy, at least so we are told in the "Anatomie of the Elder." The
following is the method of preparing the amulet. It is to be made of "Elder
on which the sun never shined. If the piece betwixt the two knots be hung
about the patient's neck, it is much commended. Some cut it in little pieces,
and sew it in a knot in a piece of a man's shirt, which seems superstitious."
Evil-eye.—Coral was supposed to avert the baneful consequences of the
evil-eye, and Paracelsus recommends it to be worn about the necks of
children. Douce has given engravings of several Roman amulets which
were intended to be used against fascinations in general, but more
particularly against that of the evil-eye.114
Eye Diseases.—Cotta relates, so says Pettigrew, "a merrie historie of an
approved famous spell for sore eyes. By many honest testimonies it was a
long time worne as a Jewell about many necks, written in paper and
enclosed in silke, never failing to do sovereigne good when all other helpes
were helplesse. No sight might dare to reade or open. At length a curious
mind, while the patient slept, by stealth ripped open the mystical cover, and
found the powerful characters Latin: 'Diabolus effodiat tibi oculos impleat
foramina stercoribus.'"
Vivisection was practised to procure an amulet for sore eyes, according to
the following prescription: "If a man have a white spot, as cataract, in his

eye, catch a fox alive, cut his tongue out, let him go, dry his tongue and tie
it up in a red rag and hang it round the man's neck." Pliny's way was to
"take the tongue of a foxe, and hange the same about his necke, so long it
hangeth there his sight shall not wax feeble."
Like was also used to cure like, at least in the following directions: "Take
the right eye of a Frogg, lap it in a piece of russet cloth and hang it about
the neck; it cureth the right eye if it bee enflamed or bleared. And if the left
eye be greved, do the like by the left eye of the said Frogg."115
Fevers.—Charms rather than amulets were employed in fevers, yet we find
that among the ancients Chrysippus believed in amulets for quartan fevers
and Pliny taught that the longest tooth of a black dog cured quartan fevers.
Gout.—Alexander of Tralles has preserved for us a remedy for gout as
follows: "A remedy for the gout. Write, on a golden plate at the wane of the
moon, what follows, rolling round it the sinews of a crane. Put it in a little
bag, and wear it near the ankles. The words are meu, treu, mor, phor, teux,
za, zor, phe, lou, chri, ge, ze, ou, as the sun is consolidated in these names,
and is renewed every day; so consolidate this plaster as it was before, now,
now, quick, quick, for, behold, I pronounce the great name, in which are
consolidated things in repose, iaz, azuf, zuon, threux, bain, choog;
consolidate this plaster as it was at first, now, now, quick, quick."
Headache.—Pliny's amulet for this disease was an herb picked from the
head of a statue, tied with a red thread, and worn upon the body.
Hysteria.—Monardes is quoted as saying: "When hysterical persons feel an
attack coming on, they may be relieved by a stone, which will prevent, if
constantly worn about the person, any subsequent attack. From my
knowledge of cases of this kind, I attach credit to this amulet."
Melancholy.—Burton has treated much under the name of melancholy, and
in respect of cure mentions several "amulets and things to be borne about."
He recommends for head melancholy such things as hypericon, or St.
John's-wort, gathered on a Friday in the hour of Jupiter, "... borne or hung
about the neck, it mightily helps this affection, and drives away all
fantastical spirits."116

Plague.—During the visitations of the plague, the inhabitants of London
wore, in the region of the heart, amulets composed of arsenic, probably on
account of the theory that one poison would neutralize the power of the
other. Concerning this, however, Herring, in writing concerning
preservatives against the pestilence, says: "Perceiving many in this Citie to
weare about their Necks, upon the region of the Heart, certaine Placents or
Amulets, (as preservatives against the pestilence,) confected of Arsenicke,
my opinion is that they are so farre from effecting any good in that kinde, as
a preservative, that they are very dangerous and hurtfull, if not pernitious, to
those that weare them." Quills of quicksilver were commonly worn about
the neck for the same purpose, and the powder of toad was employed in a
similar way.
Pope Adrian is reported to have continually carried an amulet composed of
dried toad, arsenic, tormental, pearl, coral, hyacinth, smarag, and
tragacanth. Among the Harleian Manuscripts is a letter from Lord
Chancellor Hatton to Sir Thomas Smith written at a time of an alarming
epidemic. Among other things he writes: "I am likewise bold to recommend
my most humble duty to our dear mistress (Queen Elizabeth) by this
LETTER AND RING, which hath the virtue to expell infectious airs, and is
to be worn betwixt the sweet duggs, the chaste nest of pure constancy. I
trust, sir, when the virtue is known, it shall not be refused for the value."117
Safety from Wounds.—Pettigrew gives us the two following examples: "De
Barros, the historian, says that the Portuguese in vain attempted to destroy a
Malay so long as he wore a bracelet containing a bone set in gold, which
rendered him proof against their swords. This amulet was afterward
transmitted to the Viceroy Alfonso d'Alboquerque, as a valuable present.
"In the travels of Marco Polo, we read that in an attempt by Kublai Khan to
make a conquest of the island of Zipangu, a jealousy arose between the two
commanders of the expedition, which led to an order for putting the whole
of the inhabitants of the garrison to the sword; and that in obedience
thereto, the heads of all were cut off, excepting of eight persons, who, by
the efficacy of a diabolical charm, consisting of a jewel or amulet
introduced into the right arm, between the skin and the flesh, were rendered
secure from the effects of iron, either to kill or wound. Upon this discovery

being made, they were beaten with a heavy wooden club, and presently
died."118
Scrofula.—Lupton says: "The Root of Vervin hanged at the neck of such as
have the King's Evil, it brings a marvellous and unhoped help." To this
Brand adds: "Squire Morley of Essex used to say a Prayer which he hoped
would do no harm when he hung a bit of vervain root from a scrophulous
person's neck. My aunt Freeman had a very high opinion of a baked Toad in
a silk Bag, hung round the neck."119
Toothache.—People in North Hampshire, England, sometimes wore a tooth
taken from a corpse, kept in a bag and hung around the neck, as a remedy
for toothache.
Whooping-Cough.—About the middle of the last century there appeared the
following in the London Athenæum: "The popular belief as to the origin of
the mark across the back of the ass is mentioned by Sir Thomas Browne, in
his 'Vulgar Errors,' and from whatever cause it may have arisen it is certain
that the hairs taken from the part of the animal so marked are held in high
estimation as a cure for the hooping-cough. In this metropolis, at least so
lately as 1842, an elderly lady advised a friend who had a child dangerously
ill with that complaint, to procure three such hairs, and hang them round the
neck of the sufferer in a muslin bag. It was added that the animal from
whom the hairs are taken for this purpose is never worth anything
afterwards, and, consequently, great difficulty would be experienced in
procuring them; and further, that it was essential to the success of the charm
that the sex of the animal, from whom the hairs were to be procured, should
be the contrary to that of the party to be cured by them."
The Worcester Journal (England), in one of its issues for 1845, had this
astounding item: "A party from the city, being on a visit to a friend who
lived at a village about four miles distant, had occasion to go into the
cottage of a poor woman, who had a child afflicted with the hooping-cough.
In reply to some inquiries as to her treatment of the child, the mother
pointed to its neck, on which was a string fastened, having nine knots tied
in it. The poor woman stated that it was the stay-lace of the child's
godmother which, if applied exactly in that manner about the neck, would
be sure to charm away the most troublesome cough! Thus it may be seen

that, with all the educational efforts of the present day, the monster
Superstition still lurks here and there in his caves and secret places."120
We find that not only human beings but animals profited by amulets. An
amulet is used in the cure of a blind horse which could hardly have helped
on the cure by his faith in it. "The root of cut Malowe hanged about the
neck driveth away blemishes of the eyen, whether it be in a man or a horse,
as I, Jerome of Brunsweig, have seene myselfe. I have myselfe done it to a
blind horse that I bought for X crounes, and was sold agayn for XL
crounes."121 That was a trick worth knowing.
Brockett tells us that "Holy-stones, or holed-stones, are hung on the heads
of horses as a charm against Diseases—such as sweat in their stalls are
supposed to be cured by this application." The efficacy of the elder also
extended to animals, for a lame pig was formerly cured by boring a hole in
his ear and putting a small peg into it. We are also told that "wood night-
shade, or bitter-sweet, being hung about the neck of Cattell that have the
Staggers, helpeth them."
89 T. J. Pettigrew, Superstitions Connected with ... Medicine and Surgery, pp. 51
and 66 f.
90 R. Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, pt. II, sec. V.
91 J. Brand, Popular Antiquities, III, pp. 281 f.
92 T. J. Pettigrew, Superstitions Connected with ... Medicine and Surgery, p. 70.
93 G. F. Fort, History of Medical Economy During the Middle Ages, pp. 94-100.
94 T. J. Pettigrew, Superstitions Connected with ... Medicine and Surgery, pp. 74
f.
95 J. Brand, Popular Antiquities, III, pp. 278 f.
96 E. Berdoe, Origin and Growth of the Healing Art, pp. 262 f.
97 T. J. Pettigrew, Superstitions Connected with ... Medicine and Surgery, pp. 68
f.
98 G. F. Fort, History of Medical Economy During the Middle Ages, p. 182.
99 J. Brand, Popular Antiquities, III, p. 242.
100 E. Berdoe, Origin and Growth of the Healing Art, p. 252.
101 E. A. King, "Medieval Medicine," Nineteenth Century, XXXIV, p. 147.
102 R. Boyle, Usefulness of Natural Philosophy, II, p. 157.

103 R. Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, pt. II, sec. V.
104 T. J. Pettigrew, Superstitions Connected with ... Medicine and Surgery, pp.
96-98.
105 R. Boyle, Usefulness of Natural Philosophy, Works II, p. 156.
106 E. Berdoe, The Origin and Growth of the Healing Art, pp. 257 and 259.
107 Ibid., pp. 251 f and 254.
108 Anatomie of the Elder, p. 52.
109 J. Brand, Popular Antiquities, III, p. 231.
110 Gentleman's Magazine, 1794, p. 889.
111 London Medical and Physical Journal, 1815.
112 Book of Notable Things, p. 92.
113 E. Berdoe, Origin and Growth of the Healing Art, pp. 253 f and 256.
114 Illustrations of Shakespeare, I, p. 493.
115 E. A. King, "Medieval Medicine," Nineteenth Century, XXXIV, p. 147.
116 R. Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, pt. II, sec. V.
117 T. J. Pettigrew, Superstitions Connected with ... Surgery and Medicine, p. 91.
118 Ibid., p. 79.
119 J. Brand, Popular Antiquities, III, p. 256.
120 Ibid., III, p. 238.
121 E. A. King, "Medieval Medicine," Nineteenth Century, XXXIV, p. 148.

CHAPTER VIII

CHARMS

"With the charmes that she saide,
A fire down fro' the sky alight."—Gower.

"She drew a splinter from the wound,
And with a charm she staunch'd the blood."—Scott.

"Thrice on my breast I spit to guard me safe

From fascinating Charms."—Theocritus.

"Mennes fortunes she can tell;
She can by sayenge her Ave Marye,
And by other Charmes of Sorcerye,
Ease men of the Toth ake by and bye
Yea, and fatche the Devyll from Hell."—Bale.
"I clawed her by the backe in way of a charme,
To do me not the more good, but the less harme."—Heywood

Charms, as already noticed, are not unlike amulets in significance and
similarity of power. The amulet must consist of some material substance so
as to be suspended when employed, but the charm may be a word, gesture,
look, or condition, as well as a material substance, and does not need to be
attached to the body. The word "charm" is derived from the Latin word
"carmen," signifying a verse in which the charms were sometimes written,
examples of which will be given later. The medical term "carminative," a
comforting medicine, really means a charm medicine, and has the same
derivation.
A charm has been defined as "a form of words or letters, repeated or
written, whereby strange things are pretended to be done, beyond the
ordinary power of nature." It can be seen, though, that this definition is not
sufficiently comprehensive.
For ages, people have had great faith in odd numbers. They have often been
used as charms and for medicine. Some one says: "Some philosophers are
of opinion that all things are composed of number, prefer the odd before the
other, and attribute to it a great efficacy and perfection, especially in matters
of physic: wherefore it is that many doctors prescribed always an odd pill,
an odd draught, or drop to be taken by their patients. For the perfection
thereof they allege these following numbers: as 7 Planets, 7 wonders of the
World, 9 Muses, 3 Graces, God is 3 in 1, &c." Ravenscroft, in his comedy
of "Mammamouchi or the Citizen Turned Gentleman," makes Trickmore as
a physician say: "Let the number of his bleedings and purgations be odd,
numero Deus impare gaudet" [God delights in an odd number].
Nine is the number consecrated by Buddhism; three is sacred among
Brahminical and Christian people. Pythagoras held that the unit or monad is
the principle and end of all. One is a good principle. Two, or the dyad, is the

origin of contrasts and separation, and is an evil principle. Three, or the
triad, is the image of the attributes of God. Four, or the tetrad, is the most
perfect of numbers and the root of all things. It is holy by nature. Five, or
the pentad, is everything; it stops the power of poisons, and is dreaded by
evil spirits. Six is a fortunate number. Seven is powerful for good or evil,
and is a sacred number. Eight is the first cube, so is man four-square or
perfect. Nine, as the multiple of three, is sacred. Ten, or the decade, is the
measure of all it contains, all the numerical relations and harmonies.122
Cornelius Agrippa wrote on the power of numbers, which he declares is
asserted by nature herself; thus the herb called cinquefoil, or five-leafed
grass, resists poison, and bans devils by virtue of the number five; one leaf
of it taken in wine twice a day cures the quotidian, three the tertian, four the
quartan fever.123
The seventh son of a seventh son was supposed to be an infallible physician
as the following quotations would indicate: "The seventh son of a seventh
son is born a physician; having an intuitive knowledge of the art of curing
all disorders, and sometimes the faculty of performing wonderful cures by
touching only." "Plusieurs croyent qu'en France, les septièmes garçons, nez
de légitimes mariages, sans que la suitte des sept ait esté interrompue par la
naissance d'aucune fille, peuvent aussi guérir des fièvres tierces, des fièvres
quartes, at mesme des écrouelles, après avoir jeûné trois ou neuf jours avant
que de toucher les malades. Mais ils font trop de fond sur le nombre
septenaire, en attribuant au septième garçon, préférablement à tous autres,
une puissance qu'il y a autant de raison d'attribuer au sixième ou au
huitième, sur le nombre de trois, et sur celuy de neuf, pour ne pas s'engager
dans la superstition. Joint que de trois que je connois de ces septième
garçons il y en a deux qui ne guérissent de rien, et que le troisieme m'a
avoué de bonne foy, qu'il avoit eu autrefois la reputation de guérir de
quantité des maux, quoique en effet il n'ait jamais guery d'aucun. C'est
pourquoy Monsieur du Laurent a grande raison de rejetter ce prétendu
pouvoir, et de la mettre au rang des fables, en ce qui concerne la guérison
des écrouelles."124
Charms were used to avert evil and counteract supposed malignant
influences of all kinds, but it is in their connection with diseases of the body
that we are chiefly interested. There is scarcely a disease for which a charm

has not been given, but it will be seen that those which are most affected by
charms are principally derangements of the nervous system, or those
periodical in character—diseases, in fact, which have proved to be most
easily influenced by suggestion.
Charms might be of the most varied composition. The material was selected
from the animal, vegetable, or mineral kingdom, and might consist of
anything to which any magical property was considered to belong. Rags,
old clothes, pins, and needles were frequently employed in this way. Sir
Walter Scott had in his possession a pretended charm taken from an old
woman who was said to charm and injure her neighbor's cattle. It consisted
of feathers, parings of nails, hair, and similar material, wrapped in a lump of
clay.
The theory of similia similibus curantur seems to have entered into
mediæval medicine, and especially into the manufacture of charms. The
following prescriptions are examples: "The skin of a Raven's heel is good
against gout, but the right heel skin must be laid upon the right foot if that
be gouty, and the left upon the left.... If you would have man become bold
or impudent let him carry about with him the skin or eyes of a Lion or
Cock, and he will be fearless of his enemies, nay, he will be very terrible
unto them. If you would have him talkative, give him tongues, and seek out
those of water frogs and ducks and such creatures notorious for their
continuall noise making."125
King also tells us that "Hartes fete, Does Fete, Bulles fete, or any ruder
beastes fete should ofte be eaten; the same confort the sinewes. The elder
these beastes be, the more they strengthen." It is noticeable that not age but
youth is now honored, and to-day only calves' feet are accorded medicinal
value.

Fort126 gives the following account of the origin of cabbalism: "Towards
the close of the fourth century an unknown scholiast collected the
exegetical elucidations, explanations and interpretations produced by the
Gemara, and united them to the Mishna, as a commentary out of which
arose the Talmud. The word 'cabbala,' whose original significance was used
in the sense of reception, or transmission, obtained at a later period the
meaning of secret lore, because the metaphysical and theosophic idealities

which had been developed in the Rabbinical schools, were communicated
only to a few, and consequently remained the undisputed property of a
limited and close organization." From this there developed a varied and
complicated system of words and numbers which showed their power in all
forms of magical marvels. Not the least common or puissant of these was
the healing of the sick.
Knots were sometimes used as charms, and Cockayne gives us an example
in the preface of Saxon Leechdoms: "As soon as a man gets pain in his eyes,
tie in unwrought flax as many knots as there are letters in his name,
pronouncing them as you go, and tie it round his neck."
Long before and long after New Testament days when Jesus used spittle on
the blind, and the time when Vespasian healed the blind by the same means,
spittle was considered a most efficacious remedy for various diseases.
Levinus Lemnius tells us: "Divers experiments shew what power and
quality there is in Man's fasting Spittle, when he hath neither eat nor drunk
before the use of it: for it cures all tetters, itch, scabs, pushes, and creeping
sores: and if venomous little beasts have fastened on any part of the body,
as hornets, beetles, toads, spiders, and such like, that by their venome cause
tumours and great pains and inflammations, do but rub the place with
fasting Spittle, and all those effects will be gone and dispersed. Since the
qualities and effects of Spittle come from the humours, (for out of them is it
drawn by the faculty of Nature, as Fire draws distilled Water from hearbs)
the reason may be easily understood why Spittle should do such strange
things, and destroy some creatures."127
In Saxon Leechdoms a cure for gout runs thus: "Before getting out of bed in
the morning, spit on your hand, rub all your sinuews, and say, 'Flee, gout,
flee,' etc." Sir Thomas Browne, however, is not quite sure that fasting spittle
really is poisonous to snakes and vipers.
Alexander of Tralles tells us that even Galen did homage to incantations,
and quotes him as saying: "Some think that incantations are like old wives'
tales; as I did for a long while. But at last I was convinced that there is
virtue in them by plain proofs before my eyes. For I had trial of their
beneficial operations in the case of those scorpion-stung, nor less in the case

of bones stuck fast in the throat, immediately, by an incantation thrown up.
And many of them are excellent, severally, and they reach their mark."
Even before our day, however, there were some sceptics. Andrews, quoting
Reginald Scot, says: "The Stories which our facetious author relates of
ridiculous Charms which, by the help of credulity, operated Wonders, are
extremely laughable. In one of them a poor Woman is commemorated who
cured all diseases by muttering a certain form of Words over the party
afflicted; for which service she always received one penny and a loaf of
bread. At length, terrified by menaces of flames both in this world and the
next, she owned that her whole conjuration consisted in these potent lines,
which she always repeated in a low voice near the head of her patient:
'Thy loaf in my hand,
And thy penny in my purse,
Thou art never the better—
And I am never the worse.'"

Lord Northampton quite fittingly inquires: "What godly reason can any
Man alyve alledge why Mother Joane of Stowe, speaking these wordes, and
neyther more nor lesse,
'Our Lord was the fyrst Man,
That ever Thorne prick'd upon:
It never blysted nor it never belted,
And I pray God, nor this not may,'

should cure either Beasts, or Men and Women from Diseases?"128
Perhaps it would be well for us to treat the subject of charms as we have
that of amulets, and present the different charms under the heading of the
diseases which they were supposed to cure.
Ague.—Many charms were given for this disease, some of which seem to
us to-day most ridiculous. Brand gives a quotation from the Life of Nicholas
Mooney who was a notorious highwayman, executed with others at Bristol,
in 1752. It is as follows: "After the cart drew away, the hangman very
deservedly had his head broke for attempting to pull off Mooney's shoes;
and a fellow had like to have been killed in mounting the gallows to take
away the ropes that were left after the malefactors were cut down. A young
woman came fifteen miles for the sake of the rope from Mooney's neck,

which was given to her, it being by many apprehended that the halter of an
executed person will charm away the ague and perform many other cures."
Pettigrew relates that "In Skippon's account of a 'Journey through the Low
Countries,' he makes mention of the lectures of Ferrarius and his narrative
of the cure of the ague of a Spanish lieutenant, by writing the words
FEBRA FUGE, and cutting off a letter from the paper every day, and he
observed the distemper to abate accordingly; when he cut the letter F last of
all the ague left him. In the same year, he says, fifty more were reported to
be cured in the same manner."
Another charm for ague was only effective when said up the chimney on St.
Agnes Eve, by the eldest female of the family. It was as follows:
"Tremble and go!
First day shiver and burn.
Tremble and quake!
Second day shiver and learn:
Tremble and die!
Third day never return."129

Pliny said: "Any plant gathered from the bank of a brook or river before
sunrise, provided that no one sees the person who gathers it, is considered
as a remedy for tertian ague." Lodge, in glancing at the superstitious creed
with respect to charms, says: "Bring him but a Table of Lead, with Crosses
(and 'Adonai,' or 'Elohim,' written in it), and he thinks it will heal his ague."
Mr. Marsden, while among the Sumatrans, accidentally met with the
following charm for the ague: "(Sign of the cross.) When Christ saw the
cross he trembled and shaked and they said unto him, hast thou ague? and
he said unto them, I have neither ague nor fever; and whosoever bears these
words, either in writing or in mind, shall never be troubled with ague or
fever. So help thy servants, O Lord, who put their trust in thee!"
From Douce's notes, Mr. Brand informs us that it was usual with many
persons about Exeter who had ague "to visit at dead of night the nearest
cross road five different times, and there bury a new-laid egg. The visit is
paid about an hour before the cold fit is expected; and they are persuaded
that with the Egg they shall bury the Ague. If the experiment fail, (and the
agitation it occasions may often render it successful) they attribute it to

some unlucky accident that may have befallen them on the way. In the
execution of this matter they observe the strictest silence, taking care not to
speak to anyone, whom they may happen to meet. I shall here note another
Remedy against the Ague mentioned as above, viz., by breaking a salted
Cake of Bran and giving it to a Dog, when the fit comes on, by which
means they suppose the malady to be transferred from them to the
Animal."130 This and similar methods were designated transplantation.
Bites of Venomous Animals.—It is an old medical superstition that every
animal whose bite is poisonous carries the cure within itself, but external
charms were also used. It was thought that the poison of the Spanish fly
existed in the body, while the head and wings contained the antidote. "A
hair of the dog that bites you" is the cure for hydrophobia, the fat of the
viper was the remedy for its bite, and "three scruples of the ashes of the
witch, when she had been well and carefully burnt at a stake, is a sure
catholicon against all the evil effects of witchcraft."131
Serpents' bites, which were always considered very dangerous, were said to
be healed by people called sauveurs, who had a mark of St. Catharine's
wheel upon their palates. Snake stones, originally brought from Java, were
supposed to absorb the poison by being simply placed over the bite. Russel
mentions a charm against mosquitoes, used in Aleppo. It consisted of
certain unintelligible characters inscribed on a little slip of paper, which was
pasted over the windows or upon the lintel of the door. One family has
obtained, through heredity, the power of making these charms, and they
distribute them on a certain day of the year without remuneration.
Navarette was told that the best remedy against scorpions was to make a
commemoration of St. George when going to bed. This, he says, never
failed, but he also rubbed the bed with garlic. The following is given as a
cure for the sting of the scorpion: "The patient is to sit on an ass, with his
face to the tail of the animal, by which the pain will be transmitted from the
man to the beast." Or again, a person who was bitten by either a tarantulla
or a mad dog must go nine times round the town on the Sabbath, calling
upon and imploring the assistance of the saint. On the third night—the
prayers being heard and granted, and the health restored—the madness was
removed. The prayer was as follows:

"Thou who presidest over the Apulian shores,
Thou who curest the bites of mad dogs,
Thou, O Sacred One, ward off this cruel plague,
Get thee far hence, O madness, O fury."132

Burns.—The following is "A Charme for a burning":
"There came three angels out of the east;
The one brought fire, the two brought frost—
Out fire; in frost;
In the name of the Father, and Son, and Holy Ghost.
—Amen."133

Childbirth.—Many superstitious practices have grown up around this
condition. In 1554, Bonner, Bishop of London, forbade "a mydwife of his
diocese to exercise any witchecrafte, charmes, sorcerye, invocations, or
praiers, other than such as be allowable and may stand with the lawes and
ordinances of the Catholike Church." In 1559, the first year of the reign of
Queen Elizabeth, an inquiry was instituted "whether you knowe any that
doe use charmes, sorcery, enchauntementes, invocations, circles,
witchecraftes, southsayinge, or any lyke craftes or imaginacions invented
by the devyl, and specially in the tyme of woman's travaylle." Two years
before this, the midwives took an oath among themselves, so Strype tells us,
not to "suffer any other bodies' child to be set, brought, or laid before any
woman delivered of child in the place of her natural child, so far forth as I
can know and understand. Also I will not use any kind of sorcerye or
incantation in the time of the travail of any woman."
The eagle stone and iris were supposed to promote an easy delivery, and the
sardonyx was laid inter mammas to procure an easy birth; a sardonyx
formerly belonged to the monastery of St. Albans to be used for this
purpose. In some countries, during childbirth, the men lie in, keep their
beds, and are attended as if really sick, sometimes as long as six weeks.134
Chorea.—Of all the charms against this disease, St. Vitus' dance, none
seemed so effectual as an application to the saint. In the translation of
Naogeorgus, Barnabe Googe says:
"The nexte is VITUS sodde in oyle, before whose ymage faire
Both men and women bringing hennes for offring doe repaire:
The cause whereof I doe not know, I think, for some disease

Which he is thought to drive away from such as him doe please."

Colic.—This disorder was cured by a person drinking the water in which he
had washed his feet; we might well consider the cure worse than the
disease.

Consumption.—Shaw135 speaks of a cure for consumptive diseases used in
his time in Moray. "They pared the Nails of the Fingers and Toes of the
Patient, put these Parings into a Rag cut from his clothes, then waved their
Hand with the Rag thrice round his head crying Deas soil, after which they
buried the Rag in some unknown place." Dr. Baas136 declares that natural
pills of rabbit's dung were in use on the Rhine as a cure for consumption.
"There is a disease," says the minister of Logierait, writing in 1795, "called
Glacach by the Highlanders, which, as it affects the chest and lungs, is
evidently of a consumptive nature. It is called Macdonald's disease,
'because there are particular tribes of Macdonalds, who were believed to
cure it with the Charms of their touch, and the use of a certain set of words.
There must be no fee given of any kind. Their faith in the touch of a
Macdonald is very great.'"137
Cramp.—Among the many charms for cramp, the following is taken from
Pepys' Diary:138
"Cramp be thou faintless,
As our Lady was sinless
When she bare Jesus."

Demoniacal Possession.—To know when a person is possessed, try the
following, says King: "Take the harte and liver of a fysshe called a Pyck,
and put them into a pot wyth glowynge hot coles, and hold the same to the
patient so that the smoke may entre into hym. If he is possessed he cannot
abyde that smoke, but rageth and is angry." "It is good also to make a fyre
in hys chamber of Juniper wood, and caste into the fire Franckincense and
S. John's wort, for the evill spirits cannot abyde thys sent, and Waxe angry,
whereby may be perceived whether a man be possessed or not."139 I am
afraid that possession would be sadly common if either of these tests were
applied.

Dislocation.—Among the oldest charms we have is one given by Cato the
Censor for the reduction of a dislocated limb, and passed on to us by
Pettigrew.
"A dislocation may be cured by this charm. Take a reed four or five feet
long; cut it in the middle, and let two men hold the points towards each
other for insertion. While this is doing repeat these words: In Alio S. F.
Motas vœta, Daries Dardaries Astataries Dissunapitur. Now jerk a piece of
iron upon the reeds at their juncture, and cut right and left. Bind them to the
dislocation or fracture, and it will effect a cure."140
Dropsy.—Toads were formed into a powder called Pulvis Æthiopicus, the
mode of preparation being given in Bates's Pharmacopœia. This powder
was used externally, and also given internally in cases of dropsy and other
diseases.
Epilepsy.—The liver of a dead athlete was a sovereign remedy against
epilepsy in early days. In Lincolnshire a portion of a human skull taken
from a grave was grated and given to epileptics as a cure for fits, and the
water in which a corpse had been washed was given to a man in Glasgow
for the same purpose.141 Another remedy was also proposed: "If a man be
greved wyth the fallinge sicknesse, let him take a he-Wolves harte and
make it to pouder and use it: but if it be a woman, let her take a she-Wolves
harte."142
John of Gladdesden, who was court physician from 1305-1317, spoke thus
concerning epilepsy: "Because there are many children and others afflicted
with the epilepsy, who cannot take medicines, let the following experiment
be tried, which I have found to be effectual, whether the patient was a
demoniac, a lunatic, or an epileptic. When the patient and his parents have
fasted three days, let them conduct him to church. If he be of a proper age,
and of his right senses, let him confess. Then let him hear Mass on Friday,
and also on Saturday. On Sunday let a good and religious priest read over
the head of the patient, in the church, the gospel which is read in September,
in the time of vintage, after the feast of the Holy Cross. After this, let the
priest write the same gospel devoutly, and let the patient wear it about his
neck, and he shall be cured. The gospel is, 'This kind goeth not out but by
prayer and fasting.'"143

Among some African tribes the foot of an elk is considered a splendid
remedy against epilepsy. One foot only of each animal possesses virtue, and
the way to ascertain the valuable foot is to "knock the beast down, when he
will immediately lift up that leg which is most efficacious to scratch his ear.
Then you must be ready with a sharp scymitar to lop off the medicinal limb,
and you shall find an infallible remedy against the falling sickness treasured
up in his claws." The American Indians and mediæval Norwegians also
considered this a sure remedy. The person afflicted, however, must apply it
to his heart, hold it in his left hand, and rub his ear with it.144
Evil-eye.—Children were supposed to be most susceptible to the evil-eye.
Charms and amulets were furnished against fascination in general. Certain
figures in bronze, coral, ivory, etc., representing a closed hand with the
thumb thrust out between the first and second fingers called the fig, were
common. In Henry IV, Part II, Pistol says:
"When Pistol lies, do this; and fig me, like
The bragging Spaniard."

Eye Diseases.—Among the early Germans, ambulatory female medicists
were not uncommon, and they cured largely through charms. The following
is a charm used for eye diseases:
"Three maidens once going
On a verdant highway;
One could cure blindness,
Another cured cataract,
Third cured inflammation;
But all cured by one means."145

Fevers.—This charm was used for fever: "Wryt thys Wordys on a lorell
lef♰Ysmael♰Ysmael♰ adjuro vos per Angelum ut soporetur iste Homo N.
and ley thys lef under hys head that he wete not therof, and let hym ete
Letuse oft and drynk Ip'e seed smal grounden in a morter, and temper yt
with Ale."146
"The fever," says Werenfels, "he will not drive away by medicines, but,
what is a more certain remedy, having pared his nails and tied them to a
crayfish, he will turn his back, and as Deucalion did the stones from which
a new progeny of men arose, throw them behind him into the next river."147

The "Leech book"148 says that for typhus fever the patient is to drink of a
decoction of herbs over which many masses have been sung, then say the
names of the four "gospellers" and a charm and a prayer. Again, a man is to
write a charm in silence, and just as silently put the words in his left breast
and take care not to go in-doors with the writing upon him, the words being
EMMANUEL VERONICA. The Loseley MSS. prescribe the following for
all manner of fevers: "Take iii drops of a woman's mylke yt norseth a knave
childe, and do it in a hennes egge that ys sedentere (or sitting), and let hym
suppe it up when the evyl takes hym."
Goitre.—The dew collected from the grave of the last man buried in a
church-yard has been used as a lotion for goitre, and a correspondent of
Notes and Queries for May 24, 1851, furnishes two remedies then in use at
Withyam, Sussex. "A common snake, held by its head and tail, is slowly
drawn by someone standing by nine times across the front part of the neck
of the person affected, the reptile being allowed, after every third time, to
crawl about for awhile. Afterwards the snake is put alive in a bottle, which
is corked tightly, and then buried in the ground. The tradition is, that as the
snake decays, the swelling vanishes. The second mode of treatment is just
the same as the above, with the exception of the snake's doom. In this case
it is kidded, and its skin, sewn in a piece of silk, is worn round the diseased
neck. By degrees the swelling in this case also disappears."
Headache.—In Brand's day, the rope which remained after a man had been
hanged and cut down was an object of eager competition, being regarded as
of great virtue in attacks of headache, and Gross says: "Moss growing on a
human skull, if dried, powdered, and taken as snuff, will cure the Headach."
Loadstone was also recommended as a sovereign remedy for this malady.
Pliny said that any person might be immediately cured of the headache by
the application of any plant which has grown on the head of a statue,
provided it be folded in the shred of a garment, and tied to the part affected
with a red string.
Hemorrhage.—The following charm has been used to stop bleeding at the
nose and other hemorrhages:
"In the blood of Adam Sin was taken,
In the blood of Christ it was all shaken,
And by the same blood I do the charge,

That the blood of (insert name) run no longer at large."

Pepys in his Diary gives us a Latin charm of which the following is a
translation:
"Blood remain in Thee,
As Christ was in himself;
Blood remain in thy veins,
As Christ in his pains;
Blood remain fixed,
As Christ was on the crucifix."

Brand, the historian of Orkney, says: "They have a charm whereby they
stop excessive bleeding in any, whatever way they come by it, whether by
or without external violence. The name of the Patient being sent to the
Charmer, he saith over some words, (which I heard,) upon which the blood
instantly stoppeth, though the bleeding Patient were at the greatest distance
from the Charmer. Yea, upon the saying of these words, the blood will stop
in the bleeding throats of oxen or sheep, to the astonishment of Spectators.
Which account we had from the Ministers of the Country."
Boyle says: "Having been one summer frequently subject to bleeding at the
nose, and reduced to employ several remedies to check that distemper; that
which I found the most effectual to stanch the blood was some moss of a
dead man's skull, (sent for a present out of Ireland, where it is far less rare
than in most other countries,) though it did but touch my skin, till the herb
was a little warmed by it."149
Brand gives "A charme to staunch blood: Jesus that was in Bethleem born,
and baptyzed was in the flumen Jordane, as stente the water at hys comyng,
so stente the blood of thys man N. thy servvaunt, thorw the virtu of thy holy
Name ♰ Jesu ♰ & of thy Cosyn swete Sent Jon. And sey thys charme fyve
tymes with fyve Pater Nosters, in the worschep of the fyve woundys."150
"In the year 1853," says Berdoe, "I saw among the more precious drugs in
the shop of a pharmaceutical chemist at Leamington a bottle labelled in the
ordinary way with the words, Moss from a Dead-Man's Skull. This has long
been used, superstitiously, dried, powdered, and taken as snuff, for
headache and bleeding at the nose."

Herpes.—Turner151 notices a prevalent charm among old women for the
shingles, and which is not uncommonly heard of to-day. It was to smear on
the affected part the blood from a black cat's tail. He says that in the only
case when he saw it used it caused considerable mischief.
Incubus.—Stones with holes through them were commonly called hag-
stones, and were often attached to the key of the stable door to prevent
witches riding the horses. One of these suspended at the head of the bed
was celebrated for the prevention of nightmare. In the "Leech book"152 we
find the following: "If a mare or hag ride a man, take lupins, garlic, and
betony, and frankincense, bind them on a fawn skin, let a man have the
worts on him, and let him go into his house." Notice the following from
Lluellin's poems:
"Some the night-mare hath prest
With that weight on their brest,
No returnes of their breath can passe,
But to us the tale is addle,
We can take off her saddle,
And turn out the night-mare to grasse."

Insomnia.—In the Loseley MSS. we find a receipt "For hym that may not
slepe. Take and wryte yese wordes into leves of lether: Ismael! Ismael!
adjuro te per Angelum Michaelum ut soporetur homo iste; and lay this
under his bed, so yt he wot not yerof and use it allway lytell, and lytell, as
he have nede yerto."
Jaundice.—This disease was sometimes cured by transplantation, and
Paracelsus gives us a method for carrying this out. Make seven or nine—it
must be an odd number—cakes of the newly emitted and warm urine of the
patient with the ashes of ash wood, and bury them for some days in a
dunghill.
In the journal of Dr. Edward Browne, transmitted to his father, Sir Thomas
Browne, we read of a magical cure for jaundice: "Burne wood under a
leaden vessel filled with water; take the ashes of that wood, and boyle it
with the patient's urine; then lay nine long heaps of the boyled ashes upon a
board in a ranke, and upon every heap lay nine spears of crocus: it hath
greater effects than is credible to any one that shall barely read this receipt
without experiencing."153

Madness.—The early inhabitants of Cornwall used "to place the disordered
in mind on the brink of a square pool, filled with water from St. Nun's well.
The patient, having no intimation of what was intended, was, by a sudden
blow on the breast, tumbled into the pool, where he was tossed up and
down by some persons of superior strength till, being quite debilitated, his
fury forsook him; he was then carried to church, and certain masses were
sung over him. A similar practice of the people of Perthshire is noticed by
Sir Walter Scott in Marmion.
"Thence to St. Fillan's blessed well,
Whose spring can frenzied dreams dispel,
And the crazed brain restore."

Marasmus.—Mr. Boyle relates the case of a physician whose wan face
betokened a marasmus, and who was induced to try a method not unlike the
sympathetic cures. "He took an egg and boiled it hard in his own warm
urine; he then with a bodkin perforated the shell in many places, and buried
it in an ant-hill, where it was kept to be devoured by the emmets; and as
they wasted the egg, he found his distemper to abate and his strength to
increase, insomuch that his disease left him."154
Rickets.—The most common method of dealing with this disease was by
drawing the children through a split tree. The tree was afterward bound up
and, as it healed and grew together, the children acquired strength; at least,
so 'twas said. Sir John Cullum saw the operation performed and says that
the ash tree was selected as most preferable for the purpose. "It was split
longitudinally about five feet: the fissure was kept open by the gardener,
whilst the friend of the child, having first stripped him naked, passed him
thrice through it, almost head foremost. This accomplished, the tree was
bound up with packthread, and as the bark healed, so it was said the child
would recover. One of the cases was of rickets, the other a rupture."
Drawing the children through a perforated stone was also a cure for rickets,
providing that two brass pins were carefully laid across each other on the
top edge of this stone.155
Sciatica.—Sleeping on stones on a particular night was formerly practised
in Cornwall to cure all forms of lameness. Boneshave was the term used for
sciatica in Exmoor, where the following charm was used for its cure: The
patient must lie on his back on the bank of a river or brook, having a

straight staff lying by his side between him and the water, and must have
the following words repeated over him:
"Boneshave right,
Boneshave straight.
As the water runs by the stave
Good for Boneshave."156

Scrofula.—Scrofula, or "king's-evil," was best cured by the touch of the
sovereign, but, if this could not be accomplished, a naked virgin could cure
it, especially if she spit three times upon it. Stroking the affected parts nine
times with the hand of a dead man, particularly of one who had suffered a
violent death as a penalty of his crime, especially if it be murder, was long
practised, and was said to be efficacious in curing scrofula.

Sweating Sickness.—Aubrey157 gives a selection of the favorite
prescriptions in use against the sweating sickness. Among them was the
following: "Another very true medicine.—For to say every day at seven
parts of your body, seven paternosters, and seven Ave Marias, with one
Credo at the last. Ye shall begyn at the ryght syde, under the right ere,
saying the 'paternoster qui es in coelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum,' with a
cross made there with your thumb, and so say the paternoster full complete,
and one Ave Maria, and then under the left ere, and then under the left
armhole, and then under the left hole, and then the last at the heart, with one
paternoster, Ave Maria with one Credo; and these thus said daily, with the
grace of God is there no manner drede hym."
Thorns.—Three metrical charms have been used for troubles of this kind.
Pepys' Diary records "A charme for a thorne":
"Jesus, that was of a Virgin Born,
Was pricked both with nail and thorn;
It neither wealed, nor belled, rankled nor boned;
In the name of Jesus no more shall this."

Another form of the same is this:
"Christ was of a Virgin born,
And he was pricked with a thorn;
It did neither bell, nor swell;
And I trust in Jesus this never will."

Brand gives another thus:
"Unto the Virgin Mary our Saviour was born,
And on his head he wore the crown of thorn;
If you believe this true and mind it well,
This hurt will never fester, nor yet swell."158

Toothache.—King in his interesting article recites this cure: "Seeth as many
little green frogges sitting upon trees as thou canst get, in water: take the fat
flowynge from them, and when nede is, anoynt the teth therwyth. The graye
worms breathing under wood or stone, having many fete, these perced
through with a bodken and then put into the toth, alayeth the payne."159 A
nail driven into an oak tree is reported to be a cure for this pain, and bones
from a church-yard have from ancient times been used as charms against
this disease.
An early idea was that toothache was caused by a worm and that henbane
seed roasted would cure it. The following from "The School of Salerne"
formulates this superstition:
"If in your teeth you hap to be tormented,
By meane some little wormes therein do breed,
Which pain (if heed be tane) may be prevented,
Be keeping cleane your teeth, when as you feede;
Burne Francomsence (a gum not evil sented),
Put Henbane unto this, and Onyon seed,
And with a tunnel to the tooth that's hollow,
Convey the smoke thereof, and ease shall follow."

Even to-day, I suppose, druggists sell henbane seed for this purpose. The
seed is used by sprinkling it on hot cinders and holding the open mouth
over the rising smoke. The heat causes the seed to sprout, and thus there
appears something similar to a maggot, which is ignorantly supposed by the
sufferer to have dropped from the tooth.160
Warts.—The cures for warts are many and varied. There have been many
charms devised for their removal. Grose gives directions to "Steal a piece of
beef from a butcher's shop, and rub your wart with it, then throw it down
the necessary house, or bury it, and as the beef rots, your warts will
decay."161 Some have great faith in having a vagrant count them, mark the
number on the inside of his hat, and then when he leaves the neighborhood

he takes the warts with him. Coffin water was also considered good for
them.
"For warts," says Sir Thomas Browne, "we rub our hands before the moon,
and commit any magulated part to the touch of the dead. Old Women were
always famous for curing warts; they were so in Lucian's time."162
Sir Kenelm Digby, in a work already referred to, says: "One would think
that it were folly that one should offer to wash his hands in a well-polished
silver basin, wherein there is not a drop of water, yet this may be done by
the reflection of the moonbeams only, which will afford it a competent
humidity to do it; but they who have tried it, have found their hands, after
they are wiped, to be much moister than usually; but this is an infallible
way to take away warts from the hands, if it be often used."
Black gives us several ways of charming away warts. He says: "Lancashire
wise men tell us for warts to rub them with a cinder, and this tied up in
paper, and dropped where four roads meet, will transfer the warts to
whoever opens the parcel. Another mode of transferring warts is to touch
each wart with a pebble, and place the pebbles in a bag, which should be
lost on the way to church; whoever finds the bag gets the warts." A common
Warwickshire custom was to rub the warts with a black snail, stick the snail
on a thorn bush, and then, say the folks, as the snail dies so will the wart
disappear.163
Warts, on the other hand, seem in certain cases to be considered lucky. In
"Syr Gyles Goosecappe, Knight," a play of 1606, Lord Momford is made to
say: "The Creses here are excellent good: the proportion of the chin good;
the little aptnes of it to sticke out; good. And the wart aboue it most
exceeding good."
Wen.—A newspaper of 1777 reports: "After he (Doctor Dodd) had hung
about ten minutes, a very decently dressed young woman went up to the
gallows in order to have a wen in her face stroked by the Doctor's hand; it
being a received opinion among the vulgar that it is a certain cure for such a
disorder. The executioner, having untied the Doctor's hand, stroked the part
affected several times therewith."

At the execution of Crowley, a murderer of Warwick, in 1845, a similar
scene is described in the newspapers: "At least five thousand persons of the
lowest of the low were mustered on this occasion to witness the dying
moments of the unhappy culprit.... As is usual in such cases (to their shame
be it spoken) a number of females were present, and scarcely had the soul
of the deceased taken its farewell flight from its earthly tabernacle, than the
scaffold was crowded with members of the 'gentler sex' afflicted with wens
in the neck, with white swellings in the knees, &c., upon whose afflictions
the cold clammy hand of the sufferer was passed to and fro for the benefit
of his executioner."164
Whooping-Cough.—It was a common belief in Devonshire, Cornwall, and
some other parts of England, that if one inquired of any one riding on a
piebald horse of a remedy for this complaint, whatever he named was
regarded as an infallible cure. In Suffolk and Norfolk, a favorite remedy
was to put the head of a suffering child for a few minutes into a hole made
in a meadow. It must be done in the evening with only the father and
mother to witness it.
A child in Cornwall received the following treatment: "If afflicted with the
hooping cough, it is fed with the bread and butter of a family, the heads of
which bear respectively the names of John and Joan. In the time of an
epidemic, so numerous are the applications, that the poor couple have little
reason to be grateful to their godfathers and godmothers for their gift of
these particular names. Or, if a piebald horse is to be found in the
neighbourhood, the child is taken to it, and passed thrice under the belly of
the animal; the mere possession of such a beast confers the power of curing
the disease."
We have an account of a cure for whooping-cough in a Monmouthshire
paper about the middle of the nineteenth century. "A few days since an
unusual circumstance was observed at Pillgwenlly, which caused no small
degree of astonishment to one or two enlightened beholders. A patient ass
stood near a house, and a family of not much more rational animals was
grouped around it. A father was passing his little son under the donkey, and
lifting him over its back a certain number of times, with as much solemnity
and precision as if engaged in the performance of a sacred duty. This done,
the father took a piece of bread, cut from an untasted loaf, which he offered

the animal to bite at. Nothing loath, the Jerusalem poney laid hold of the
piece of bread with his teeth, and instantly the father severed the outer
portion of the slice from that in the donkey's mouth. He next clipped off
some hairs from the neck of the animal, which he cut up into minute
particles, and then mixed them with the bread which he had crumbled. This
very tasty food was then offered to the boy who had been passed round the
donkey so mysteriously, and the little fellow having eaten thereof, the
donkey was removed by his owners. The father, his son, and other members
of his family were moving off, when a bystander inquired what all these
'goings on' had been adopted for? The father stared at the ignorance of the
inquirer, and then in a half contemptuous, half condescending tone,
informed him that 'it was to cure his poor son's whooping-cough, to be
sure!' Extraordinary as this may appear, in days when the schoolmaster is so
much in request, it is nevertheless true."
There is a belief in Cheshire that, if a toad is held for a moment within the
mouth of the patient, it is apt to catch the disease, and so cure the person
suffering from it. A correspondent of Notes and Queries speaks of a case in
which such a phenomenon actually occurred; but the experiment is one
which would not be very willingly tried. Brand informs us that "Roasted
mice were formerly held in Norfolk a sure remedy for this complaint; nor is
it certain that the belief is extinct even now. A poor woman's son once found
himself greatly relieved after eating three roast mice!"165
Worms.—A Scotch writer in the last half of the seventeenth century
observed: "In the Miscellaneous MSS. ... written by Baillie Dundee, among
several medicinal receipts I find an exorcism against all kinds of worms in
the body, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, to be repeated
three mornings, as a certain remedy."166
122 S. B. Gould, Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, p. 273.
123 H. Morley, Life of Cornelius Agrippa, I, p. 165.
124 M. Thiers, Traité des Superstitions, p. 436.
125 E. A. King, "Medieval Medicine," Nineteenth Century, XXXIV, p. 147.
126 G. F. Fort, History of Medical Economy During the Middle Ages, p. 72.
127 J. Brand, Popular Antiquities, III, pp. 229 f.
128 Ibid., III, pp. 228 and 237.

129 T. J. Pettigrew, Superstitions Connected with ... Medicine and Surgery, pp.
94 f.
130 J. Brand, Popular Antiquities, III, pp. 252 f.
131 E. Berdoe, Origin and Growth of the Healing Art, p. 416.
132 T. J. Pettigrew, Superstitions Connected with ... Surgery and Medicine, pp.
104-106.
133 Pepys' Diary, I, p. 323.
134 T. J. Pettigrew, Superstitions Connected with ... Medicine and Surgery, pp.
113-115.
135 History of Moray, p. 248.
136 History of Medicine, p. 159.
137 J. Brand, Popular Antiquities, III, pp. 240 and 248.
138 I, p. 324.
139 E. A. King, "Medieval Medicine," Nineteenth Century, XXXIV, p. 149.
140 T. J. Pettigrew, Superstitions Connected with ... Medicine and Surgery, p. 77.
141 E. Berdoe, Origin and Growth of the Medical Art, pp. 397 and 414.
142 E. A. King, "Medieval Medicine," Nineteenth Century, XXXIV, p. 147.
143 E. Berdoe, Origin and Growth of the Healing Art, p. 327.
144 T. J. Pettigrew, Superstitions Connected with ... Medicine and Surgery, pp.
84 f
145 G. F. Fort, History of Medical Economy During the Middle Ages, p. 196.
146 J. Brand, Popular Antiquities, III, p. 237.
147 T. J. Pettigrew, Superstitions Connected with ... Medicine and Surgery, p. 92.
148 II, p. 139.
149 Ibid., pp. 112 f.
150 J. Brand, Popular Antiquities, III, pp. 237, 241, and 268.
151 Diseases of the Skin, p. 82.
152 II, p. 139.
153 T. J. Pettigrew, Superstitions Connected with ... Medicine and Surgery, p.
103.
154 Ibid., p. 102.
155 J. Brand, Popular Antiquities, III, pp. 249 f.

156 Ibid., p. 245.
157 History of England, II, p. 296.
158 J. Brand, Popular Antiquities, III, p. 264.
159 E. A. King, "Medieval Medicine," Nineteenth Century, XXXIV, p. 148.
160 E. Berdoe, Origin and Growth of the Healing Art, pp. 414 f.
161 T. J. Pettigrew, Superstitions Connected with ... Medicine and Surgery, p.
108.
162 J. Brand, Popular Antiquities, III, p. 241.
163 Berdoe, Origin and Growth of the Healing Art, pp. 415 f.
164 J. Brand, Popular Antiquities, III, p. 241.
165 Ibid., p. 239.
166 Ibid., p. 240.

CHAPTER IX

ROYAL TOUCH

"Men may die of imagination,
So depe may impression be take."—Chaucer.

"When time shall once have laid his lenient hand on the passions and pursuits of the present moment,
they too shall lose that imaginary value which heated fancy now bestows upon them."—Blair.
"The king is but a man, as I am; the violet smells to him as it does to me; the element shows to him as
it doth to me; all his senses have but human conditions; his ceremonies laid by, in his nakedness he
appears but a man; and though his affections are higher mounted than ours, yet, when they stoop,
they stoop with the like wing."—Shakespeare.
Malcolm. Comes the king forth, I pray you?
Doctor. Ay, sir: there are a crew of wretched souls,
That stay his cure: their malady convinces
The great assay of art; but at his touch,
Such sanctity hath heaven given his hand,
They presently amend.
Malcolm. I thank you, doctor. [Exit Doctor.
Macduff. What's the disease he means?
Malcolm. 'Tis call'd the evil:
A most miraculous work in this good king,
Which often, since my here remain in England,

I have seen him do. How he solicits heaven,
Himself best knows; but strangely-visited people,
All swoln and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye,
The mere despair of surgery, he cures;
Hanging a golden stamp about their necks,
Put on with holy prayers: and 'tis spoken,
To the succeeding royalty he leaves
The healing benediction.—Macbeth, Act iv, Sc. 3.

Perhaps we have no better example of the effect of the belief in healers than
that presented by what was known as "king's touch." It is typical of the
cures performed by healers, and on that account I shall give a rather full
account of the phenomenon.
Touching by the sovereign for the amelioration of sundry diseases was a
currently accepted therapeutic measure. The royal touch was especially
efficacious in epilepsy and scrofula, the latter being consequently known as
"king's-evil." So far as we are able to trace this practice in history, it began
with Edward the Confessor in England and St. Louis in France. There has
been not a little dispute concerning its real origin. "Laurentius, first
physician to Henry IV, of France, who is indignant at the attempt made to
derive its origin from Edward the Confessor, asserts the power to have
commenced with Clovis I, A. D. 481, and says that Louis I, A. D. 814,
added to the ceremonial of touching, the sign of the cross. Mezeray also
says, that St. Louis, through humility, first added the sign of the cross in
touching for the king's evil."167

KING'S TOUCH-PIECES

William of Malmesbury gives the origin of the royal touch in his account of
the miracles of Edward the Confessor. "A young woman had married a
husband of her own age, but having no issue by the union, the humours
collecting abundantly about her neck, she had contracted a sore disorder, the
glands swelling in a dreadful manner. Admonished in a dream to have the
part affected washed by the king, she entered the palace, and the king
himself fulfilled this labour of love, by rubbing the woman's neck with his
fingers dipped in water. Joyous health followed his healing hand; the lurid

skin opened, so that worms flowed out with the purulent matter, and the
tumour subsided. But as the orifice of the ulcers was large and unsightly, he
commanded her to be supported at the royal expense until she should be
perfectly cured. However, before a week had expired, a fair new skin
returned, and hid the scars so completely, that nothing of the original wound
could be discovered; and within a year becoming the mother of twins, she
increased the admiration of Edward's holiness. Those who knew him more
intimately, affirm that he often cured this complaint in Normandy; whence
appears how false is the notion, who in our times assert, that the cure of this
disease does not proceed from personal sanctity, but from hereditary virtue
in the royal line."168 The fact that Edward was a saint as well as a king
throws some light on the subject, for many miracles were attributed to him.
Jeremy Collier maintained that the scrofula miracle is hereditary upon all
his successors, but we find that not blood but royal prestige was the secret.
He said "that this prince cured the king's evil is beyond dispute: and since
the credit of this miracle is unquestionable, I see no reason why we should
scruple believing the rest.... King Edward the Confessor was the first that
cured this distemper, and from him it has descended as an hereditary
miracle upon all his successors. To dispute the matter of fact, is to go to the
excesses of skepticism, to deny our senses, and be incredulous even to
ridiculousness."169
The quotation given above from William of Malmesbury is the earliest
mention of the gift of healing by the royal touch. No historian at or near the
time of Edward has alluded to the supposed power vested in him. Not even
the bull of Pope Alexander III, by which Edward was canonized about two
centuries after his decease, makes any allusion whatever to the cures
effected by him through the imposition of hands.
English and French writers have disagreed not only regarding the origin,
but also regarding the real possession of the power, the English denying it
to the French kings and the French with equal vigor restricting it to their
own sovereigns. There seems to be little doubt that the sovereigns of both
nations made cures, but the healing was confined to these two royal
families; the intermarriages in the two families probably account for the
belief in the transmission of the gift, regardless of the origin.

The ability to heal certain diseases passed down from reign to reign
notwithstanding the religious belief, the character, or the legitimate
succession of the sovereign, to the time of Queen Anne. It must not be
supposed that the practice was continuous for the seven centuries from
Edward the Confessor to Anne: we have no record whatever of the first four
Norman kings attempting to cure any one by the imposition of hands, and
we know that William III refused to attempt healing. Andrew Boorde
defines king's-evil as an "euyl sickenes or impediment," and advises as
follows: "For this matter let euery man make frendes to the Kynges
maiestie, for it doth pertayne to a Kynge to helpe this infirmitie by the grace
the whiche is geuen to a Kynge anoynted." In his Introduction to
Knowledge (1547-1548) he continues: "The Kynges of England by the
power that God hath gyuen to them, dothe make sicke men whole of a
sickeness called the kynges euyll."170
There is a curious passage in Aubrey in which he says: "The curing of the
King's Evil by the touch of the king, does much puzzle our philosophers,
for whether our kings were of the house of York or Lancaster, it did the cure
for the most part." Sir John Fortescue, in defending the House of Lancaster
against the House of York, claimed that the crown could not descend to a
female because the Queen was not qualified by the form of anointing her to
cure the disease called the king's-evil. It must have been very comforting to
all concerned to find that the power to cure disease by the royal touch had
not been affected by the change of sex of the reigning sovereign.
The gift was not impaired by the Reformation, and an obdurate Roman
Catholic was converted on finding that Elizabeth, after the Pope's
excommunication, could cure his scrofula. Elizabeth, however, could not
bring herself fully to accept the reality of these cures. She continued the
practice on account of the pressure of public opinion, but upon one occasion
she told a multitude of afflicted ones who had applied to her for relief, "God
alone can cure your diseases." Dr. Tooker, the Queen's chaplain, though,
certified freely to his own knowledge of the cures wrought by her, as did
also William Cowles, the Queen's surgeon. Robert Laneham's letter,
concerning the Queen's visit to Kenilworth Castle, relates how, on July 18,
1575, her Majesty touched for the evil, and that it was a "day of grace." "By
her highnes accustumed mercy and charitee, nyne cured of the peynfull and
daungerous diseaz, called the king's euill; for that Kings and Queenz of this

Realm withoout oother medsin (saue only by handling and prayerz) only
doo cure it."
James I wished to drop it as a worn-out superstition, but was warned by his
advisers that to do so would be to abate a prerogative of the crown; the
practice therefore continued, and good testimony exists as to the cures
wrought by him. The following is an extract from a letter from John
Chamberlain to Sir Dudley Carleton, ambassador at The Hague, dated
London, 14th November, 1618: "The Turkish Chiaus is shortly coming for
the Hagh. On Tuesday last he took leave of the king, and thanked his
majesty for healing his sonne of the kinges evill; which his majesty
performed with all solemnity at Whitehall on Thursday was seve-night."
Charles I also enjoyed the same power, notwithstanding the public
declaration by Parliament "to inform the people of the superstition of being
touched by the king for the evil." When a prisoner he cured a man by
simply saying, "God bless thee and grant thee thy desire," the Puritans not
permitting him to touch the patient. Whereupon it is asserted by Dr. John
Nicholas on his own knowledge, the blotches and humors disappeared from
the patient's body and appeared in the bottle of medicine which he held in
his hand. Charles's blood had the same efficacy. This sovereign substituted
in some cases the giving of a piece of silver instead of the gold, which was
usually presented to the patient. Badger says that this king "excelled all his
predecessors in the divine gift; for it is manifest beyond all contradiction,
that he not only cured by his sacred touch, both with and without gold, but
likewise perfectly effected the same cure by his prayer and benediction
only." In his reign the gift was exercised at certain seasons of the year,
Easter and Michaelmas being at first set apart for this purpose. A further
regulation, which is quite suggestive, was that the patient must present a
certificate to the effect that he had never before been touched for the
disease.
The following incident is related concerning Charles I: "A young
gentlewoman of about sixteen years of age, Elizabeth Stevens, of
Winchester, came (7 October, 1648) into the presence-chamber to be
touched for the evill, which she was supposed to have; and therewith one of
her eyes (that namely on the left side) was so much indisposed, that by her
owne and her mother's testimony (who was then also present), she had not
seene with that eye of above a month before. After prayers, read by Dr.

Sanderson, the maide kneeled downe among others, likewise to be touched.
And his majestie touched her, and put a ribbon, with a piece of money at it,
in usuall manner, about her neck. Which done, his majesty turned to the
lords (viz., the duke of Richmond, the earl of Southampton, and the earl of
Lindsey) to discourse with them. And the said young gentlewoman of her
own accord said openly: 'Now, God be praised! I can see of this fore eye.'
And afterwards declared she did see more and more by it, & could, by
degrees, endure the light of the candle. All which his majestie, in the
presence of the said lords & many others, examined himself, & found to be
true. And it hath since been discovered that, some months agone, the said
young gentlewoman professed that, as soon as she was come of age
sufficient, she would convey over to the king's use all her land; which to the
valew of about £130 per annum, her father deceased had left her sole heyre
unto."171
Charles II, perhaps the most unworthy of English monarchs, was by far the
busiest healer, and even while in exile in the Netherlands he retained the
power to cure. In one month he touched two hundred and sixty at Breda,
and Lower said: "It was not without success, since it was the experience
that drew thither every day a great number of those diseased even from the
most remote provinces of Germany." An official register of the persons
touched was kept for every month in his reign, but about two and a half
years appear to be wanting. The smallest number he touched in one year
was 2,983; that was in 1669. In 1682 he touched 8,500 persons. In 1684 the
throng was such that six or seven of the sick were trampled to death. The
total number touched in his reign was 92,107.172 It is instructive to note,
however, that while in no other reign were so many people touched for
scrofula and so many cures vouched for, in no other reign did so many
people die of that disease.173
John Browne, surgeon in ordinary to his majesty and to St. Thomas's
Hospital, and author of many learned works on surgery and anatomy,
published accounts of sixty cures due to this monarch. He says a surgeon
attested the reality of the disease before the miracle was performed, to
exclude impostors who were seeking the gold, for, in addition to the regular
formula, the king hung about the neck of the person touched a ribbon to
which was attached a gold coin. Notwithstanding these stringent measures,

some were able to impose on the king, for the coins were often found in the
shops, having been sold by the recipients. Says Brand: "Barrington tells us
of an old man who was a witness in a cause, and averred that when Queen
Anne was at Oxford, she touched him whilst a child for the evil. Barrington,
when he had finished his evidence, 'asked him whether he was really cured?
upon which he answered with a significant smile, that he believed himself
never to have had a complaint that deserved to be considered as the Evil,
but that his parents were poor, and had no objection to the bit of gold.'"174
While it was not unknown before, the presentation of a piece of gold was
first generally introduced in the reign of Henry VII. It probably descended
from a practice common in the time of Edward III, whose coin, the rose-
noble, is said to have been worn as an amulet to preserve from danger in
battle. The angel-noble of Henry VII, valued at ten shillings, appears to
have been the coin given; it was in common use and not made especially for
this purpose. It had the figure of the Archangel Michael on one side and a
ship in full sail on the other. Before hanging it on the patient's neck the
monarch always crossed the sore with it. The outlay for gold coins
presented to the afflicted on these occasions rose in some years as high as
£10,000. So great was the expense that after the reign of Elizabeth the size
of the coin was reduced. Touching pieces of the time of Charles II are not
rare even now.
In 1684 Surgeon John Browne published a curious work entitled
Adenochoiradelogia: or an Anatomick-Chirurgical Treatise on Glandules
and Strumæs, or King's Evil Swellings. In this the author traces the gift of
healing from our Saviour to the apostles, and thence by a continuous line of
Christian kings and governors, and holy men, commencing with Edward the
Confessor, whom he regards as the first curer of scrofula by contact or
imposition of hands. After referring to his majesty in most flattering terms,
he continues concerning "the admirable effects and wonderful events of his
royal cure throughout all nations, where not only English, Dutch, Scotch,
and Irish have reaped ease and cure, but French, Germans, and all
countreyes whatsoever, far and near, have abundantly seen and received the
same: and none ever, hitherto, I am certain, mist thereof, unless their little
faith and incredulity starved their merits, or they received his gracious hand
for curing another disease, which was not really evermore allowed to be
cured by him; and as bright evidences hereof, I have presumed to offer that

some have immediately upon the very touch been cured; others not so
easily quitted from their swellings till the favor of a second repetition
thereof. Some also, losing their gold, their diseases have seized them afresh,
and no sooner have these obtained a second touch, and new gold, but their
diseases have been seen to vanish, as being afraid of his majesties presence;
wherein also have been cured many without gold; and this may contradict
such who must needs have the king give them gold as well as his touch,
supposing one invalid without the gift of both. Others seem also as ready
for a second change of gold as a second touch, whereas their first being
newly strung upon white riband, may work as well (by their favour). The
tying the Almighty to set times and particular days is also another great
fault of those who can by no means be brought to believe but at Good
Friday and the like seasons this healing faculty is of more vigour and
efficacy than at any other time, although performed by the same hand. As to
the giving of gold, this only shows his majesties royal well-wishes towards
the recovery of those who come thus to be healed."175 He refers to some
"Atheists, Sadducees, and ill-conditioned Pharisees" who disbelieved, and
he gives the letter of one who went, a complete sceptic, to satisfy his
friends, and came away cured and converted.
Browne includes the following case which seems to him conclusive: "A
Nonconformist child, in Norfolk, being troubled with scrofulous swellings,
the late deceased Sir Thomas Browne, of Norwich, being consulted about
the same, his majesty being then at Breda or Bruges, he advised the parents
of the child to have it carried over to the king (his own method being used
ineffectively); the father seemed very strange at this advice, and utterly
denied it, saying the touch of the king was of no greater efficacy than any
other man's. The mother of the child, adhering to the doctor's advice,
studied all imaginable means to have it over, and at last prevailed with her
husband to let it change the air for three weeks or a month; this being
granted, the friends of the child that went with it, unknown to the father,
carried it to Breda, where the king touched it, and she returned home
perfectly healed. The child being come to its father's house, and he finding
so great an alteration, inquires how his daughter arrived at this health. The
friends thereof assured him, that if he would not be angry with them, they
would relate the whole truth; they, having his promise for the same, assured
him they had the child to be touched at Breda, whereby they apparently let

him see the great benefit his child received thereby. Hereupon the father
became so amazed that he threw off his Nonconformity, and expressed his
thanks in this manner: 'Farewell to all dissenters, and to all nonconformists;
if God can put so much virtue into the king's hand as to heal my child, I'll
serve that God and that king so long as I live, with all thankfulness.'"176 It is
unfortunate that we have a change of air and food to consider in this case,
else we might have a good example of a real miracle.
Friday was usually set apart in this reign as the regular day for healing, but,
in addition to this, special portions of the church year were reserved for the
exercise of this gift. Very careful examinations were made by the surgeons,
and those who were found to be suffering from the evil were presented with
a ticket by the surgeon which entitled them to receive the healing touch of
the king. If the king's touch were really efficacious, one might think that the
disease should have been wholly exterminated during this reign, so great
were the number touched. On the contrary, the deaths were more numerous,
and on account of the neglect of medical and surgical means it spread very
widely.
James II, it is said by Dr. Heylin, also wrought cures upon babes in their
mothers' arms, and the fame of these cures was so great that the year before
James was dethroned, a pauper of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, petitioned
the general assembly to enable him to make the voyage to England to be
healed by the royal touch. In one of his progresses James touched eight
hundred persons in Chester Cathedral.
William III evidently thought of the matter as a superstition, and on one
occasion he touched a patient, saying to him, "God give you better health
and more sense"; notwithstanding the incredulity of the sovereign, Whiston
assures us that the person was healed. With honest good sense, however,
William refused to exercise the power which most of his subjects
undoubtedly thought he possessed, and many protests were made, and much
proof was adduced concerning "the balsamic virtues of the royal hand."
This refusal to continue the practice of touching brought upon him the
charge of cruelty from the parents of scrofulous children, while bigots lifted
up their hands and eyes in holy horror at his impiety.

Dr. Samuel Johnson was one of the last persons to receive the imposition of
royal hands; when a boy of four and a half years, he was touched by Queen
Anne, together with about two hundred others, on March 30, 1712. In his
case at least the touch was inefficacious, for he was subject to scrofula all
his life. Boswell says:177 "His mother, yielding to the superstitious notion,
which, it is wonderful to think, prevailed so long in this country, as to the
virtue of the royal touch; a notion which our kings encouraged, and to
which a man of such inquiry and such judgment as Carte could give credit,
carried him to London, where he was actually touched by Queen Anne.
Mrs. Johnson, indeed, as Mr. Hector informed me, acted by the advice of
the celebrated Sir John Floyer, then a physician in Litchfield." At this time
few persons but Jacobites believed in king's touch as a miracle. Dr. Daniel
Turner, though, relates that several cases of scrofula which had been
unsuccessfully treated by himself and Dr. Charles Bernard, sergeant-
surgeon to her majesty, yielded afterwards to the efficacy of the queen's
touch.
During the reign of Anne the sceptics outnumbered the believers and at her
death the practice was discontinued. Among the unbelievers was the above-
mentioned Dr. Charles Bernard, an account of whose conversion is given by
Oldmixon as follows: "Yesterday the queen was graciously pleased to touch
for the King's evil some particular persons in private; and three weeks after,
December 19, yesterday, about twelve at noon her majesty was pleased to
touch, at St. James', about twenty persons afflicted with the King's evil. The
more ludicrous sort of skeptics, in this case, asked why it was not called the
queen's evil, as the chief court of justice was called the Queen's Bench. But
Charles Bernard, the surgeon who had made this touching the subject of his
raillery all his lifetime till he became body surgeon at court, and found it a
good perquisite, solved all difficulties by telling his companions with a fleer
'Really one could not have thought it, if one had not seen it.' A friend of
mine heard him say it, and knew well his opinion of it."178
In 1745 there was an attempted revival of the practice when Prince Charles
Edward exercised this prerogative of royalty.
Henry VII was the first monarch to establish a particular ceremony to be
observed at the healings. He probably derived this from an old form of
exorcism used for the dispossessing of evil spirits. This was altered at

various times but may still be found in the prayer-book of the reign of
Queen Anne. Indeed, it was not until some time after the accession of
George I that the University of Oxford ceased to reprint the office of
healing, together with the Liturgy.
The routes to be travelled by royal personages and the days on which the
miracle was to be wrought were fixed at sittings of the Privy Council, and
the clergy of all the parish churches of the realm were solemnly notified.
They, in turn, informed the people, and the sufferers along the way had
many days in which to cherish the expectation of healing, in itself so
beneficial. The ceremony was conducted with great solemnity and pomp. It
has been vividly described by Macaulay as follows: "When the appointed
time came, several divines in full canonicals stood round the canopy of
state. The surgeon of the royal household introduced the sick. A passage of
Mark 16. was read. When the words 'They shall lay their hands on the sick
and they shall recover,' had been pronounced, there was a pause and one of
the sick was brought to the king. His Majesty stroked the ulcers and
swellings, and hung round the patient's neck a white ribbon to which was
fastened a gold coin. The other sufferers were led up in succession; and as
each was touched the chaplain repeated the incantation, 'They shall lay their
hands on the sick and they shall recover.' Then came the epistle, prayers,
antiphonies, and a benediction."
Evelyn, in his Diary, gives us the form employed by Charles II in July,
1660, as follows: "His Majestie first began to touch for evil according to
costume, thus—His majestie sitting under his state in the Banquetting
House, the Chirurgeons cause the sick to be brought or led up to the throne,
where they kneeling, the King strokes their faces or cheekes with both his
hands at once, at which instant a Chaplaine in his formalities says: 'He put
his hands on them and he healed them.' This is sayed to every one in
particular. When they have all been touched they come up againe in the
same order; and the other Chaplaine kneeling, and having angel-gold strung
on white ribbon on his arme, delivers them one by one to his Majestie, who
puts them about the necks of the touched as they passe, whilst the first
Chaplaine repeats: 'That is the true light who came into the world.' Then
follows an Epistle (as at first, a Gospel) with the Liturgy, prayers for the
sick with some alteration, lastly the blessing: and the Lo. Chamberlaine and

Comptroller of the Household, bring a basin, ewer, and towel for his
Majestie to wash."179
The belief in the efficacy of the king's touch was general, and Lecky tells us
its genuineness "was asserted by the privy council, by the bishops of two
religions, by the general voice of the clergy in the palmiest days of the
English Church, by the University of Oxford, and by the enthusiastic assent
of the people. It survived the ages of the Reformation, of Bacon, of Milton,
and of Hobbes. It was by no means extinct at the age of Locke, and would
probably have lasted still longer, had not the change of dynasty at the
Revolution assisted the tardy scepticism."180
In France there was the same belief in the efficacy of the royal touch. Philip
I exercised the gift, but the French historians say that he was deprived of the
power on account of the irregularity of his life. Laurentius reports that
Francis I, when a prisoner in Spain, cured a great number of people of
struma (scrofula). A paraphrase of the Latin verse which Lascaris wrote
concerning this event is as follows:
"The king applies his hand, diseases fly,
And though a captive, still the powers on high
Regard his touch. This striking proof is giv'n,
That they who bound him are the foes of Heav'n."

Concerning the touching by the kings of France, Pettigrew says: "In the
church of St. Maclou, in St. Denys, Heylin (Cosmograph., p. 184) says the
kings of France, with a fast of nine days and other penances, used to receive
the gift of healing the king's evil with nothing but a touch." Philip de
Comines states, that the king always confessed before the cure of the king's
evil. Butler (Lives of the Saints, vol. VIII, p. 394) says, 'The French kings
usually only perform this ceremony on the day they have received the holy
communion.' The historians who write under the first two families of the
French kings are altogether silent as to the kings' curing the evil by the
touching. (Veyrard Trav., p. 109.) Philip of Valois is reported to have cured
1400 people afflicted with the king's evil. Of Louis XIII, it was said that he
had assigned all his power to Cardinal Richelieu, except that of curing the
king's evil. Carte says, some of the French writers ascribe the gift of healing
to their king's devotion toward the relics of St. Marculf, in the church of
Corbigny, in Champagne: to which the kings of France, immediately after

their coronation at Rheims, used to go in solemn procession. A veneration
was also paid to this saint in England, and a room in memory of him, in the
palace of Westminster, has frequently been mentioned in the Rolls of
Parliament, and which was called the Chamber of St. Marculf, being, as
Carte conjectures, probably the place where the kings used to touch for the
evil. This room was afterward called the Painted Chamber. The French
kings practised the touch extensively. Gemelli, the traveller, states, that
Louis XIV touched 1600 persons on Easter Sunday, 1686.181 The words he
used were, 'Le Roy te touche, Dieu te guérisse.' Every Frenchman received
fifteen sous, and every foreigner thirty. The French kings kept up the
practice to 1776."182
"Servetus," says Hammond, "who was not of a credulous mind, says in the
first edition of his Ptolemy, published in 1535, that he had seen the king
touch many persons for the disease, but he had never seen any that were
cured thereby. But the last clause of this sentence excited the ire of the
censor, and in the next edition, published in 1541, the words 'an sanati
fuerint non vidi' were changed to 'pluresque sanatos passim audivi': 'I have
heard of many that were cured.' Testimony in support of miracles has often
been manufactured, but the natural obstinacy and truthfulness of Servetus
would not admit of his giving his personal endorsement at the expense of
his convictions."183
Within the last half-century we have had an example of the value of the
royal touch. When cholera was raging in Naples in 1865, and the people
were rushing from the city by thousands, King Victor Emmanuel went the
rounds of the hospitals in an endeavor to stimulate courage in the hearts of
his people. He lingered at the bedside of the patients and spoke encouraging
words to them. On a cot lay one man already marked for death. The king
stepped to his side, and pressing his damp, icy hand, said, "Take courage,
poor man, and try to recover soon." That evening the physicians reported a
diminution of the disease in the course of the day, and the man marked for
death out of danger. The king had unconsciously worked a marvellous
cure.184
It seems certain that there was not the efficacy in king's touch which was
claimed for it, or it would not have been discontinued after having held
sway for over seven hundred years. No doubt the quasi-religious character

of the office of the sovereign helped much in the belief, and when such men
as Charles II were able to heal, little connection between religion and
healing could longer be thought possible, as far as the healing by king's
touch was concerned.
The Hallowing of Cramp Rings was not unlike the king's touch. It is
described by Bishop Percy in his Northumberland Household Book, where
we have the following account: "And then the Usher to lay a Carpett for the
Kinge to Creepe to the Crosse upon. An that done, there shal be a Forme
sett upon the Carpett, before the Crucifix, and a Cushion laid upon it for the
King to kneale upon. And the Master of the Jewell Howse ther to be ready
with the Booke concerninge the Hallowing of the Crampe Rings, and
Amner (Almoner) muste kneele on the right hand of the King, holdinge the
sayde booke. When that is done the King shall rise and goe to the Alter,
wheare a Gent. Usher shall be redie with a Cushion for the Kinge to kneele
upon; and then the greatest Lords that shall be ther to take the Bason with
the Rings and beare them after the Kinge to offer."
In the Harleian Manuscripts there is a letter from Lord Chancellor Hatton to
Sir Thomas Smith, dated September 11, 158-, about a prevailing epidemic,
and enclosing a ring for Queen Elizabeth to wear between her breasts, the
said ring having "the virtue to expell infectious airs."
Andrew Boorde, already quoted, says: "The Kynges of England doth
halowe euery yere crampe rynges, the whyche rynges, worne on ones
fynger, dothe helpe them the whyche hath the crampe."185 Also, "The
kynges majesty hath a great help in this matter, in hallowynge crampe
rynges, and so given without money or petition."
In the account of the ceremony given by Hospinian, he states that "it was
performed upon Good Friday, and that it originated from a ring which had
been brought to King Edward by some persons from Jerusalem, and one
which he himself hath long before given privately to a poor petitioner who
asked alms of him for the love he bore to St. John the Evangelist. This ring
was preserved with great veneration in Westminster Abbey, and whoever
was touched by this relic was said to be cured of the cramp or of the falling
sickness." Burnet informs us that Bishop Gardiner was at Rome in 1529,
and that he wrote a letter to Ann Boleyn, by which it appears that Henry

VIII blessed the cramp rings before as well as after the separation from
Rome, and that she sent them as great presents thither. "Mr. Stephens, I
send you here cramp rings for you and Mr. Gregory and Mr. Peter, praying
you to distribute them as you think best.—Ann Boleyn."186
This ceremonial was practised by previous sovereigns and discontinued by
Edward VI. Queen Mary intended to revive it, and, indeed, the office for it
was written out, but she does not appear to have carried her intentions into
effect.
167 T. J. Pettigrew, Superstitions Connected with the History and Practice of
Medicine and Surgery, pp. 154 f.
168 E. Berdoe, The Origin and Growth of the Healing Art, p. 372.
169 Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain, I, p. 225.
170 Quoted by Berdoe, ibid., p. 371.
171 J. Brand, Popular Antiquities, pp. 257 f.
172 T. B. Macaulay, History of England, III, pp. 378 f.
173 A. D. White, History of the Warfare of Science with Theology, II, p. 47.
174 J. Brand, Popular Antiquities, III, p. 256.
175 T. J. Pettigrew, Superstitions Connected with the History and Practice of
Medicine and Surgery, pp. 182-184.
176 Quoted by H. Tuke, Influence of the Mind upon the Body, pp. 359 f.
177 Life of Johnson, I, p. 42.
178 History of England, II, p. 302.
179 Vol. I, p. 323.
180 W. E. H. Lecky, History of European Morals, I, p. 364.
181 This was at Versailles.
182 T. J. Pettigrew, Superstitions Connected with the History and Practice of
Medicine and Surgery, pp. 156 f.
183 W. A. Hammond, Spiritism and Nervous Derangement, p. 150.
184 C. L. Tuckey, Treatment by Hypnotism and Suggestion, p. 30.
185 E. Berdoe, The Origin and Growth of the Healing Art, p. 371.
186 T. J. Pettigrew, Superstitions Connected with ... Medicine and Surgery, p.
117.

CHAPTER X

MESMER AND AFTER

"Some deemed them wondrous wise,
And some believed them mad."—Beattie.
"A perfect medicine for bodies that be sick
Of all infirmities to be relieved;
This heleth nature and prolongeth lyfe eke."

Probably no one would claim that the phenomena now grouped under the
head of hypnotism were unknown before the end of the sixteenth century.
They are as old as man, yes, probably older, since we know that some of the
same phenomena apply to animals. But the claim might well be made that
while isolated facts of this kind were well known, especially in the East, no
scientific collaboration and explanation were attempted until this time.
As with all other departments of science, we may trace a gradual
development. Astrology of old taught the influence of the stars upon men,
which doctrine was accepted by the great physician Theophrastus
Paracelsus (1490-1541). This, however, was only part of his belief: the
human body was endowed with a double magnetism; one portion attracted
to itself the planets and was nourished by them, the result of which was the
mental powers; the other portion attracted and disintegrated the elements,
from which process resulted the body. He also claimed that the magnetic
virtue of healthy persons attracted the enfeebled magnetism of the sick.
With this theory of animal magnetism, it was only natural that he should
value the use of the magnet very highly in the cure of diseases. This dual
theory of magnetic cures, that of the magnetic influence of men on men and
of the magnet on man, was prevalent for over a century, and found its latest
exponent in Mesmer.
Following Paracelsus, Glocenius, Burgrave, Helinotius, Robert Fludd, and
Kircher believed that the magnet represented the universal principle by
which all natural phenomena might be explained. This principle, existing as
it did in the human body, was an important factor in health and disease. The
great chemist Von Helmont (1577-1644) taught more precisely that a power

resided in man by which he could magnetically affect others, and thereby
cure the sick who were most influenced by it. He published a work on the
effects of magnetism on the human frame.
About the same time Balthazar Gracian, a Spaniard, boldly proclaimed his
views. "The magnet," he said, "attracts iron; iron is found everywhere;
everything, therefore, is under the influence of magnetism.... It is the same
agent which gives rise to sympathy, antipathy, and the passions." Baptista
Porta (1543-1615), one of the originators of the weapon-salve, had also
great faith in the magnet. So effective was his work on the imaginations of
his patients that he was considered a magician and prohibited from
practising by the court of Rome. Sebastian Wirdig, professor of medicine at
the University of Rostock, in Mecklenburg, wrote a treatise on "The New
Medicine of the Spirits" which he presented to the Royal Society of London
in 1673. He maintained that a magnetic influence took place, not only
between the celestial and terrestrial bodies, but between all living things.
The whole world was under the influence of magnetism: life was preserved
by magnetism, death was the consequence of magnetism.
Maxwell (1581-1640) propagated somewhat the same doctrine. He was a
firm believer in sympathetic cures, and assumed a vital spirit of the universe
which related all bodies. It was probably from this that Mesmer got his idea
of what he called the universal fluid. It would seem, however, that Maxwell
was aware of the great influence of imagination and suggestion. He said: "If
you wish to work prodigies, abstract from the materiality of beings—
increase the sum of spirituality in bodies—rouse the spirit from its
slumbers. Unless you do one or other of these things—unless you can bind
the idea, you can never perform anything good or great." About the same
time, in Italy, Santanelli propagated the theory of a universal fluid.
Everything material possessed a radiating atmosphere which operated
magnetically. He also recognized, however, the great influence of the
imagination.

F. A. MESMER

About the year 1771, Father Hell, a Jesuit, and professor of astronomy at
the University of Vienna, became famous through his magnetic cures, and
invented steel plates of a peculiar form which he applied to the naked body
as a cure for several diseases. In 1774 he communicated his system to
Mesmer, the man who, more than any one else, drew the world's attention to
the investigation of mental healing. Various estimates have been made of
Mesmer's character and he frequently has been condemned. He was fond of
display, but it is doubtful if he was more avaricious than most persons who
lived before and have lived since. He was evidently honest in his scientific
investigations and opinions, and this is our main concern.
Friederich Antony Mesmer (1733-1815) was born at Mersbury, in Swabia,
and studied medicine at the University of Vienna. He read freely the books
written by the authors already mentioned, and accepted much of their
teaching. His originality consisted principally in applying to the sick this

universal principle, by means of contact and passes, while his predecessors
infused the vital spirit through the use of talismans and of magic boxes. He
took his medical degree in 1766 and chose as the subject of his inaugural
dissertation "The Influence of the Planets in the Cure of Diseases." In this
dissertation he maintained "that the sun, moon, and fixed stars mutually
affect each other in their orbits; that they cause and direct in our earth a flux
and reflux not only in the sea, but in the atmosphere, and affect in a similar
manner all organized bodies through the medium of a subtle and mobile
fluid, which pervades the universe, and associates all things together in
mutual intercourse and harmony." This influence, he said, was particularly
exercised on the nervous system, and produced two states, which he called
intension and remission, which seemed to him to account for the different
periodical revolutions observable in several maladies.
Eight years later he met Father Hell, and after trying some experiments with
his metallic plates was astonished at his success. He continued working
with Hell for some time, but they finally quarrelled, and shortly afterward
he stumbled upon his theory of animal magnetism. After this he no longer
used the magnet in healing. The Academy of Science at Berlin examined his
claims, but their report was far from favorable or flattering. Nevertheless,
writing to a friend from Vienna, he said: "I have observed that the magnetic
is almost the same as the electric fluid, and that it may be propagated in the
same manner, by means of intermediate bodies. Steel is not the only
substance adapted to this purpose. I have rendered paper, bread, wool, silk,
stones, leather, glass, wood, men, and dogs—in short, every thing I touched
—magnetic to such a degree, that these substances produced the same
effects as the loadstone on diseased persons. I have charged jars with
magnetic matter in the same way as is done with electricity." About this
time he was nominated a member of the Academy of Bavaria.
Leaving Vienna and travelling through Swabia and Switzerland, he met
Gassner and witnessed some of his cures. Mesmer claimed that they were
performed by his newly discovered magnetism. He arrived in Paris in 1778
and found this city more receptive to his arts. He at first established himself
in an humble quarter of the city and began to expound his theory. The
following year he published a paper in which he summed up his claims in
twenty-seven assertions to which he rigidly held through his life. His
doctrines were well received, and acquired an impetus at the beginning by

the conversion of one of the leading physicians of the faculty of medicine,
Deslon, the Comte d'Artois' first physician.
Pupils and patients now flocked to him. The crowd was so great that
Mesmer employed a valet toucheur to magnetize in his place. This was not
sufficient; he then invented the famous baquet, or trough, around which
thirty persons might simultaneously be magnetized. This baquet is
described as follows: "A circular, oaken case, about a foot high, was placed
in the middle of a large hall, hung with thick curtains, through which only a
soft and subdued light was allowed to penetrate; this was the baquet. At the
bottom of the case, on a layer of powdered glass and iron filings, there lay
full bottles, symmetrically arranged, so that the necks of all converged
toward the centre; other bottles were arranged in the opposite direction,
with their necks toward the circumference. All these objects were immersed
in water, but this condition was not absolutely necessary, and the baquet
might be dry. The lid was pierced with a certain number of holes, whence
there issued jointed and moving iron branches, which were to be held by the
patients. Absolute silence was maintained. The patients were ranged in
several rows round the baquet, connected with each other by cords passed
round their bodies, and by a second chain, formed by joining hands."187
Additional features were provided to heighten the effect of the magnetic
charm. "Richly stained glass shed a dim religious light on his spacious
saloons, which were almost covered with mirrors. Orange blossoms scented
all the air of his corridors; incense of the most expensive kinds burned in
antique vases on his chimney-pieces; æolian harps sighed melodious music
from distant chambers; while sometimes a sweet female voice, from above
or below, stole softly upon the mysterious silence that was kept in the house
and insisted upon from all visitors."188
Bailly, the historian and celebrated astronomer, an eye-witness, describes
the results. "Some patients remain calm and experience nothing; others
cough, spit, feel slight pain, a local or general heat, and fall into sweats;
others are agitated and tormented by convulsions. These convulsions are
remarkable for their number, duration, and force, and have been known to
persist for more than three hours. They are characterized by involuntary,
jerking movements in all the limbs, and in the whole body, by contraction
of the throat, by twitchings in the hypochondriac and epigastric regions, by

dimness and rolling of the eyes, by piercing cries, tears, hiccough, and
immoderate laughter. They are preceded or followed by a state of languor or
dreaminess, by a species of depression, and even by stupor.
"The slightest sudden noise causes the patient to start, and it has been
observed that he is affected by a change of time or tune in the airs
performed on the pianoforte; that his agitation is increased by a more lively
movement, and that his convulsions then become more violent. Patients are
seen to be absorbed in the search for one another, rushing together, smiling,
talking affectionately, and endeavoring to modify their crises. They are all
so submissive to the magnetizer that even when they appear to be in a
stupor, his voice, a glance, or a sign will rouse them from it. It is impossible
not to admit, from all these results, that some great force acts upon and
masters the patients, and that this force appears to reside in the magnetizer.
This convulsive state is termed the crisis. It has been observed that many
women and few men are subject to such crises; that they are only
established after the lapse of two or three hours, and that when one is
established, others soon and successively begin.
"When the agitation exceeds certain limits, the patients are transported into
a padded room; the women's corsets are unlaced, and they may then strike
their heads against the padded walls without doing themselves any injury."
Notwithstanding these means, thousands were healed of their diseases.
"It is impossible," says Baron Dupotet, "to conceive the sensation which
Mesmer's experiments created in Paris. No theological controversy, in the
earlier ages of the Catholic Church, was ever conducted with greater
bitterness." He was called a quack, a fool, and a demon, while his friends
were as extravagant in his praise as his foes in their censure. After this great
excitement, his life may largely be summed up in his challenges to different
societies, the appointment of commissions, their examinations, and their
reports.
On the advice of Deslon he challenged the Faculty of Medicine, proposing
to select twenty-four patients, of whom twelve should be treated according
to the old and approved methods and twelve magnetically, the cures to
prove the efficacy of the treatment. The faculty declined to accept the
conditions. Deslon asked his colleagues on the faculty to summon a general

meeting to examine the matter. Through the influence of M. de Vauzesmes,
the meeting was very hostile to him, and he was condemned and threatened
with having his name removed from the list of licensed physicians if he did
not reform.
Mesmer now wrote to Marie Antoinette suggesting that the government
furnish him with houses, land, and a princely fortune to enable him to carry
on his experiments untroubled. The government finally offered him a
pension of 20,000 francs, and the cross of the order of St. Michael, if he had
made any discovery in medicine, and would communicate it to the
physicians whom the king should name. Mesmer refused the conditions and
left Paris.
Deslon was then called upon to renounce animal magnetism, but instead,
invited investigation. In 1784 the government appointed a commission to
inquire into magnetism, consisting of members from the Faculty of
Medicine and the Academy of Sciences. Franklin, Lavoisier, and Bailly
were members, the last named being chosen reporter. Another commission,
composed of members of the Royal Society of Medicine, was charged to
make a distinct report on the same subject. After experimenting for five
months the first commission presented two reports, one public and the other
secret, neither of which was favorable. The Royal Society of Medicine
presented its report a few days later, and agreed with the first commission
with the exception of one member, Laurent de Jussieu, who dissented and
published a separate report of a more favorable nature. The gist of the
commissions' reports was that imagination, not magnetism, accounted for
the results.
Soon after the commissions started their investigations, Mesmer returned to
Paris at the invitation of his friends, who proposed to open a subscription
for him for 10,000 louis. Immediately it was over-subscribed by over
140,000 francs. He came with the understanding that he was to give lectures
and to reveal the secret of animal magnetism. The lectures and secrets were
not satisfactory. After the commission reported he left Paris and returned to
his own country where he was little heard of during the remainder of his life
which ended in 1815.

Whatever may be said of Mesmer, there seems to be no doubt about the
honesty of his most famous pupil, the Marquis de Puységur, and to him we
are indebted for a forward step. When Mesmer left Paris, the marquis
retired to his estate near Soissons, and employed his leisure in magnetizing
peasants. He magnetized his gardener, a young man named Victor, and after
experimenting upon him claimed that during the state Victor exhibited
marvellous telepathic and clairvoyant phenomena. Unable to attend all the
patients who applied to him, he followed Mesmer's plan of magnetizing a
tree. An elm on the village green was chosen, and round this patients
gathered on stone benches as around Mesmer's baquet.
Following Mesmer's theories very closely, the contribution he made was in
the recognition of the likeness between the magnetized state and that of
somnambulism, so that he designated this state "artificial somnambulism."
He also modified the conditions of inducing this state, and simple contact or
spoken orders were substituted for the use of the baquet. The effect was
therefore milder, and instead of hysteria and violent crises accompanied by
sobs, cries, and contractions, there was peaceful slumber. He recognized the
rapport between operator and subject, and amnesia on awaking, and other
phenomena now well known, but he still held to the Mesmeric theory of the
existence of a universal fluid which saturated all bodies, especially the
human body. It was electric in nature, and man could display and diffuse
this electric fluid at will.
While the Marquis de Puységur was using the elm tree near Soissons, the
Chevalier de Barbarin was successfully magnetizing people without
paraphernalia. He sat by the bedside of the sick and prayed that they might
be magnetized; his efforts were successful. He maintained that the effect of
animal magnetism was produced by the mere effort of one human soul
acting upon another; and when the connection had once been established
the magnetizer could communicate his influence to the subject regardless of
the distance which separated them. Numerous persons adopted this view,
calling themselves Barbarinists after their leader. In Sweden and Germany
they were called spiritualists, to distinguish them from the followers of de
Puységur, who were called experimentalists.
About the same time a doctor of Lyons, Pététin, experimented with
magnetism. After his death a paper written by him was published describing

catalepsy and sense transference. Numerous magnetic societies were
founded in the principal cities of France. In Strasburg, the Society of
Harmony, consisting of more than one hundred and fifty members,
published for years the result of their work. The disturbance incident to the
Revolution and the wars of the Empire which followed repressed the
investigations of magnetism in France for several years.
In England the advent of magnetism seems to have taken place about 1788.
In that year one Dr. Mainandus, who had been a pupil first of Mesmer and
later of Deslon, arrived in Bristol and gave public lectures on the subject.
People of rank and fortune soon came from different cities to be magnetized
or to place themselves under his tuition. He afterward established himself in
London where he was equally successful in attracting and curing people. So
much curiosity was excited by the subject that, about the same time, a man
named Holloway gave a course of lectures on animal magnetism in London.
Large crowds gathered to hear him at the rate of five guineas for each pupil.
Loutherbourg, the painter, and his wife entered upon a similar work. "Such
was the infatuation of the people to be witnesses of their strange
manipulations," says Mackay, "that at times upwards of three thousand
persons crowded round their house at Hammersmith, unable to gain
admission. The tickets sold at prices ranging from one to three guineas."
Loutherbourg later became a divine healer. From 1789 to 1798 magnetism
attracted little or no attention in England. At the latter date a Connecticut
Yankee, Benjamin Douglas Perkins, invented "metallic tractors." The
Society of Friends built a hospital called the "Perkinean Institute" where all
comers might be magnetized free of cost.
About 1786 animal magnetism appeared in two different places in Germany
—on the upper Rhine and in Bremen. At this time Lavater paid a visit to
Bremen and exhibited the magnetizing process to several doctors. Bremen
was for a long time a focus of the new doctrine, and thereby was brought
into bad repute. About the same time the doctrine spread from Strasburg
over the Rhine provinces. Among those active in experiments were
Böckmann of Carlsruhe, Gmelin of Heilbronn, and Pezold of Dresden.
Soon it spread all over Germany. In 1789 Selle of Berlin brought forward a
series of experiments made at the Charité (Hospital), in which he confirmed
some of the alleged phenomena but excluded the supernormal.

Notwithstanding the early dislike, animal magnetism flourished in Germany
during the first twenty years of the nineteenth century. In 1812 the Prussian
government sent Wolfart to Mesmer at Frauenfeld, to acquaint himself with
the subject. He returned to Berlin an ardent adherent of Mesmer and
introduced magnetism into the hospital treatment. From this magnetism
flourished so much in Berlin that, as Wurm relates, the Berlin physicians
placed a monument on the grave of Mesmer at Mörsburg, and theological
candidates received instruction in physiology, pathology, and the treatment
of sickness by vital magnetism. The well-known physician Koreff was
interested in magnetism and often made use of it for healing purposes.
Magnetism was introduced everywhere, especially in Russia and Denmark.
In Switzerland and Italy it was at first received with less sympathy, and in
1815 the exercise of magnetism was forbidden in the whole of Austria.
In 1813 the naturalist Deleuze published a book entitled Histoire critique du
magnétisme animal. Like his predecessors, he was chiefly interested in the
therapeutic value of magnetism, and insisted that faith was necessary for
effective treatment. On account of this condition any demonstration was
impossible. He still held to the idea of a pervading fluid and maintained that
the depth of the magnetic sleep depended upon the amount of the magnetic
charge. Shortly after the appearance of Deleuze's book, interest in animal
magnetism increased, and several journals dealing exclusively with the
subject were started.
With the death of Mesmer in 1815 ended the first period in the history of
the phenomena known as animal magnetism. Up to this time the generally
accepted theory was that of a vital fluid which permeated every thing and
person and through which one person influenced another. The second
period extended from 1815-1841 when Braid discovered and formulated the
method of operation. The third period reached from 1841-1887 during
which there was careful and scientific study of the whole subject, and
hypnotism came into repute as a healing measure. I am inclined to posit a
fourth period, 1887 to the present time, for Myers' hypothesis of a
subliminal self, or the theory of the subconsciousness, has made a great
difference in the theory of hypnotism.
The second period began when Abbe Faria in 1814-15 came from India to
Paris and gave public exhibitions, publishing the results of some of his

experiments. He seated his subjects in an arm-chair, with eyes closed, and
then cried out in a loud commanding voice, "Sleep." He used no
manipulations and had no baquet, but he boasted of having produced five
thousand somnambulists by this method. He opined that the state was
caused by no unknown force, but rested in the subject himself. He agreed
with the present generally accepted theory that all is subjective.
Following Faria, Bertrand and Noizet paved the way for the doctrine of
suggestion notwithstanding their inclination toward animal magnetism.
Experiments were performed at the Hôtel-Dieu in 1820 but later were
prohibited. Through the influence of Foissac in 1826 the Academy of
Medicine appointed a committee to examine the subject, and in 1831 a
report acknowledging the genuineness of the phenomena was made, and
therapeutic effects were frankly admitted. In 1837 the Academy appointed
another commission to examine still further, for the members as a whole
were not convinced. The report of this commission was largely negative.
After this the younger Burdin, a member of the Academy, proposed to
award from his own purse a prize of 3,000 francs to any person who could
read a given writing without the aid of his eyes, and in the dark. The
existence of animal magnetism must stand or fall on this test. That was the
difficulty during this period: the whole dispute was waged about, and
experiments consisted in tests of, clairvoyance, transposition of the sense of
sight, and other mystical phenomena, instead of dealing with the state as
such. This, of course, made the struggle much easier for the opponents of
mesmerism, but was largely the fault of the magnetizers. The Burdin prize
was not awarded, and in 1840 Double proposed that the Academy should
henceforth pay no further attention to animal magnetism, but treat the
subject as definitely closed. This was certainly unfair and unscientific, but
was the attitude assumed.
At the beginning of this period another series of tests was being performed
in Germany, but after 1820 the belief in magnetism declined more and
more. It flourished longest in Bremen and in Hamburg where Siemers was
its advocate. From 1830-1840 Hensler and Ennemoser were the chief
exponents in Bavaria. As the scientific investigators withdrew from the
study, the charlatans and frauds entered the field, and the marvellous and

occult were emphasized, so that in 1840 little general attention was paid to
the subject.
Notwithstanding the efforts of the London physicians Elliotson and
Ashburner, magnetism could obtain little footing in England during this
period. Numerous investigations were made, however, and several
publications were sent forth. Townshend, Scoresby, and Lee are names
prominent in the study of the subject in England at this time. In the next
period, though, an Englishman gives the impetus necessary for the
successful pursuit of the study.
In 1841 the French magnetizer, La Fontaine, gave some public exhibitions
in Manchester which attracted the attention of a physician by the name of
James Braid. Through the aid rendered by Braid, animal magnetism
blossomed into a science. He directed the subject into its proper field: he
eschewed the occult and mysterious, and emphasized observation and
experiment. It was Braid who gave us the word "hypnotism." At first a
sceptic, he began experimenting and proved that fixity of gaze had in some
way such an influence on the nervous system of the subject that he went off
into a sleep. He therefore opined that the transmission of a fluid by the
operator had no part in the matter.
He further showed that an assumed attitude changed the subject's
sentiments in harmony with the attitude, and that the degree of sleep varied
with different persons, and with the same person at different times. He also
noted the acuteness of the senses during hypnosis, and that verbal
suggestion would produce hallucinations, emotions, paralysis, etc.
Therapeutics was a subject in which he was naturally interested, and his
experiments on different diseases were frequent and valuable. Braid made
some mistakes, as was natural, but his discoveries covered the field so well
and his ideas were so sound that too much credit cannot be ascribed to him.
At first he thought hypnotism (Braidism) was identical with animal
magnetism, but later made the mistake of considering it analogous, and the
two flourished side by side and independently.
Animal magnetism was first introduced into America in 1836 by Mr.
Charles Poyan, a French gentleman. A few years later a certain Dr. Collyer
lectured upon it in New England. New Orleans was, however, for a long

time its chief centre. In 1848 Grimes, working independently, appears to
have arrived at about the same conclusions as Braid. He showed that most
of the hypnotic phenomena could be produced in the waking state in some
subjects, by means of verbal suggestion. The phenomena were known under
the name of electro-biology. In 1850 Darling went to England and
introduced electro-biology, but it was soon identified with Braidism, and in
1853 Durand de Gros, who wrote under the pseudonym of Philips,
exhibited the phenomena of electro-biology in several countries, but
aroused little attention.
Azam of Bordeaux and Broca of Paris made some experiments following
Braid's method, and several times performed some painless operations by
this means. They were followed by numerous others in all European
countries and in America. In fact, the interest in the subject became general,
and as more was known about it, fewer objections were heard. Societies
were formed for the study of hypnotism, publications were started devoting
all their space to the exposition and discussion of it, and as this third period
advanced, its scientific value was more and more recognized from the
stand-points of psychology, pathology, and therapeutics.
In a brief résumé like this it would be impossible to name even the chief
experimenters in the different countries who contributed to this period, but
some names stand out so prominently that they should be emphasized, for
they must be reckoned in importance with Braid's. Liebeault, whose book,
Du Sommeil, etc., was published in 1866, has been called the founder of the
therapeutics of suggestion. While suggestion in both waking and hypnotic
states had been applied long before Liebeault's day, it was he who first fully
and methodically recognized its value. We are also indebted to him for
stimulating in the study of hypnosis Bernheim and other prominent
investigators. Liebeault at the head of the School of Nancy was not less
known than Charcot at the Salpêtrière.
Charcot was indefatigable in his researches, but was led away in his
conclusions by artifacts. For example: three states were produced in the
hypnotic subject which Charcot considered to be symptomatic and
characteristic. They were catalepsy, lethargy, and somnambulism. Certain
physical excitations, such as rubbing the scalp or exposing the eyes to a
bright light, were thought to be all that was necessary to change the subject

from one stage to another. It has since been shown that not only were the
states of catalepsy, lethargy, and somnambulism produced by suggestion,
but the physical stimuli were simply suggestions and signs by which the
subject knew that a particular change was expected, and, in harmony with
hypnotic action, the expected change came about. Not only did Charcot
make this mistake, but some of his followers of the Salpêtrière School
continued to be deceived for years afterward.
Hardly a conclusion of Charcot's remains to-day, and yet so earnest was he
in his investigations and so untiring in his experiments, that many of his
facts contributed much to our knowledge of the subject even if his theories
have been rejected. Binet, Féré, and other followers of his have contributed
much to the science and literature of the subject. The latter half of this
period is not unknown to us to-day, and as the names connected with it are
familiar, it remains for me to mention but one more name, that of the one
who ushered in the fourth period, F. W. H. Myers.
From its beginning Myers was prominently connected with the Society for
Psychical Research and occupied the offices of president and secretary. He
held the latter position at the time of his death in 1901. In 1887 he
formulated his theory of the subliminal self or subliminal consciousness, a
theory which has come to be more and more accepted, and the value of
which has received increasing appreciation. It has been known as the
"subconscious self" or the "subconsciousness" probably more than by
Myers's original title; and his theory has been modified by some
subtractions and additions, but it is generally accepted to-day and its
exposition has helped solve many problems in abnormal psychology. In no
department has it contributed more than in that of hypnotism, for by it this
state has been partially explained.
For a number of years Charcot and his followers put forward a
physiological theory of hypnotism which waged war with that of the Nancy
School, under Liebeault, but even before Charcot's death he recognized the
validity of the Nancy claims while still clinging to his own. Few if any
espouse Charcot's claims to-day. The general psychological theory of
Nancy, which bases the results on suggestion, is that currently accepted,
while a theory not very different from that of animal magnetism has been

held by some of those who accepted the spiritualistic hypothesis, notably
among whom was Myers.
Hypnotism to-day is recognized as the product of a long line of erroneous
theory and zigzag development, but the wheat has largely been sifted and
the chaff thrown to the winds of antiquity. Its therapeutic and psychological
value is duly recognized by science to-day.189
187 Binet and Féré, Animal Magnetism, p. 8.
188 C. Mackay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions, I, p. 278.
189 Many works and encyclopedic articles on hypnotism have been consulted in
the preparation of this chapter, all of which were valuable, and few of which
stand out prominently.

CHAPTER XI

THE HEALERS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

"Medical cannot be separated from moral science, without reciprocal and essential mutilation."—
Reid.
"Man is a dupeable animal. Quacks in medicine, quacks in religion, and quacks in politics know this,
and act upon that knowledge. There is scarcely anyone who may not, like a trout, be taken by
tickling."—Southey.
"Canst thou minister to a mind diseas'd,
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,
Raze out the written troubles of the brain,
And with some sweet oblivious antidote
Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart?"—Shakespeare.
"Joy, temperance, and repose,
Slam the door on the doctor's nose."—Longfellow.

There seems to have been a great development of mental healing during the
nineteenth century. The healing by shrines, relics, and charms diminished in
the latter part of the century on account of the lessening of superstition and
the better understanding of mental laws, but additional work has thereby
been laid upon the healers. The development of hypnotism and the
exposition of the laws underlying it, the collection and publication of cases

of cures by mental means, the lessening of faith in noxious doses of drugs,
the increase of nervous diseases which are most easily helped by suggestive
therapeutics, the attempted duplication of apostolic gifts on the part of some
sects and the general reaction against the materialism of the early part of the
century as shown in the great revival of psychical study and research have
all been factors in the demand for mental medicine.
The healers have been of various kinds. Having already dealt with the
mesmerizers and hypnotizers, we shall now look only at the classes of
independent and generally less scientific investigators and experimenters.
Some have not been regular healers but healed only incidentally, as, e. g.,
the revivalists; some have followed James 5:14 f. in anointing with oil and
praying—of these and others, some have had institutions for housing the
patients; some have been peripatetic healers; some have simply used prayer;
some have established their systems on metaphysical bases and been the
founders of sects; some have combined the results of scientific
investigations in an endeavor to help mankind. Many of these have simply
followed the ways of their predecessors of former centuries, but a few
started on new lines of procedure. Whatever the method, they have all,
consciously or unconsciously, depended upon the influence of the patient's
mind over his own body, and the now better understood laws of suggestion.
The revivals were eighteenth and nineteenth century phenomena, and in
discussing the part which their leaders have taken in healing we may well
include the experience of Wesley. As a mere incident in his revival work,
John Wesley (1703-1791), the great founder of Methodism, appeared in the
rather unenviable role of exorcist. It is to his credit that he was not led away
from his primary purpose by this experience, but returned to his preaching
without any effort to add healing to his gifts. The account of his encounter
with the demons can best be given by quoting his own words, as found in
his Journal.
"October 25 [1739]. I was sent for to one in Bristol who was taken ill the
evening before. She lay on the ground furiously gnashing her teeth and after
a while roared aloud. It was not easy for three or four persons to hold her,
especially when the name of Jesus was named. We prayed. The violence of
her symptoms ceased, though without a complete deliverance." Wesley was
sent for later in the day. "She began screaming before I came into the room,

then broke out into a horrid laughter, mixed with blasphemy, grievous to
hear. One who from many circumstances apprehended a preternatural agent
to be concerned in this, asking, 'How didst thou dare to enter into a
Christian?' was answered, 'She is not a Christian, she is mine.' Then another
question, 'Dost thou not tremble at the name of Jesus?' No words followed,
but she shrunk back and trembled exceedingly. 'Art thou not increasing thy
own damnation?' It was faintly answered, 'Ay! Ay!' which was followed by
fresh cursing and blasphemy ... with spitting, and all the expressions of
strong aversion." Two days later Wesley called and prayed with her again,
when "All her pangs ceased in a moment, she was filled with peace, and
knew that the son of wickedness was departed from her." On October 28 he
exorcised two more demons whom he had evidently (unconsciously) been
the means of producing in two neurotic girls. He had a few other
experiences in healing, but always in an incidental way.

JOHN ALEXANDER DOWIE

Charles G. Finney (1792-1875) had at least one experience as a healer.
During revival services at Antwerp, N. Y., in 1824, two insane women were
cured, but Finney was directly concerned in the restoration of only one of
them. Of this he gives an account in his memoirs. "There were two very
striking cases of instantaneous recovery from insanity during this revival.
As I went into meeting in the afternoon of one Sabbath, I saw several ladies
sitting in a pew, with a woman dressed in black who seemed to be in great
distress of mind; and they were partly holding her, and preventing her from
going out. As I came in, one of the ladies came to me and told me she was
an insane woman.... I said a few words to her; but she replied that she must
go; that she could not hear any praying, or preaching, or singing; that hell

was her portion, and she could not endure anything that made her think of
heaven. I cautioned the ladies, privately, to keep her in her seat, if they
could, without her disturbing the meeting. I then went into the pulpit and
read a hymn. As soon as the singing began, she struggled hard to get out.
But the ladies obstructed her passage; and kindly but persistently prevented
her escape.... As I proceeded ... all at once she startled the congregation by
uttering a loud shriek. She then cast herself almost from her seat, held her
head very low, and I could see that she 'trembled very exceedingly.'... As I
proceeded she began to look up again, and soon sat upright, with face
wonderfully changed, indicating triumphant joy and peace.... She glorified
God and rejoiced with amazing triumph. About two years after, I met with
her, and found her still full of joy and peace."190
The so-called "Mountain Evangelist," George O. Barnes, who was born in
1827, added healing to his other revival efforts. After leaving the
Presbyterian Church he did his work mostly in Kentucky as an independent
minister, and there anointed with oil according to James 5:14 f. In his
records little is said about the cures, but the daily number of anointings is
given, amounting to at least five thousand in all. He believed that the devil,
not God, sends sickness: God is the great healer. The anointing was simply
a matter of faith. His formula varied and was very simple, as e. g., "Dear
daughter, in Jesus's precious name I anoint thee with this oil of healing for
thy maladies. Oh, go on thy way rejoicing. Be of good cheer. He is the great
healer. He will make thee whole. He hath commanded it. Lean thy whole
weight on Him."191 His views may be judged by the following extract from
a sermon of his on "Our Healer": "Oh, the hospitals and drug-stores, the
bitter doses, the pains and racks, the tortures—great God, may this people
believe to-day that thou hast nothing to do with this, that all came in with
sin, and the devil manages it all; and wherever we are afflicted God stands
by wringing His hands, and saying, '...Return to me, O backsliding children.
Come back to me, and I will keep the devil off of you.'"192 I take also some
extracts from his daily record.
"July 19 [1881]. John and I took a long walk.... I shall not repeat the experiment, for I got many
chiggers on me, which are tormenting me from head to foot while I write, I think because I trusted
the pennyroyal to keep them off me instead of the Lord. It was not wilful, but a slip of forgetfulness,
yet a door wide enough for Satan to enter a little bit. Now, instead of trying pennyroyal to get me rid
of them, I will trust the Lord only.

"July 20. The chiggers gave exquisite torment. I shall never trust in pennyroyal again.
"July 21. Satan tried to get me wavering on the eye question, but the dear Lord set me up more firmly
than ever.
"July 24. We have gotten into a little trouble by carelessly trying to help the dear Lord take care of
his little organ. A key was silent, and yesterday Marie tried to remedy it. There was a good deal of
taking out of keys, and dusting—result, two keys silent now, and one that won't be silent, but goes on
in a bass wail through every song. So much for meddling with the dear Lord's work. We trust Him,
when the lesson is learned, to set the little machine all right again.... The dear Lord cured the little
organ this afternoon while we were at dinner; at least it was all right, as Marie with a happy smile
informed me before she began to sing the first song. I gave thanks for it in the opening prayer, and
then told the people all about it.
"July 27. Satan is not a little busy with me, injecting doubts as to the right to trust for eyes. Faith still
quenches all his fiery darts, although it sorely tries me to be thus inactive in these long summer days,
without reading my beautiful edition of Young's Concordance, useless at the bottom of my trunk. My
Revised New Testament I can only get at through others."193

Leaving now the revivalists, let us take up the cases of others not revivalists
who used anointing for healing. In her native hamlet of Maennedorf,
Switzerland, Dorothea Trudel (1813-1862), the descendant of some
generations of faith healers, cured many. Soon people began to come to her
from near and far and, finally, at the solicitation of a "patient" of rank, she
purchased a home where the afflicted could be near her. In 1856 the health
authorities interfered. She was fined; an appeal was taken and, finally, she
was permitted to carry on her work in connection with the home under
some formal restrictions. During the course of the trial some authenticated
cases of cure were produced: "one stiff knee, pronounced incurable by the
best surgeons of France, Germany, and Switzerland; a leading physician
testified to the recovery of a hopeless patient of his own; a burned foot,
which was about to be amputated to prevent impending death, was healed
without means. The evidence was incontrovertible, and the cases numerous.
The cure was often contemporaneous with the confession of Christ by the
unbelieving patient; but duration of the sickness varied with each case.
Lunatics were commonly sent forth cured in a brief while." Nothing
miraculous was claimed and no war was waged against physicians. It was
not asserted that a cure was infallibly made, but it was pointed out as a
simpler and more direct method. The means employed were gentleness,
discipline, Bible reading, prayer, and anointing. After the death of Dorothea
the home continued under the supervision of Mr. Samuel Zeller.

Charles Cullis (1833-1892), a young physician of Boston, suffered a
crushing bereavement in the death of his wife shortly after their marriage,
and then vowed to devote his life to charity. Inspired by Müller's Life of
Trust he established a number of charitable institutions, relying on prayer
and faith for their support. Some of these institutions were for the cure of
the sick, and in connection with these, and otherwise, Dr. Cullis anointed
and prayed with all who came to him. Every summer a camp-meeting was
held at Old Orchard Beach, Maine, where the large collections gathered
were the subject of annual comment. He was followed in his work by Rev.
A. B. Simpson, of New York, who now conducts it. The latter was formerly
a Presbyterian minister but is now an independent. He still heals and takes
up collections. From the efforts of Cullis and Simpson have come the
Christian and Missionary Alliance and other similar organizations with
Pentecost as the text and apostolic gifts as the much-sought-after prize. The
proof of success is found in healing, speaking with tongues, trances,
visions, and other abnormal phenomena.
The "Holy Ghost and Us" movement, with headquarters at Shiloh, Maine,
was an outgrowth of the Christian and Missionary Alliance propaganda.
Rev. F. W. Sanford (1863- ) was born on Bowdoinham Ridge, Maine. He
graduated at Bates College in 1886 and attended Cobb Divinity School for a
short time. His ordination took place in 1887, after which he held two
pastorates of three years each, presumedly in Free Baptist churches. In
1891, while attending meetings at Old Orchard, he was inspired to start "a
movement on strictly apostolic lines, which was to sweep the entire globe."
He started on this new work early in 1893 with Shiloh, Maine, as the centre.
Relying on faith alone, several buildings were erected and paid for, among
which is Bethesda—a Home of Healing: "For those who believe God told
the truth when He said, 'The prayer of Faith shall save the sick.'" In an
account of the healing we read: "We have seen ... in at least one case, the
restoration of the dead to life." Quite a following embraced the doctrine at
one time, but lately there has been a considerable decline.
An institution for faith healing was established in the north of London by
Rev. W. E. Boardman (1810-1886). He called it "Bethshan" or the "Nursery
of Faith" and refused to permit it to be called a hospital. The usual method
of treatment was by anointing with oil and prayer, but it was claimed that
many also were healed by correspondence. The results professed were very

extravagant, among the cases being cancer, paralysis, advanced
consumption, chronic rheumatism, and lameness of different kinds. As a
proof of the cure of the last named affliction, numerous canes and crutches
left behind by the healed were on exhibition.194
It is said that Lord Radstock practised healing through anointing in
Australia about the same time.
There have been a number of prominent healers who have used prayer, and
perhaps the laying on of hands, as the means for healing, and have usually
eschewed anointing. Among these was Prince Hohenlohe (1794-1849). His
was probably the greatest name in mental healing in the nineteenth century.
He was born in Waldenburg and educated at several institutions. He was
ordained priest in 1815 and officiated at Olmütz, Munich, and other places.
In 1820 he met a peasant, Martin Michel, who had performed some
wonderful cures, and in connection with him effected a so-called
miraculous cure on a princess of Schwarzenberg who had been for some
years a paralytic.195 From this experience he became enthusiastic in
healing, and he acquired such a fame as a performer of miraculous cures
that multitudes flocked from different countries to receive the benefit of his
supposed supernatural gifts. In one year (1848-49) there were eighteen
thousand people who obtained access to him. His name and his titles
probably had not a little to do with his wide influence. They were Alexander
Leopold Franz Emmerich, Prince of Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-
Schillingsfürst, Archbishop and Grand Provost of Grosswardein, Hungary,
and Abbot of St. Michael's at Gaborjan.
The testimony concerning his cures is from reliable witnesses. Notice the
letter written by the ex-King of Bavaria to Count von Sinsheim, describing
his own case:
My dear Count:
There are still miracles. The ten last days of the last month, the people of Würzburg might believe
themselves in the times of the Apostles. The deaf heard, the blind saw, the lame freely walked, not by
the aid of art, but by a few short prayers, and by the invocation of the name of Jesus.... On the
evening of the 28th, the number of persons cured, of both sexes, and of every age, amounted to more
than twenty. These were of all classes of the people, from the humblest to a prince of the blood, who,
without any exterior means, recovered, on the 27th at noon, the hearing which he had lost from his
infancy. This cure was effected by a prayer made for him during some minutes, by a priest who is
scarcely more than twenty-seven years of age—the Prince Hohenlohe. Although I do not hear so well

as the majority of the persons who are about me, there is no comparison between my actual state and
that which it was before. Besides, I perceive daily that I hear more clearly.... My hearing, at present,
is very sensitive. Last Friday, the music of the troop which defiled in the square in front of the palace,
struck my tympanum so strongly, that for the first time, I was obliged to close the window of my
cabinet.
The inhabitants of Würzburg have testified, by the most lively and sincere acclamations, the pleasure
which my cure has given them. You are at liberty to communicate my letter, and to allow any one
who wishes, to take a copy of it.
Bruckenau, July 3d, 1822. Louis, Prince Royal.

Professor Onymus, of the University of Würzburg, reported a number of
cases cured by Prince Hohenlohe, which he himself witnessed. He gives the
following:
"Captain Ruthlein, an old gentleman of Thundorf, 70 years of age, who had long been pronounced
incurable of paralysis, which kept his hand clenched, and who had not left his room for many years,
has been perfectly cured. Eight days after his cure he paid me a visit, rejoicing in the happiness of
being able to walk freely.
"A man, of about 50, named Bramdel, caused himself to be carried by six men from Carlstadt to the
Court at Stauffenburg. His arms and legs were utterly paralyzed, hanging like those of a dead man,
and his face was of a corpse-like pallor. On the prayer of the Prince he was instantly cured, rose to his
feet, and walked perfectly, to the profound astonishment of all present.
"A student of Burglauer, near Murmerstadt, had lost for two years the use of his legs; he was brought
in a carriage, and though he was only partially relieved by the first and second prayer of the Prince, at
the third he found himself perfectly well.
"These cures are real and they are permanent. If any one would excite doubts of the genuineness of
the cases operated by Prince Hohenlohe, it is only necessary to come hither and consult a thousand
other eye and ear witnesses like myself. Every one is ready to give all possible information about
them."196

The Mormons, under the leadership of Joseph Smith, Jr. (1805-1844), were
healing the sick about the time that Prince Hohenlohe was performing his
miracles on the other side of the water. Smith was born in Sharon, Vermont.
The Mormon Church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) was
founded in 1830 in Palmyra, New York, and moved from there to Kirkland,
Ohio; Independence, Missouri; Nauvoo, Illinois; and thence to Utah. Smith
was successively first elder, prophet, seer, and revelator. The year the
church was founded Smith began his healing career as an exorcist, casting
the devil out of Newel Knight in Colesville, New York. Following this,
there was a firm belief in demoniacal possession, and exorcism was
practised by both Smith and his followers, principally by means of
command. This exorcism led up to faith healing.

Smith's maternal uncle, Jason Mack, was a firm believer in healing by
prayer and practised it; later, the Oneida Community of Perfectionists in
western New York cured by faith; both of these facts would be known to the
founder of Mormonism. After adopting faith healing he soon became
proficient in the art. Numerous well-attested cures were performed by
Smith and his followers in other places. Elder Richards advertised in
England "Bones set through Faith in Christ," and Elder Phillips made the
additional statement that "while commanding the bones, they came
together, making a noise like the crushing of an old basket." All forms of
disease were treated, but not always successfully, as may be inferred from
Smith's own words: "The cholera burst forth among us, even those on guard
fell to the earth with their guns in their hands.... At the commencement I
attempted to lay on hands for their recovery, but I quickly learned by
painful experience, that when the great Jehovah decrees destruction upon
any people, makes known His determination, man must not attempt to stay
his hand." The means employed varied, but included at different times
prayer, command, laying on of hands, consecrated handkerchiefs and other
cloths, baptism, and infrequently anointing.197
Crossing the ocean again, we find Johann Christolph Blumhardt (1805-
1880) performing wonderful acts of healing. He assumed his first
independent charge in 1838 when he became pastor of the village church at
Moettlinger, Wurtemberg. He was known afterward as Pastor Blumhardt.
Among his parishioners was Gottliebin Ditters, generally thought to be
possessed by an evil spirit. After two years prayer and care for this woman,
he saw her restored to peace of mind. This was the beginning of a life of
faith in the efficacy of prayer for healing. After the restoration of Gottliebin
a spontaneous and entirely unexpected revival took place in Moettlinger.
Multitudes came from afar to hear this sincere man preach his simple
sermons, and in many cases bodily disease left those who confessed and
upon whom Blumhardt laid his hands. It became noised about that those
who repented, with whom the pastor prayed and upon whom he laid his
hands, would be healed. "One morning a mother rushed to his house, saying
that she had by an accident scalded her child with boiling soup. The infant
was found screaming with agony. He took the child in his arms, prayed over
it, and it grew quiet. It had no further pain, and the effects of the scalding
were quickly gone. Another child was nearly blind with disease. A

neighboring pastor, when consulted, said to the parents: 'If you believe
Jesus can and will heal your child, by all means go to Blumhardt, but if you
have not got the faith, don't do it on any account; let an operation be
performed.' 'Well, we have faith,' they said, and went to Blumhardt. Three
days after it was perfectly well." These events could not fail to attract
attention, and miracles or healings from his prayers were of constant
occurrence. In 1852 Blumhardt moved to Boll, Wurtemberg, and until his
death he continued his healing. He did not despise human means of healing,
but he stoutly held that Jesus would answer the prayer of faith uttered for
and by the sick.
About the middle of the century Father Mathew (1790-1856) attracted a
large number of persons who were in need of healing. He was best known
as the famous apostle of temperance, and was to Ireland in the nineteenth
century what Wesley was to England in the eighteenth. He also travelled
over England and Scotland and spent two years in America. In one period
of nine months he induced two hundred thousand persons to take the
temperance pledge. Among other things he cured blindness, lameness,
paralysis, hysteria, headache, and lunacy. After his death the same diseases
which he had cured during his lifetime were just as effectively relieved by
visiting the good father's tomb, in the firm belief that a miracle would be
performed. From the following cure, his first one, it will be seen that the
discovery of his healing power was rather accidental.
"A young lady, of position and intelligence, was for years the victim of the most violent headaches,
which assumed a chronic character. Eminent advice was had but in vain; the malady became more
intense, the agony more excruciating. Starting up one day from the sofa on which she lay in a
delirium of pain, she exclaimed—'I cannot endure this torture any longer; I will go and see what
Father Mathew can do for me.' She immediately proceeded to Lehanagh, where Father Mathew was
then sick and feeble. Flinging herself on her knees before him she besought his prayers and blessing.
In fact, stung by intolerable suffering she asked him to cure her. 'My dear child, you ask me what no
mortal has power to do. The power to cure rests alone with God. I have no such power.' 'Then bless
me, and pray for me—place your hand on my head,' implored the afflicted lady. 'I cannot refuse to
pray for you, or to bless you,' said Father Mathew, who did pray for and bless her, and place his hand
upon her poor throbbing brow. Was it faith?—was it magnetism?—was it the force of imagination
exerted wonderfully? I shall not venture to pronounce what it was; but that lady returned to her home
perfectly cured of her distressing malady. More than that—cured completely, from that moment,
forward."198

About the same time, Mrs. Elizabeth Mix, a negro woman living in
Connecticut, achieved great fame through her healing by prayer. Many
testified to the efficacy of her prayers and bewailed her death.

GEORGE O. BARNES

Francis Schlatter (1856-1909) was a native of Alsace, France. He was born
a Roman Catholic and, so far as he was affiliated with any denomination,
always remained one. When a year old, he was blind and deaf and was
cured by his mother's prayers. He came to America in 1891, and first settled
at Jamestown, Long Island. Early in 1893 he moved to Denver, Colorado,
and in the following July he felt impelled by inner promptings to start out,
he knew not whither. Probably mentally unbalanced, he wandered through
the wilderness of the great Southwest without shoes or hat. Fasts,
temptations, visions, arrests and imprisonments, and healings combined to
furnish his experience during these wanderings, always, as he said, being
led by the Father. In July, 1895, he arrived at Las Lunas, New Mexico,
where he first attracted public attention as a healer. From here he went to
Albuquerque, where he treated as many as six hundred persons in a day,

many very effectively. After forty days' fast, which was broken by a hearty
meal of solid food, he went to Denver and here reached the pinnacle of his
fame and success. At the home of a sympathizer, daily from 9 A. M. to 4 P.
M., he treated those who came to him, always without any remuneration.
From two thousand to five thousand people would congregate in line,
reaching nearly around a city block, five or six abreast, but he was never
able to treat more than two thousand in a day. Crowds came from other
cities, and some few from great distances, even the New England States. He
stood inside a fence, and as each one came along he held the patient's hand
for a short time; lifting up his eyes, he prayed and then assured the sufferer
of relief within a certain time. Through the mail and in other ways he
received handkerchiefs which he blessed and returned with assurance of
relief through them. Not all cases handled were restored to health or even
noticeably eased, but large numbers testified to cures, some of which came
immediately and others by degrees. He did not preach. Although he never
claimed it, when asked, "Are you the Christ?" he always replied, "I am." He
wore a beard and long hair, and dressed in the plainest clothes. In
appearance he looked not unlike the pictures of the traditional Christ.
Afterward he appeared in different parts of the United States, but never with
the same success in healing as in Denver.199
The once famous Dr. Newton arrived in Boston in 1859 on one of his visits,
and caused an extraordinary sensation. Astonishing results were reported in
the way of cures. The lame, having no further need of crutches, left them
behind; the blind were cured, and several chronic cases were relieved. He
had many followers and disciples among whom was "Dr." Bryant, who
settled in Detroit and healed there. Rev. J. M. Buckley, D.D., met Dr.
Newton on a Mississippi steam-boat, when the latter was returning from
Havana with his daughter who was very low with consumption, and the
father doubted if she would reach home alive. When asked "Doctor, why
could you not heal her?" he replied "It seems as if we cannot always affect
our own kindred." At this time he denounced his pupil, Dr. Bryant, as an
"unmitigated fraud who had no genuine healing power."
"If Bryant be an unmitigated fraud, how do you account for the cures which he makes?" asked Dr.
Buckley.
"Oh!" said the doctor, "they are caused by the faith of the people and the concentration of their minds
upon his operations with the expectation of being cured. Now," said he, "nobody would go to see

Bryant unless they had some faith that he might cure them, and when he begins his operations with
great positiveness of manner, and when they see the crutches he has there, and hear the people testify
that they have been cured, it produces a tremendous influence on them; and then he gets them started
in the way of exercising, and they do a good many things that they thought they could not do; their
appetites and spirits revive, and if toning them up can possibly reduce the diseased tendency, many of
them will get well."
Said Dr. Buckley: "Doctor, pardon me, is not that a correct account of the manner in which you
perform your wonderful works?"
"Oh, no," said he; "the difference between a genuine healer and a quack like Bryant is as wide as the
poles."200

Father John of Cronstadt (1829-1908) was a saintly man, and furnishes us
with an example of the healers among the Orthodox Church of the East. He
was famed in all Russia for his sanctity, and was so thronged by crowds for
his healing power that he often had to escape by side doors after celebrating
the communion. His cures were many, but I choose his own account of one
as an example.
"A certain person who was sick unto death from inflammation of the bowels for nine days, without
having obtained the slightest relief from medical aid, as soon as he had communicated of the Holy
Sacrament, upon the morning of the ninth day, regained his health and rose from his bed of sickness
in the evening of the same day. He received the Holy Communion with firm faith. I prayed to the
Lord to cure him. 'Lord,' said I, 'heal thy servant of his sickness. He is worthy, therefore grant him
this. He loves thy priests and sends them his gifts.' I also prayed for him in church before the altar of
the Lord, at the Liturgy, during the prayer: 'Thou who hast given us grace at this time, with one
accord to make our common supplication unto thee,' and before the Holy Mysteries themselves. I
prayed in the following words: 'Lord, our life! It is as easy for thee to cure every malady as it is for
me to think of healing. It is as easy for thee to raise every man from the dead as it is for me to think
of the possibility of the resurrection of the dead. Cure, then, thy servant Basil of his cruel malady, and
do not let him die; do not let his wife and children be given up to weeping.' And the Lord graciously
heard, and had mercy upon him, although he was within a hair's breadth of death. Glory to thine
omnipotence and mercy, that thou, Lord, hast vouchsafed to hear me!"201

For the past century and a half healing has been carried on among the
Pennsylvania Germans by means of a superstitious practice known as
"Pow-wow." A book called The Sixth Book of Moses, or Black Art is said to
be the basis of the practice. The practitioners are usually women of the most
ignorant, degraded, and, not infrequently, immoral class, and in harmony
with this, a firm belief in witchcraft is entertained by them. Notwithstanding
this, they are employed at times by intelligent and respectable people, even
by those whose standing in the community might well guarantee a disbelief
in such incantations. The healers treat for burns, erysipelas and all skin
diseases, goitre, tumors, rheumatism, and some other similar troubles. They

have different formulas for the various diseases, and the belief is current
that if a healer should reveal the formula to her own sex, she would lose her
power, and if she told more than one of the opposite sex, the power would
be taken from her. The following is the method of operating for burns:
"Take a piece of red woolen yarn and wrap it into the shape of a ball. Pass it slowly around the burn
and while doing so, repeat three times, 'The fire burneth, water quencheth, the pain ceaseth.' After
which reverse the movement and repeat the words again three times. Then take the yarn upstairs, pull
out the chimney-stop, put the yarn in the chimney, and as soon as it disappears the burn is healed."

There have been a number of cases of local healers and I give two
examples: "At the time of the prevalence of cholera in Canada, a man
named Ayers, who came out of the States, and was said to be a graduate of
the University of New Jersey, was given out to be St. Roche, the principal
patron saint of the Canadians, and renowned for his power in averting
pestilential diseases. He was reported to have descended from heaven to
cure his suffering people of the cholera, and many were the cases in which
he appeared to afford relief. Many were thus dispossessed of their fright in
anticipation of the disease, who might, probably, but for his inspiriting
influence, have fallen victims to their apprehensions. The remedy he
employed was an admixture of maple sugar, charcoal, and lard."202
"The Month for June, 1892, published an account, by the late Earl of
Denbigh, of a cure worked by a member of a family named Cancelli of
Lady Denbigh in 1850. She was suffering severely from rheumatism, and
the Pope (Pius IX) mentioned to the Earl that near Foligno there was a
family of
peasants who were credited with a miraculous power of curing rheumatic
disorders. Lord Denbigh succeeded in getting one of the family, an old man,
to come, and learned from him the legend of the cure. The belief was that in
the reign of Nero, the Apostles Peter and Paul took refuge in the hut of an
old couple named Cancelli, near Foligno, and, as a proof of gratitude, gave
to the male descendants of the family living near the spot the power of
curing rheumatic disorders to the end of time. Lord Denbigh described how
the old man made a solemn invocation, using the sign of the cross, and, in
fact, Lady Denbigh did recover at once. In a few days the pains returned,
but she made an act of resignation, and they then left her, and never
returned with any acuteness."203

What we may designate "Metaphysical Healing" originated with Phineas
Parkhurst Quimby (1802-1866). The movement was important, not so much
on account of what Quimby himself was able to accomplish by it, as
because of the work that has been carried on since by at least three of his
pupils. He was born in Lebanon, New Hampshire, and in early life was a
watch and clock maker. In 1840 he began experimenting with mesmerism,
and accounts of these experiments were published in the Maine papers of
that time. After this he developed a system of mental healing of his own,
practising it in different towns in Maine for some years. About 1858 he
settled as a practitioner in Portland and remained there until his death. I
shall quote brief extracts in his own words, which portray his system.
"My practice is unlike all medical practice. I give no medicine, and make no outward applications. I
tell the patient his troubles, and what he thinks is his disease; and my explanation is the cure. If I
succeed in correcting his errors, I change the fluids of the system and establish the truth, or health.
The truth is the cure. This mode of practice applies to all cases."
"The greatest evil that follows taking an opinion for a truth is disease."
"Man is made up of truth and belief; and, if he is deceived into a belief that he has, or is liable to
have, a disease, the belief is catching, and the effect follows it."
"Disease being made by our belief, or by our parents' belief, or by public opinion, there is no formula
to be adopted, but every one must be reached in his particular case. Therefore it requires great
shrewdness or wisdom to get the better of the error. Disease is our error and the work of the
devil."204

Quimby made many wonderful and mostly speedy cures, and although he
wrote out his system, it has never been published. Among his patients was
Mrs. Patterson from Hill, New Hampshire, who went to Portland in 1862.
She had been a confirmed invalid for six years. To quote her own words,
published in the Portland Evening Courier in 1862, she made a rapid
recovery. "Three weeks since I quitted my nurse and sick room en route for
Portland. The belief of my recovery had died out of the hearts of those who
were most anxious for it. With this mental and physical depression I first
visited P. P. Quimby, and in less than one week from that time I ascended by
a stairway of one hundred and eighty-two steps to the dome of the City
Hall, and am improving ad infinitum. To the most subtle reasoning, such a
proof, coupled, too, as it is with numberless similar ones, demonstrates his
power to heal." Mrs. Patterson, afterward Mrs. Eddy, proclaimed after his
death a doctrine very similar to Quimby's. She called it "Christian Science,"

a name Quimby applied to his teaching, although usually he called it
"Science of Health."
Another patient of Quimby's was Julius A. Dresser, who visited him first in
1860. Of him Mr. Dresser says: "The first person in this age who penetrated
the depths of truth so far as to discover and bring forth a true science of life,
and publicly apply it to the healing of the sick, was Phineas Parkhurst
Quimby of Belfast, Me."
Rev. W. F. Evans was still another patient and disciple of Quimby's. His
testimony is as follows: "Disease being in its root a wrong belief, change
that belief and we cure the disease.... The late Dr. Quimby, of Portland, one
of the most successful healers of this or any age, embraced this view of the
nature of disease, and by a long succession of most remarkable cures ...
proved the truth of the theory.... Had he lived in a remote age or country, the
wonderful facts which occurred in his practice would have now been
deemed either mythical or miraculous."
These three, Messrs. Evans and Dresser and Mrs. Eddy, proved to be
Quimby's most famous patients and disciples. Evans became a noted and
voluminous writer on mental healing, Mr. Dresser has been identified with
the New Thought movement of which his son H. W. Dresser is probably the
best exponent, and Mrs. Eddy ruled the Christian Scientists with a rod of
iron.
Warren F. Evans visited Quimby twice in the year 1863, and at these times
obtained his knowledge of Quimby's methods. Up to this time he had been a
Swedenborgian clergyman, and his beliefs enabled him the better to grasp
the new doctrines. On the occasion of the second visit he told his healer that
he thought he could cure the sick in this way, and Quimby agreed with him.
On returning home he tried it, and his first attempts were so successful that
he became a practitioner, using only mental means, and continued in this
work. He wrote several books on the subject of mental healing, the first
one, The Mental Cure, appearing in 1869, six years before Mrs. Eddy's
Science and Health.
Perhaps, strictly speaking, the New Thought movement does not come
within the scope of our subject, except as we see in it an outgrowth and
application of the Quimby doctrine, for two reasons. In the first place, its

purpose is mental hygiene rather than cure, and it is all the more valuable
for that. Of course, in establishing hygienic practices many disorders are
cured, but prevention is the main feature. The second reason why we might
perhaps not include it in a résumé of the healers is that it is intended to be
for the use of the individual to prevent his employing a healer of any kind.
The same objection, however, would do away to some extent with a
discussion of Christian Science. The principles of New Thought are that the
mind has an influence on the body, and that good, sweet, pure thoughts
have a salutary effect, but the opposite ones injure the body. Don't worry,
don't think of disease, don't look for trouble, but fill the mind with the
opposite positive thoughts and life will be happy and the body will be well.
The doctrines are expounded differently by the various leaders, and
emphasis is laid on different points, some emphasizing more fully the
religious aspects of the movement, for example. The principal writers on
the subject are H. W. Dresser, R. W. Trine, H. Wood, and H. Fletcher.
Mrs. Mary A. Morse Baker Glover Patterson Eddy (1821-1910) was born at
Bow, New Hampshire. After a precocious and neurotic childhood, she
united with the Congregational Church when seventeen years of age. At the
age of twenty-two she married George Washington Glover, probably the
best of her husbands. His death, six months later, was followed by the birth
of her only child and a ten years' widowhood. During this time she stayed
with her relatives and had long periods of illness, principally of an
hysterical character. She then experimented to some extent with mesmerism
and clairvoyance. In 1853 she married Dr. Daniel Patterson, an itinerant
dentist, from whom she got a divorce, and as Mrs. Patterson she went first
to "Dr." Quimby in 1862. She visited Quimby again in 1864, at which time,
with some others, she studied with him. After Quimby's death she began
teaching what she then called his science. For the next few years she
wandered from town to town about Boston in straitened circumstances,
healing, teaching, and endeavoring to found an organized society. It was
not, however, until 1875 that the organization was formed in Lynn, and later
in the same year appeared her Science and Health. The years since then
have been filled with controversies in the law courts and newspapers,
caresses and blows from the ruling hand of Mother Eddy, and numerous
developments from small beginnings, until now over one hundred thousand

are identified with the organization. These are almost without exception
proselytes from other churches.

MARY BAKER EDDY

Mrs. Eddy's doctrines are founded on a metaphysical theory known as
subjective idealism, and advanced centuries before her birth. It posits the
all-comprehensiveness of mind and the non-existence of matter. If bodies
do not exist, diseases cannot exist, and must be only mental delusions. If the
mind is freed of these delusions the disease is gone. This was Quimby's
method of procedure already quoted. In Science and Health she says that
the object of treatment is "to destroy the patient's belief in his physical
condition." She also advises: "Mentally contradict every complaint of the
body." She continues: "All disease is the result of education, and can carry

its ill effects no further than mortal mind maps out the way. Destroy fear,"
she says, "and you end the fever." However, as with other healers, practice
and theory are two different things. Listen further: "It would be foolish to
venture beyond our present understanding, foolish to stop eating, until we
gain more goodness and a clearer comprehension of the living God." Again:
"Until the advancing age admits the efficacy and the supremacy of Mind, it
is better to leave the adjustment of broken bones and dislocations to the
fingers of the surgeon, while you confine yourself chiefly to mental
reconstruction, and the prevention of inflammation and protracted
confinement."205
With the exception of Christian Science, no modern religious movement
has come so prominently before the public and gained so many adherents in
a short time as the Christian Catholic Apostle Church of Zion, and both
movements owe their popularity solely to their healing. John Alexander
Dowie (1847-1907), the founder of this sect, was born in Edinburgh,
Scotland, but in 1860, with his parents, he went to Australia, returning for
two years to his native city for college study. In 1870 he was ordained to the
Congregational ministry. He served three churches, and after some political
activity was offered a portfolio in the Australian cabinet of Sir Henry Parks.
In 1882 he went to Melbourne and established a large independent church,
building a tabernacle for worship. About this time he became a firm
believer in Divine Healing in direct answer to prayer. He arrived in San
Francisco in 1888 and spent two years in organizing branches of the Divine
Healing Association of which he was president. He went to Chicago in 1890
and continued there holding meetings for some years. In 1895 he broke
away from the International Divine Healing Association, which he had been
chiefly instrumental in organizing, and insisted that his followers should not
remain in the churches. The following year the Christian Catholic Church
was organized. Of this organization Mr. Dowie was known as General
Overseer, then as Prophet, and in 1904 as First Apostle. He also proclaimed
himself in general as the messenger of the Covenant and Elijah the Restorer.
In 1900 Mr. Dowie said: "About twenty-two thousand have been baptized
by triune immersion up to the present, and this includes practically all the
members." This, however, was a great exaggeration. In 1901 the head-
quarters of the church was moved to Zion City, forty-two miles north of
Chicago. He preached the threefold gospel of Salvation, Healing, and Holy

Living. Dowie differed from Christian Science in proclaiming the reality of
disease, the distinctive feature of his doctrine being that all bodily ailment is
the work of the Devil, and that Christ came to destroy the works of the
Devil. His contempt for external means may be judged from the title of a
pamphlet, Doctors, Drugs, and Devils; nevertheless, he used physicians at
least to diagnose cases at different times, a licensed medical doctor,
Speicher, being associated with him from the beginning of his work in
Chicago. Dentists are a factor of Zion City, and it is said he also used an
oculist. According to his doctrine there are four methods of cure: "The first
is the direct prayer of faith; the second, intercessory prayer of two or more;
the third, the anointing of the elders, with the prayer of faith; and the fourth,
the laying on of hands of those who believe, and whom God has prepared
and called to that ministry." In addition to this, teaching is the basis of all
other methods. The first ten years of his healing he is said to have laid
hands on eighteen thousand sick, and he declared that the greater part of
them were fully healed. In some of his later years he said in an issue of his
paper: "I pray and lay hands on seventy thousand people in a year." That
would make one hundred and seventy-five thousand in two and a half years;
but in the time preceding the statement he reported only seven hundred
cures. Evidently very few were helped. However, in Shiloh Tabernacle at
Zion City are exhibited on the walls crutches, canes, surgical instruments,
trusses, and almost every form of apparatus used by the medical profession,
presented by people who have now no further use for them on account of
their being healed.206
Our study began with the mental therapeutics of over a millennium before
the birth of Christ; let us now close with that of the twentieth century after,
in giving some account of the so-called Emmanuel Movement. In 1905
there was formed in connection with Emmanuel Church, Boston, a
tuberculosis class for the alleviation of unfortunates of this kind. In this
experience it was found that certain psychic and social factors greatly aided
in a cure, and in the following year, 1906, the work expanded into what has
been called the "Emmanuel Movement." It is an attempt to combine the
wisdom and efforts of the physician, the clergyman, the psychologist, and
the sociologist, to combat conditions most frequently met in a large city. In
the medical phase of the work mental healing has had a large place, and has
been emphasized most in the popular presentation of the movement, and so

far as the idea has spread, it has been almost wholly in connection with this
aspect. What the future of this will be is uncertain, but it seems probable
that its most valuable service will be in stimulating the physicians to take up
the work which properly belongs to them—the work of therapeutics in all
its branches, mental and physical.
190 C. G. Finney, Memoirs, pp. 108 f.
191 W.T. Price, Without Scrip or Purse, or the "Mountain Evangelist," George
O. Barnes, p. 451.
192 Ibid., p. 610.
193 Ibid., pp. 301 ff.
194 J. M. Buckley, "Faith Healing and Kindred Phenomena," Century, XXXII,
pp. 221 f.
195 Encyclopedia Britannica, article "Hohenlohe."
196 D. H. Tuke, Influence of the Mind upon the Body, pp. 355 ff.
197 I. W. Riley, The Founder of Mormonism, chaps. VIII and IX.
198 J. F. Maguire, Father Mathew, pp. 529 f.
199 Biography of Francis Schlatter, The Healer.
200 J. M. Buckley, "Faith Healing and Kindred Phenomena," Century, XXXII,
pp. 221 f.
201 Father John, My Life in Christ (trans. Goulaeff), p. 201.
202 T. J. Pettigrew, Superstitions Connected with ... Medicine and Surgery, p. 53.
203 E. Berdoe, Origin and Growth of the Healing Art, p. 482.
204 J. A. Dresser, The True History of Mental Science; A. G. Dresser, The
Philosophy of P. P. Quimby.
205 G. Milmine, Mary Baker G. Eddy.
206 R. Harlan, John Alexander Dowie.

INDEX OF SUBJECTS
Abraxas, 165 ff.
Ague, 168, 172 f., 197 ff.
Amulets, Chapter VII—

definition of, 138 f., 158 f.
Astrology, 140 f., 146 ff.

Baquet, Mesmer's, 255 f.
Bites of venomous animals, 200 f.
Burns, 201.

Cabbalism, 194.
Calculus, 176 f.
Cancer, 9 f.
Canonization, 111.
Catacombs, 66.
Characts, 166 ff.
Charms, Chapter VIII—
composition of, 193.
definition of, 189 f.
Childbirth, 162, 168, 177, 202.
Cholera, 177.
Chorea, 203.
Christianity, influence of, Chapter III.
Christian Science, 16 f., 298 f., 302 f.
Colic, 177 f., 203.
Consumption, 203 f.
Cramp, 178, 204, 246 ff.
Cross, true, 69, 79 f.

Demonology—
and animals, 38 f.
and Apostolic Fathers, 40 ff.
and Dark Ages, 44 ff.
Christian, 37 ff.
Jewish, 36 f.
Diseases, functional and organic, 9.
Dislocations, 204 f.
Dropsy, 205.

Emmanuel Movement, 306 f.
Epilepsy, 178 f., 205 ff.
Erysipelas, 180 f.
Evil eye, 181, 207.
Exorcism, 49 ff., 126 f., 134 f., 275, 286.
by amulets, 178.
by charms, 204.
by relics, 63.
Eye disease, 168 f., 181 f., 207.

Faith, 14 f.
Faith cure, 16, 17.
Fevers, 166, 182, 208.

Gems, 161 ff., 176.
Goitre, 209.
Gout, 182 f.

Headache, 183, 209 f.
Healers, Chapter V—
and exorcism, 110.
by unction, 114 ff.
Christian, 113 ff.
Mesmeric, Chapter X.
of nineteenth century, Chapter XI.
Herpes, 211 f.
Hypnotism, Chapter X.—
controversy over, 257 ff.
historic periods of, 264 f.
Mesmer and, 252 ff.
scientific period of, 267 f.
Hysteria, 183.
Incubation, 26, 92 ff.
Greek, 93 ff.
Incubus, 212.
Insanity, 162, 183, 213.
Insomnia, 212.

Jaundice, 212 f.

Magnetism, 249 ff.
Mandragora, 171 f.
Marasmus, 214.
Medicine and church, 53 ff.
Babylonian, 27.
Chinese, 21 ff.
Egyptian, 24 ff.
Greek, 28 ff.
History of, 19 f.
Indian, 28.
Jewish, 27.
Primitive, 4, 20.
Roman, 34.
Melancholy, 183.
Mental healing, explanation of, 7 ff.
Mesmerism. See Hypnotism.
Metaphysical cures, 16, 297 ff.

Numbers, 190 ff.

Oil of Saints, 66 f.

Pericarpia, 173.
Phylacteries, 140.

Plague, 183.
Pools, 83 ff., 92.
Prayer, 274 f., 280 ff., 283 f., 288, 291, 294.
Psycho-analysis, 12 f.

Re-education, 12 f.
Relics, 5, Chapter V—
and Church Fathers, 64 f.
cost of, 96 ff.
fraud among, 101 f.
from Holy Land, 69 ff.
Religion and Healing, 4 ff., 21, Chapter III.
Revivalists, 274 ff.
Rickets, 214 f.
Rings, 179 f., 184, 246 ff.
Royal Touch, Chapter IX—
origin of, 225 ff.

Saints and Diseases, 74 ff., 81 f.
Sciatica, 215.
Scrofula, 185, 215, Chapter IX.
Shrines, Chapter IV—
modern, 106 f.
Sick, care of, 57 f.
Signatures, 56, 142 ff.
Spittle, 195.
Subconsciousness, 11, 12, 14.
Suggestions, 8, 251 f.
Sweating sickness, 215.
Sympathetic cures, 150 ff.

Talismans, Chapter VI—
definition of, 138 ff., 142.
Therapeutics. See Medicine.
Thorns, 216.
Toothache, 166, 186, 217 f.
Touch pieces, 233 f.

Unction, 144 ff., 274, 280.

Warts, 218 f.
Weapon-salve, 151 ff.
Wells, holy, 83 ff.
Wen, 219 f.
Whooping-cough, 186, 220 ff.
Worms, 223.
Wounds, 184 f.

INDEX OF NAMES
Abraham, 100.
Adam, 41.
Adrian, Pope, 184.
Æsculapius, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 63, 83, 86.
Agatha, St., 75.
Agnan, St., 75.
Agrippa, 59, 191.
Albans, St., 202.
Albertus Magnus, 159, 164.
Alboquerque, A. d'. 185.
Alexander III, 55, 227.
Alexander of Tralles, 171, 173, 178, 180, 182, 196.
Ambrose, St., 38, 64, 65, 66, 70.
Andreas, St., 80.
Andrews, 196.
Anne, Queen, 228, 233, 239, 240.
Anne, St., de Beaupré, 106, 107.
Anthony, St., 75, 80.
Antoinette, Marie, 258.
Antoninus, 31.
Apes, Valerius, 32.
Apollo, 29, 31, 83.
Apollonia, St., 75, 76.
Aquarius, 74.
Aredius, 119.
Aries, 74.
Aristophanes, 31.
Aristotle, 19, 29, 164.
Armstrong, 3.
Arnot, H., 140.
Ashburner, 267.
Ashmole, E. 173.
Athanasius, 42.
Aubrey, 215, 228.
Augustine, St., 43, 64, 108.
Aurelian, Father, 48.
Avertin, St., 75.
Ayers, 296.
Azam, 269.

Baas, 171, 203.
Bacci, P. J., 132.
Bacon, F., 242.
Bacon, R., 59.
Badger, 230.
Bagnone, F., 136.
Bailly, 256, 259.

Balsius, St., 74.
Baltus, 43.
Barbarin, de, 261.
Bargrave, 250.
Barnabas, St., 75.
Barnes, G. O., 277.
Barrington, 233.
Barros, de, 184.
Bates, 205.
Bath-Chorin, 28.
Becket, 78.
Bede, 72, 74, 118, 121, 122, 149.
Belgrade, 168.
Benedict, St., 75.
Benedict XIV, 111.
Berdoe, E., 32, 35, 106, 129, 145, 146, 148, 169, 174, 177, 180, 200, 205, 211, 218, 226, 228, 297.
Berenger, 98.
Bernard, Dr. C., 239, 240.
Bernard of Clairvaux, 122, 123.
Bernard, St., 38, 77.
Bernheim, H., 106, 270.
Bertrand, 265.
Binet, 255, 270.
Bingham, 160.
Black, 219.
Blair, 224.
Blaise, St., 75.
Blochwick, 178.
Blumhardt, J. C., 287 f.
Boardman, W. E., 282.
Böckmann, 263.
Bois, John de, 125.
Boleyn, A., 247, 248.
Boncompagni, Cardinal, 132.
Boniface, St., 77.
Bonner, Bishop, 202.
Bontius, 177.
Boorde, A., 228, 247.
Bossuet, 47.
Boswell, 239.
Boyle, R., 173, 176, 211, 214.
Braid, 264, 267, 268, 269.
Bramdel, 285.
Brand, J., 90, 147, 160, 168, 173, 179, 185, 195, 197, 199, 200, 204, 208, 209, 211, 215, 216, 218,
220, 232, 233.
Brand the Historian, 210.
Broca, 269.
Brockett, 187.
Brogawn, St., 91.
Browne, Dr. E., 213.

Browne, J., 233, 234, 236.
Browne, Sir T., 35, 186, 195, 213, 218, 236.
Bryant, Dr., 292 f.
Buckingham, Duke of, 153.
Buckland, Prof., 102.
Buckle, H. T., 45.
Buckley, J. M., 283, 292, 293.
Bulwer-Lytton, 158.
Burdin, 266.
Burgarde, St., 74.
Burgrave, 250.
Burnet, 247.
Burton, R., 158, 159, 160, 173, 183.
Butler, 243.
Butler, A., 161.
Butler, J., 129.

Caius, 31.
Calama, 64.
Calixtus II, 55.
Cancelli, 296.
Capricornus, 74.
Capua, Raimondo da, 127, 128, 129.
Carodoc, 9.
Catharine, St., 126, 127.
Cato the Censor, 204.
Chalmers, 14.
Chamberlain, J., 230.
Charcot, 106, 270.
Charles I, 230, 231.
Charles II, 232, 234, 241, 246.
Charles II of Spain, 45.
Charles Edward, Prince, 240.
Chaucer, 61, 142, 164, 224.
Chesterfield, 3.
Chilperic, 119.
Christopher, St., 75.
Chrysippus, 182.
Chrysostom, St., 67, 116, 159.
Churchill, 3.
Cicero, 19.
Clairvaux, Abbot of, 77.
Clara, St., 76.
Clarke, R. F., 105.
Clement of Alexandria, 165.
Clement VIII, Pope, 132.
Cleophas, Simon, 75.
Clerk, Mrs., 148.
Clothair II, 119.
Clovis I, 225.

Cockayne, 178, 194.
Coirin, la demoiselle, 105.
Coles, 144.
Coleta, 78, 120.
Collier, J., 226.
Collinson, 89.
Collyer, Dr., 268.
Comines, P. de, 243.
Conway, Lord, 135.
Cosmo, 118.
Cotta, 181.
Cowles, W., 229.
Cromwell, O., 113.
Cros, J. M., 130.
Crowley, 220.
Cudworth, Dr., 136.
Cullis, C., 281.
Cullum, Sir J., 214.
Cuthbert, St., 72, 73, 74, 118.
Cyprian, 43.
Cyril, St., 64.
Cyrus, St., 67, 159, 116.

Damian, 118.
Darling, 268.
Dearmer, P., 67, 68, 96, 105, 115, 121.
Delenze, 264.
Democritus, 33.
Denbigh, Earl of, 296.
Deslon, 254, 258, 262.
Deubner, L., 96.
Deucalion, 208.
Digby, Sir E., 151.
Digby, Sir K., 151 ff., 155, 218.
Ditters, G., 287.
Dodd, Dr., 219.
Donce, 181, 199.
Dowie, J. A., 304 f.
Draper, J. W., 72.
Dresser, A. G., 298.
Dresser, H. W., 300, 301.
Dresser, J. A., 298, 299.
Dromore, Bishop of, 135.
Dryden, 155.
Dundee, B., 223.
Dupotel, Baron, 257.
Durham, Bishop of, 59.
Dziewicki, M. H., 51.

Eccles, 146.

Eddy, Mrs., 16, 299, 300, 301, 302.
Edine, St., 76.
Edward the Confessor, 225, 226, 227, 228, 234.
Edward II, 145.
Edward III, 234.
Edward VI, 248.
Eleazar, 37.
Elisha, 109.
Elizabeth, Queen, 184, 202, 229, 234, 247.
Elliotson, 267.
Elpideus, 59.
Empedocles, 29.
Encelius, 161.
Ennemoser, 266.
Ennodius, St., 59.
Erasmus, St., 74, 76.
Estrade, J. B., 106.
Euhodias, 114.
Eustachius, 86.
Eustasius, Abbe, 119, 120.
Eutrope, St., 76.
Evans, W. F., 299 f.
Evelyn, 241.
Evremond, St., 134.

Fabian, Pope, 43.
Faria, 265.
Farnham, N. de, 59.
Fecamp, 107.
Felix, Minucius, 42.
Felix, Mons, 104.
Ferdinand, 155.
Féré, 255, 270.
Ferrarius, 198.
Fiage, St., 76.
Fillan, St., 88, 213.
Finney, C. G., 276, 277.
Fisher, G. P., 64.
Fitz-Nigel, R., 59.
Fletcher, 61.
Fletcher, H., 301.
Floyer, Sir J., 239.
Fluctibus, A., 151.
Fludd, Dr., 151, 250.
Foissac, 265.
Fontenelle, 19.
Fort, G. F., 46, 59, 63, 77, 80, 81, 96, 97, 121, 127, 149, 165, 171, 172, 194, 207.
Fortescue, Sir J., 228.
Fosbrooke, 84, 142.
Foster, Parson, 151.

Fox, G., 132 f.
Francis, Father, 91.
Francis I, Emperor, 146.
Francis I, King, 243.
Francis, St., 124.
Franklin, 259.
Franz, A., 171.

Galen, 19, 196.
Gall, St., 46, 77, 81, 100, 119.
Gamaliel, 64.
Ganny, S., 125.
Gardiner, Bishop, 247.
Gassner, J. J., 136, 254.
Gemelli, 244.
Gemini, 74.
Genevieve, St., 68, 76, 118.
Genow, St., 76.
George I, 240.
George, St., 67, 94, 97, 98.
Gereon, St., 101.
Germain, St., 117.
Germanus, St., 76.
Gervasius, St., 65.
Gilbourne, Lord, 155.
Giles, St., 76.
Glocenius, 250.
Gmelin, 263.
Goldsmith, 19.
Googe, B., 203.
Görres, 130.
Gower, 189.
Gracian, B., 250.
Greatrakes, V., 133 ff.
Gregory, Mr., 248.
Gregory, of Nazianzus, 43, 118.
Gregory, of Tours, 44, 68, 69, 83, 118.
Gregory, St., 98.
Gregory the Great, 44, 45, 72.
Gregory XIII, Pope, 132.
Grimes, 268.
Gros, D. de, 269.
Grose, 90, 218.
Gudule, St., 104.
Guffe, John, 125.
Guthlac, St., 77.

Hall, Bishop, 91, 158.
Hamerton, 138.
Hamilton, Miss M., 93, 94, 96.

Hammond, W. A., 153, 154, 157, 244, 245.
Hardy, 22.
Harlan, R., 306.
Harrington, Sir J., 163.
Hasted, 86.
Hatton, Lord Charles, 184, 247.
Helen, Empress, 70.
Helinotius, 250.
Hell, 252, 253.
Helmont, von, 150.
Henry II and III, 59.
Henry IV, 225.
Henry VII, 85, 234, 240.
Henry VIII, 247.
Hensler, 266.
Hercules, 33, 83.
Herring, 183.
Herz, Frau, 48.
Heylin, Dr., 238, 243.
Heywood, 189.
Higden, Ranulf, 91.
Hilarion, St., 38, 117.
Hippo, 64.
Hippocrates, 28, 32, 47.
Hippolito, 155.
Hobbes, 242.
Hohenlohe, Prince, 283 f.
Holloway, 262.
Holt, Sir J., 174 f.
Homer, 29, 30.
Hospinian, 247.
Howell, A. G., 124.
Howell, J., 152 f.
Hubert, St., 78, 79, 81, 82.
Hugo, 120.
Hyacinth, St., 76.
Hyde, 139.
Hygeia, Tecla, 86.

Iatricos, 83.
Imbert-Gourbyzee, 106.
Innocent II, 55.
Innocent III, 55.
Irenæus, 41, 113.

Jackson, 167.
Jacob, 97, 100.
James, 114, 115.
James I, 229.
James II, 153, 238.

Jerome, of Brunsweig, 187.
Jerome, St., 117.
Joane, Mother, of Stowe, 197.
Job, St., 76.
John, 66, 123.
John, Father, of Cronstadt, 294 f.
John, of Gladdesden, 145, 206.
John, St., 67, 74, 75, 76, 93, 97.
John, St., of Beverly, 121.
Johnson, Dr. S., 238 f.
Johnson, Mrs., 239.
Joseph, 25, 75.
Josephus, 28, 37.
Julian, 32, 44.
Juliana, St., 76, 118.
Julius Africanus, 166.
Jussieu, L. de, 259.
Just, St., 98.
Justina, Empress, 65.

Kampfer, 146.
King, E. A., 60, 173, 182, 187, 193, 204, 205, 217.
Kircher, 250.
Koreff, 263.
Kublai Khan, 185.

Lacianus, 64.
Lactantius, 42.
La Fontaine, 267.
Laneham, R., 229.
Lascaris, 243.
Laurent, du, 192.
Laurentia, 127.
Laurentius, 225, 243.
Lavater, 263.
Lavoisier, 259.
Lawrence, St., 74, 76.
Leatus, 75.
Lecky, W. E. H., 42, 65, 113, 242, 243.
Lee, 267.
Lemnius, L., 195.
Leo, 74.
Leo, Pope, 100.
Leonastes, 68.
Leverett, John, 136.
Liberius, St., 76.
Libra, 74.
Liebeault, 269, 270, 271.
Lilly, 86.
Lindsey, Earl of, 231.

Littré M., 80.
Lluellin, 212.
Locke, 242.
Lodge, 198.
London, Bishop of, 59.
Longfellow, 273.
Louis I, 225.
Louis XIII, 244.
Louis, Prince, 285.
Louis, St., 79.
Loutherbourg, 262.
Lucian, 218.
Lucy, St., 76.
Luke, 75, 97.
Lupton, 180, 185.
Luther, Martin, 47, 129.

Macarius, St., 116.
Macaulay, C. S., 89.
Macaulay, Mrs., 89.
Macaulay, T. B., 232, 241.
Macdonald, 204.
Machaon, 30.
Mack, J., 286.
Mackay, C., 69, 71, 100, 104, 108, 157, 256, 262.
Madern, St., 91.
Magnus, St., 79.
Maimonides, 140.
Mainadus, Dr., 262.
Maine, St., 76.
Marcellus, 168.
Margaret, St., 76.
Maria, S. dell 'Arco, 107.
Mark, 75, 99, 114.
Marsden, 199.
Martin, St., 68, 69, 76, 78, 83, 117, 120.
Martyr, Justin, 41, 42.
Marus, St., 76.
Mary, 71.
Mary, Queen, 248.
Maspéro, G., 25, 26.
Massinger, 35.
Matthew, Father, 127, 128, 289 f.
Maur, St., 76.
Maxwell, 251.
Mayerne, Dr., 153.
Meaux, Bishop of, 47.
Melanchthon, 129.
Melton, 74.
Mesmer, 6, 250.

Meyer, R., 133.
Mezeray, 225.
Michel, M., 283.
Milmine, G., 304.
Milner, John, Dr., 83.
Milton, 242.
Miranda, 155.
Miranda, A., de, 130.
Mix, E., 290.
Mizaldus, 159.
Momford, Lord, 219.
Monardes, 183.
Montfort, Marquis, 97.
Mooney, N., 197.
Morison, 122, 123.
Morley, H., 191.
Morley, Squire, 185.
Moses, 25, 69, 72, 97.
Moses, J., 135.
Müller, Johannes, 11.
Munger, 19.
Murmerstadt, 285.
Myers, A. T., 106.
Myers, F. W. H., 106, 265, 271.

Naaman, 83.
Nabonnese, 98.
Napoleon, 108.
Navarette, 201.
Neri, St. Philip, 132.
Nevius, J.F., 60.
Newton, Dr., 292.
Nicetius, 67.
Nicholas, Dr. J., 230.
Nicodemus, 75.
Noizet, 265.
Northampton, Lord, 197.
Nottingham, William, 125.
Nun, St., 213.

Odilo, 81.
Oldmixon, 239.
Onymus, Prof., 285.
Origen, 26, 42, 43, 114.
Oswald, St., 90.
Otilia, St., 74, 76.

Palladius, 116.
Paninguem, Tomé, 130.
Paracelsus, 5, 150, 151, 181, 212, 249, 250.

Paris, Deacon, 105.
Paris, Dr., 142.
Parthenius, St., 115.
Pascal, 169.
Pastor, St., 98.
Patrick, Bishop, 136.
Patterson, Mrs., 298.
Paul III, Pope, 100.
Paul, St., 37, 72, 75, 126.
Paula, Franciscus de, 120.
Peckham, Sir G., 86.
Peebles, J. M., 60.
Pennant, 85.
Pepys, 201, 204, 210, 216.
Percy, Bishop, 246.
Perier, Mademoiselle, 103.
Perkins, B. D., 262.
Pernel, St., 76.
Peter, 248.
Peter, St., 5, 71, 72, 100, 121.
Petétin, 261.
Petronilla, St., 76.
Pettigrew, T. J., 55, 75, 76, 139, 140, 140, 146, 157, 159, 162, 167, 170, 176, 177, 181, 184, 198,
201, 202, 204, 205, 207, 208, 213, 218, 225, 236, 244, 248, 296.
Pezold, 263.
Phaire, St., 76.
Philip I, 243.
Philip II of Spain, 54.
Philip of Valois, 244.
Phillips, Elder, 287.
Philo, 37.
Pilate, Pontius, 41, 97, 105.
Pilkington, Bishop, 167.
Pinkerton, 88.
Pisces, 74.
Pistol, 207.
Pius IX, Pope, 296.
Platerus, 159.
Plato, 19, 29.
Pliny, 159, 177, 182, 183, 198, 209.
Podalirius, 30.
Polo, Marco, 185.
Pomponatius, 160.
Ponponazzi, Pierre, 25.
Pope, 138.
Porta, B., 151, 159, 251.
Posidonius, 44.
Poyan, C, 268.
Price, W. T., 278.
Protasius, St., 65.

Puller, 115.
Puységur, Marquis de, 260, 261.
Pythagoras, 190.

Quan, St., 91.
Quimby, P. P., 17, 297 ff., 302, 303.
Quintan, St., 76.
Quirinus, St., 74.

Rachel, 145.
Radegonde, 121.
Radstock, Lord, 283.
Ramesay, 158.
Raphael, 43.
Ravenscroft, 190.
Refinus, 115.
Reid, 273.
Remigius, St., 77.
Renodeus, 159, 160, 161.
Richards, Elder, 287.
Richelieu, Cardinal, 244.
Richmond, Duke of, 231.
Riley, I. W., 287.
Roche, St., 296.
Rochus, St., 74, 76.
Romanus, St., 76.
Rosalia, St., 102.
Ruffian, St., 76.
Russel, 200.
Rusticus, Elpidius, 59.
Ruthlein, Captain, 285.

Sagittarius, 74.
Salverte, E., 40, 41, 59, 83, 85, 136.
Samonicus, S., 166.
Sanderson, Dr., 231.
Sanford, F. W., 281 f.
Saturninus, St., 123.
Sauveur, St., of Horta, 130 f.
Schlatter, F., 290.
Scoresby, 267.
Scorpius, 74.
Scott, R., 196.
Scott, W., 189, 193, 213.
Sebastian, St., 76, 98.
Selle, 263.
Senso, Dr., 128.
Serapion, 180.
Severin, St., 67, 81.
Severus, 114.

Servetus, 244.
Shakespeare, 108, 224, 273.
Shaw, 203.
Siemers, 266.
Sigismund, St., 76.
Simeon, St., 97.
Simpson, A. B., 281.
Sinsheim, Count von, 284.
Skippon, 198.
Smith, Joseph, Jr., 286 f.
Smith, Sir T., 184, 247.
Socrates, 29, 86.
Sophronius, 93.
Southampton, Earl of, 231.
Southey, 143, 273.
Stengal, 54.
Stephen, St., 64, 75.
Stephens, 248.
Sterne, 3.
Stevens, E., 231.
Stowe, 3.
Straus, 155.
Strype, 202.
Styria, 107.
Sulpicius, St., 77.
Syward, John, 125, 126.

Tacitus, 112.
Tairise, St., 99.
Tathiedo, 75.
Tatian, 40.
Taurus, 74.
Tecla, St., 85.
Tennyson A., 139.
Tenos, Madonna of, 95.
Tertullian, 42, 114.
Theocritus, 189.
Theodelinda, 66.
Theodoric, 59.
Theodosius, 70.
Thiers, M., 192.
Thmuis, Bishop, 116.
Thomas, of Celano, 124.
Thomas, St., 77.
Thomas St. of Hereford, 125.
Tignan, St., 75.
Tooker, Dr., 229.
Torpacion, 114.
Townley, 140.
Townshend, 267.

Trickmore, 190.
Trine, R. W., 301.
Trippe, S., 148.
Trundel, D., 279 f.
Tuckey, C. L., 245.
Tuke, H., 11, 237, 286.
Turner, 211.
Turner, Dr. D., 239.

Ursula, St., 102.

Valentine, 76.
Vanzesmes, de, 258.
Vardrille, St., 119.
Venise, St., 76.
Vespasian, 37, 112, 195.
Victor, 260.
Victor Emmanuel, 245.
Vincent, St., 77.
Vittrici, Pietro, 132.
Vitus, St., 76, 203.

Walderstein, 3.
Wallery, St., 76.
Wallia, St., 76.
Waterford, Simon, 125.
Wenefride, St., 91.
Werenfels, 156, 208.
Wesley, J., 275, 276.
Westbury, Lord, 48, 49.
Whichcote, Dr., 136.
White, A. D., 39, 44, 47, 48, 52, 78, 100, 101, 110, 146, 233.
Wierus, 110.
Wilkins, Bishop, 136.
Willabrod, 77.
William III, 228, 238.
William of Malmesbury, 225, 227.
Wilson, Mr., 48.
Winthrop, Governor, 19.
Wirdig, S., 251.
Withers, F., 138.
Wohyus, E., 150.
Wolfart, 263.
Wolfgang, St., 76.
Wood, H., 301.

Xavier, St. Francis, 111, 129, 130.

Zaccheus, 75.
Zeller, S., 280.

Zola, E., 106.
Zosimos, 93.

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