THE INFLUENCE OF PHILOSOPHY UPON THE FORM AND ORIGIN OF MEDICAL SUPERSTITION
The idea that philosophy has exerted any material influence upon superstition in medicine may appear strange to many. For how can it be possible that the science which teaches the laws of thought, which regulates our entire mental activity and guides it in the right direction, which points out to us the intricate path of medical theory and diagnosis—how is it possible that just this science should either take or have taken part in misleading or obscuring our medical perception? We do not by any means intend to impute any such effect to philosophy. Quite the contrary! We are thoroughly aware of the great influence which philosophy is entitled to claim in all sciences without exception, and for this reason we believe that modern representatives of medical science would be much better off if they were a little less at variance with philosophy than they actually are.
In the wide realm of philosophy there are only certain points where we can detect a tendency to promote the development of medical superstition. This tendency appears in all endeavors which are made to explain natural phenomena solely in a speculative manner, or to build a theory of life upon a base of pure assumptions. Whenever such attempts were made manifest, and impressed philosophy into their service under the name of natural philosophy, it resulted in the wide predominance of medical superstition.
It is well known that all prae-Socratic philosophy aimed at the discovery of a single principle as underlying and explaining all the phenomena of nature. But in spite of this very apparent tendency, it can scarcely be accused of promoting medical superstition; for prae-Socratic philosophy busied itself in speculations concerning terrestrial phenomena. Earth and air, fire and water, cold and heat, coming into being and passing away, are the things in which it endeavored to find the elemental basis of nature with its multiform phenomena. But upon the study of medicine these endeavors exercised, for the time being, a liberalizing influence. They emancipated it from the repressive grasp of theism, and opened up the way for an exclusively natural explanation of all processes of the body, in health as well as in sickness. Unfortunately the apparatus, or organon, which philosophy furnished to science in its terrestrial phenomena was a very questionable one, investigation of the conclusion from analogy and the deductive method being of extremely little value, either in medical diagnosis or the pursuit of natural science. For this reason medicine was bound to be encumbered with countless badly founded hypotheses. But other monstrous guesses at truth could not fail to become current. Let us consider, for instance, the absurd theory which Heraclitus of Ephesus (500 B.C.) has propounded as to the relations between wine and the human soul. As the soul, according to this philosopher, naturally was a fiery vapor, and the drier and the more fiery it remained the better, the excessive use of alcohol would not be advisable, in that the abundant infusion of fluids causes the soul to become wet, which would be harmful to its fiery nature, as fire and moisture are always incompatible. Who will venture to deny that it was from his opinion regarding the use of wine that Heraclitus acquired his sobriquet of “Whining Philosopher”?
But curious as were all the hypotheses with which Hellenic natural philosophy foisted upon medicine, they should by no means be confounded with superstition, for even a baseless hypothesis is far removed from superstition. Otherwise, medicine and superstition would be almost identical conceptions, for baseless hypotheses have at no time been wanting in our science. Superstition, so far as its sources are found in philosophy, did not enter medical science until philosophy sought for an explanation of the various processes of life not only in material but also in immaterial forces. And as Indian as well as Persian philosophy, in the earliest period of its existence known to us, had already found in demons the immaterial elements which to a great extent control the processes of life in man, it will be seen that the relations between philosophy and medical superstition are quite old. The Hellenic poets and philosophers, Homer, Hesiod, Empedocles, Democritus, and Plato, elaborated this immemorial doctrine of demons and introduced it into Greece. But the recognition of immaterial, supernatural curative factors did not attain any considerable and determining influence in ancient medicine until the year 150 B.C., when, under the eager advocacy of Alexandrian Jews, Oriental and Occidental doctrines became amalgamated to a coherent system of theosophic and medical mysticism. Medicine suffered greatly for centuries from this mysticism, which prevailed late in the middle ages and even up to more recent times. The center of all the various forms under which speculations in the philosophical and theosophical domain made their appearance was Alexandria, the great central point of culture in which the civilization of the Orient and the Occident were united in the evolution of a new theory of life. But that the birthplace of developments so momentous for the future of medicine should be Alexandria almost suggests the thought that the writers of history were indulging in a satire upon medical science; for it is well known that Alexandria was the very place where medical enlightenment and the progress of ancient medicine won their greatest triumphs under the renowned anatomists, Herophilus and Erasistratus.
Such speculations in theosophical and medical domains at first were most eagerly entered upon by the Jewish sects of the Essenians, or Essenes, and TherapeutÆ. According to the description which Josephus (Book 2, Chapter II., page 13) has left us of these two sects, they were theosophical communists. We, as physicians, however, are principally interested in the position they took with regard to our profession, and that was one of indifference. They believed that they should not obtain their knowledge of the body, either in health or in disease, by observation, on which physicians relied. They believed they could actually learn the art of healing from a study of their old Sacred Scriptures. For that reason they especially applied themselves to make a diligent examination of these Holy Scriptures. They believed that they were able, by various allegorical interpretations of different letters and words, as well as by subtle explanations of this or that sentence, to acquire the knowledge necessary for the treatment of their patients. Those, however, who had become imbued with this wisdom of dotage in an especial degree, claimed the possession of numerous miraculous powers—for instance, that of prediction. But as they also believed in the existence of beings who, while they were lower than God, at the same time were higher than man, they had, ready at hand, the rarest resources to draw upon for the practise of their juggling feats of miraculous medicine. The belief in these mystical doctrines took the most extravagant forms. Thus, for instance, it was believed that a man by the evacuation of feces offered an insult to divinity (t?? a???? ????e?? t?? ?e??, says Josephus, lib. 2, Chapter VIII., No. 9, § 15). For that reason nobody might dare, on the Sabbath, to comply with such demands of nature. But whether the call of nature always yielded to these rather far-reaching requirements of the law, or how the believer helped himself when the extremely disagreeable dissension between nature and faith caused too much uneasiness, is not reported either by Josephus or by Porphyrius. Besides, the Essenians had their troubles even on week-days in attending to final phases of the digestive process, in that it was incumbent upon them to conceal the termination of the act of digestion from the view of the Supreme Being by covering themselves with a cloak.
Subsequently, during the first century of the Christian era, appeared Neo-Pythagorism, an attempt to combine monotheism with the ancient fantastic cult of subordinate gods and demons. Then followed a period of momentous importance for medicine; for the attempt to displace the physico-mechanical conception of corporeal phenomena by various ideas of theosophic caprice, and to bring therapeutics once more under the domination of the metaphysic methods, prevalent in the days when the theistic theory of life held undisputed sway in medicine and natural sciences, became more and more apparent. The Neo-Pythagoreans acted upon the principle that the practise of medicine was absolutely indispensable to the true philosopher, and that every one, therefore, provided he had attained the required fitness by his intercourse with demons, was able to act as a physician. It is quite obvious that such ideas were bound to pave the way for the most abominable abuse and superstitions, and, naturally, what the Neo-Pythagoreans offered as the art of healing to the patients was nothing but a mixture of mysterious customs, conjurations, and witchcraft. On the other hand, the followers of this school of philosophy did much to promote the bodily welfare of their fellow men, in that they urged them to lead a pure and temperate life, while they themselves appear to have adhered strictly to this rÉgime.
The chief representative of Neo-Pythagorism was Apollonius, of Tyana, in Cappodocia, probably one of the most fantastic personages of all Greek and Roman antiquity. Venerated as a god by some of his contemporaries, such as Damis and Philostratus, his biographers, on account of his wisdom and of his extraordinary works, he is considered by others, on the other hand, as a magician engaged, like a common charlatan, in conjuring tricks. The opinions which posterity, down to modern times, has passed on Apollonius are of a similar nature. There are some who consider the Tyanian to be a crafty magician, whereas others declare that he is an important personality in the history of religion. Among these latter is Baur, who attempts to explain the life and the deeds of the wonder-working Neo-Pythagorean by citing as a parallel the impression created by Christianity upon some enlightened minds.
Personally, I consider this high estimate of a trickster to be perfectly absurd. Apollonius, as we meet him in the celebrated description of Philostratus, is a purely poetical idealization, prompted by a desire to delay the downfall of ancient religion, pointing to the reform which has been instituted in its moral tendencies (Gregorovius, page 413).
Apollonius flourished in the first Christian century, during the reigns of Nero and of the succeeding emperors up to Nerva, who appears to have been in very close relations with him. The accounts of Philostratus regarding the adventures of our hero, based as they are upon the early authorities accessible to him, absolutely create the impression that heathen antiquity meant in Apollonius to set a counterpart of Christ. According to ancient reports, a supernatural apparition visited his mother, apprizing her that she would bear a god, and after his death Apollonius appeared to his disciples to announce to them the immortality of the soul. The time between the birth and death of the Tyanian was spent by him in restless wanderings over the then known world. Wherever he went he conversed on the deepest subjects with priests and cultured laymen, and upon request he also performed miracles of various kinds. Naturally, we are only interested in the medical performances of the wandering philosopher, and of these he is credited with a considerable number. He cured the lame simply by stroking the affected limbs; with equal facility he gave sight to the blind—in fact, he even attended to obstetrical cases without fear and trepidation. For instance, when the husband of a woman who had borne seven children, but always with the greatest difficulty, came to Apollonius, sadly telling him that his wife was again in labor and nobody was able to help her, the man of miracles told him to be of good cheer. Without even examining the woman for a possible narrow pelvis, or for some other obstacle to birth, he simply advised the husband to procure, as soon as possible, a living hare, and, with this hare in his arms, to walk round and round the woman in labor, and then allow the hare to run away. This one sample of his medical activity is sufficient to characterize Apollonius as a charlatan of the most contemptible class. When we learn, further, that he raised the dead without any difficulty, nobody will probably accuse us of an unjust opinion if we pronounce this philosopher, who was revered as a god by the heathen, a magician of the worst kind.
In order duly to enhance his authority Apollonius arrogated to himself certain mysterious powers. Thus, he pretended that he was able to speak all languages without having ever learned them; in fact, this philological talent even extended to the languages of the animals, which he undertook to master. We are scarcely surprised to learn, when we consider the powers bestowed upon him, that he knew the future, and was thoroughly aware of what happened at the same time at the most distant parts of the world. He also endeavored to bear witness to his vocation as a man of God by his manner of living and of dressing. Thus he was always attired in white linen garments, and walked about with long, flowing hair, followed by his disciples. He never ate meat, never partook of wine, and disdained love. It would seem, however, that in the last particular he was not quite consistent—at least, various erotic adventures are related of him.
The manner in which Apollonius cast out a demon in India is extremely amusing. A woman came, lamenting and crying, to the medical miracle worker, and asked him to deliver her sixteen-year-old son from an evil spirit. Apollonius at once gave her a letter directed to the evil spirit which contained, as Philostratus emphasizes particularly, the most terrible threats against the good-for-nothing tormentor. But the biographer does not tell us whether the reading of this letter caused the demon to desist from his improper behavior.
But as even in a man of miracles the hour-glass of life finally is emptied, so also a time came when Apollonius realized that he must pay his last debt to nature. But the Tyanian knew how to surround even the act of dying with a halo of the extraordinary. As a matter or fact, he did not die; but one day—if it is permissible to employ a trivial expression in speaking of a demi-god—he evaporated without anybody knowing what had become of him. This evaporation occurred in the following manner. There was in Crete a temple of Dictynna so securely guarded by vicious dogs that no one dared to approach. This temple was entered by Apollonius, whom the furious dogs left unmolested; but, after the doors of the sanctuary had closed behind the Pythagorean, suddenly there resounded female voices singing from the depth of the temple: “Leave the earth! Go heavenward!” With these sounds and words Apollonius disappeared forever. Thus his last medical act was a sleight-of-hand performance, in that he even snapped his fingers at death.
The grateful heathen world of antiquity rendered divine honors to Apollonius. In his birth-place, Tyana, a temple was erected in his honor at imperial expense, and the priests everywhere erected statues to a philosopher who had left this world without dying; in fact, even the Emperor Alexander Severus set up an image of Apollonius in his lararium, or domestic chapel. And thus to medical superstition was accorded a triumph which no legitimate practitioner of any age has ever enjoyed.
These theosophic vagaries reached their climax in Neo-Platonism, which was founded toward the end of the second century of the Christian era by the Alexandrian porter, Ammonius (175 to 242), and was further elaborated by Plotinus (204 to 269). This religious, philosophical system is of very particular interest in the history of medicine in that, in the first place, it stands in direct opposition to the physico-mechanical conception of disease, and, explaining sickness from a theistic standpoint as a logical consequence, rejects the treatment of disease by professional physicians.
Now this theistic conception of disease was based primarily upon the assumption that the universe is filled with countless demons, spirits which, altho essentially superior to man, are inferior to God. Such a demon was supposed to be the “spiritus rector” of all terrestrial occurrences, especially all evil events were attributed to him. ?t? a?t?? a?t??? ?????e??? t?? ?e?? t?? ??? ?a???t??, ???? ?????, ?F?????, se?s??, a???? ?a? t?? ????? (Porphyrius de Abst., lib. 2, 40). As the demons played havoc with the condition of the human body, protection against them could not be expected from a professional physician, but only from some one well versed in all their tricks and devices, and, therefore, alone able to punish them thoroughly for their mischievous behavior. This taming of the demon could be accomplished in various ways. Porphyrius enumerates three methods of gaining an influence over the host of demons.
The first and principal method (theosophy) attempted to attain the most intimate union with God. Prayer, abstraction of all thought from things earthly, and absorption in God were supposed to be the means of participation in certain divine powers. An individual thus favored was enabled in a trice to restore health to incurable patients, such as the blind, the deaf, and the lame, and even the power of raising the dead was conferred upon him. However, the acquisition of such extraordinary powers demanded certain qualifications of a rather exacting and terrestrial character. It was incumbent upon such an applicant for these special gifts to abstain from the use of meat, and, above all, from the society of women. How many were deterred by these fastidious requirements from choosing the career of a famous man of miracles we do not know. Nothing is reported on this subject by the pillars of Neo-Platonism (as, Plotinus, Porphyrius, Damascius, Jamblichus), nor do they state whether they themselves absolutely abstained from meat and from the society of women.
Theurgy was the second method of counteracting the evil influence of demons. In this way good demons were urged by prayer and offerings to ward off disease or other misfortune.
By the third method (goety) attempts were made to dispel the evil demons by conjurations and various kinds of mystical mummery. These mysterious accessories consisted mostly in muttering any number of words as meaningless as possible. The more meaningless and the more unintelligible were these words the more efficacious—according to the assurance of Jamblichus—they would prove, especially when they were taken from Oriental languages. For, as Jamblichus says, the Oriental languages are the most ancient—therefore, the most agreeable to the gods. In such a manner words utterly nonsensical were drawled out at the bedside, and, for greater security, written on tablets to be hung round the neck of the patient. The magic word “abracadabra” enjoyed especial respect. To render its power certain it was written as many times as it has letters, omitting the last letter each time until only one remained, and placing the words in such a succession as to form an equilateral triangle. A tablet thus inscribed was worn around the neck of the sufferer as an amulet. It may be that this wonder-working word has arisen from the word “abraxas,” with which the gnostic Basilides meant to designate the aggregate of the three hundred and sixty-five forms of revelation of divinity which he assumed to exist. Numerous other explanations are in vogue, however, with regard to this medical, magic term (compare HÄser, Vol. I., page 433). Very ancient magic words which had originated in the earliest periods of Hellenism were revived. Thus, to banish disease, certain words were employed which were said to be derived from the temple of Artemis in Ephesus, and which read: as??, ?at?s??, ??e, tet??e, da?ae?e??, a?ss??. The meaning of these words, according to the explanation of the Pythagorean, Androcydes, was: darkness, light, earth, air, sun, truth. Besides, the attempt was made to obtain directly from the demons such magic words as were endowed with curative power. For such purposes small children were employed, in whom it was supposed that the demons preferred to be present, and expressed themselves through their mouths. Such children, therefore, played a similar part as does a medium with modern spiritualists. The senseless stuff babbled by such a child was considered the immediate manifestation of a demon, and was accordingly utilized to banish the demons which brought on disease. Moreover, the nonsensical practise which was carried on by the Neo-Platonists by letter and word was to a certain extent accepted by professional physicians. It had become a very common custom with physicians to apply various kinds of bombastic names to all their various plasters and ointments, powders, and pills. It is necessary only to cast a glance upon the ancient pharmacopoeia to find the most curious names. Galen mentions disapprovingly the fact that Egyptian and Babylonian expressions were preferred in the nomenclature of medicine (De Simpl. Medicamentorum Facult. Lib. Sic. Preface).
Such were the methods with which the Neo-Platonists did not hesitate to treat the sick; and not only minor practitioners, but even the leaders of the entire movement, preferred banishing disease by means of various kinds of magic formulÆ to all other specially medical methods of treatment. Thus, for instance, Eunapius of Sardis (about 400) recounts how Plotinus, one of the most gifted of the Neo-Platonic school, repeatedly proved himself to be a medical miracle-worker, most conspicuously during the sickness of Porphyrius. When the latter, a favorite disciple of Plotinus, was traveling through Sicily he became dangerously ill—in fact, according to the description of Eunapius, he was actually breathing his last. Then Plotinus appeared, and by magic words cured the dying man instantly. It appears, moreover, that Plotinus did not only operate with wonder-working words, but he employed still other agencies—as, for instance, mysterious figures (???ata. Villoison, Anecd. grÆca, Vol. II., page 231). Plotinus was even said to possess his own demon, who was at his disposal alone, and by the aid of whom he performed other wonders—as, for instance, that of prophesying.
Porphyrius, probably the most notable disciple of the Neo-Platonic school after Plotinus, claimed even that the demons personally taught him to expel, with certainty and despatch, those pathogenic demons. It was claimed by him that Chaldean and Hebrew words and songs were the promptest means of turning out all these evil spirits; in fact, the philosopher, Alexander of Abonoteichos, in Paphlagonia, was of the opinion that a pestilence, which was devastating Italy, could not be checked by any better means than that of affixing to the doors of the infected towns and villages the sentence: “Phoebus, the hair unshorn, dispels the clouds of disease.”
Thus the last great system into which the ancient philosophy developed was attended by the unfortunate result of a very material increase of superstition in the healing art. This recrudescence of medical superstition was by no means a transitory one, but proved exceedingly persistent; in fact, we may unhesitatingly maintain that from that time superstition never again disappeared from our science. This is principally the fault of the position which Christianity took with regard to demonology and the other fantastic ideas of Neo-Platonism.
Early Christianity, from the outset, was subjected to the influence of ancient false ideas on the subject of demons. Without making any modifications whatever, it had appropriated this false doctrine, and had deduced from it the same medical notions as paganism had done. The New Testament exhibits numerous examples of a prevailing belief that supernatural beings—i.e., demons—were frequently the cause of bodily ailments; and as Christ and His disciples had often cured such patients, it follows that the belief in demons and their relations to pathology must have been widely disseminated among the Christians of that period. The Church Fathers also bear witness to this fact, as they, in their writings, acknowledge, in plain terms, the belief in demons as causes of disease. Justin Martyr, Tatian, Tertullian, Origen, Augustin, all mention demons and their power over the human body (compare Harnack, Chapter V., page 68, etc., where these conditions are most lucidly depicted). Thus, for instance, St. Augustine says: “Accipiunt (scilicet dÆmones) enim sÆpe potestatem et morbos immittere et ipsum aerem vitiando morbidum reddere.”
And, indeed, early Christianity not only accepted pagan demonology unchanged, it even increased the therapeutic aspect of this delusion in a most regrettable manner. This belief in demons, under the influence of Christian doctrines, developed into an epidemic of insanity which prevailed unrestrictedly for two or three centuries, and which was again awakened in the late middle ages, to grow at last into one of the most terrible aberrations of the human mind—into the belief in witches.
This epidemic derangement of the mind, to which the belief in demons tended, under the influence of Christian doctrines, culminated in the patient’s manifest idea that he was possessed of a demon. The mental disturbance set in with wild, spasmodic attacks of excitement, and, as it occurred not only in individual cases, but was also contagious, we must not hesitate to designate this belief of the first three centuries in demoniac possession an epidemic disease. It was an affection, the mental substratum of which consisted in a mixture of overheated religious sentiment and unrestrained medical superstition. The extent to which this belief in demoniac possession was disseminated during the first centuries of the Christian era is shown by the fact that a number of persons busied themselves with the cure of this affection. In the first place, most Christian communities owned an exorcist, or official caster-out of demons. It seems that this profession of exorcists formed a clerical order of its own; for, as all pagans, according to the Christian conception, were in the power of evil spirits, these demons were to be thoroughly driven out before each baptism, and thus the institution of a special church officer, whose duty it was to drive out demons, became absolutely necessary, especially after exorcism had also been introduced, during the fourth century, in the baptism of children. It may be stated, incidentally, that Catholic clergy of the third minor order are even to-day called “exorcists.”
The Christian exorcists, in conjuring, only made use of prayer and of the name of Christ; these two factors were considered sufficient to cure the patient of his delusions, and they actually did so. Why they accomplished a cure has been explained very strikingly by Harnack. He says: “It is not the prayer that cures, but the praying person; not the formula, but the spirit; not exorcism, but the exorcist. Only in those cases in which the disease, as in numerous cases of the second century, had become epidemic and almost common, did ordinary and conventional means avail. The exorcist became a mesmerizer, possibly a deceived deceiver. But when strong individuality is deceived concerning its own personality by the demon of terror, and the soul is actually shaken by the power of darkness which possesses it, and from which it purposes to escape, a powerful and holy will alone can interfere from the outside world to deliver the shackled will. In some cases we find traces of a phenomenon which in modern times, for want of some better name, has been called ‘suggestion’; but the prophet suggests in a different manner than does the professional exorcist.”
Besides these official Christian exorcists, a great multitude of other persons carried on the trade of conjurer of demons. The sorcerers and magicians who plied their nefarious trade for the cure of the possessed and for those suffering from other diseases, worked with various kinds of mystic signs and ceremonies, and they certainly did an excellent business, for he who humors the superstition and the stupidity of man always prospers. Modern quackery illustrates this most strikingly. But, besides these healers, there existed numerous other conjurers of demons and medical wonder-workers who plied their trade not for the sake of contemptible mammon, but solely for ethical reasons. These were the members of the various theosophico-philosophical sects, who were active during the first Christian centuries and have been exhaustively described on the previous pages.
Altho Christians were eager to exalt their exorcists, who worked only with prayer and the invocation of Christ, above all practises of sorcery, they were not able, in the long run, to prevent Christian dogmas from being confounded with and corrupted by those of philosophy. Under the influence of Saturninus, Basilides, and Carpocrates, the various philosophical vagaries concerning accessory, intermediary, and inferior gods, and their influences upon the fate of man, corrupted the pure and simple teachings of Christ. That error against which Paul had so impressively cautioned the early Christian communities in his Epistle to the Colossians, Chapter II., verse 8 (“Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ”), had, nevertheless, made its appearance at last, and the adulteration of pure Gospel by philosophical speculations and fantastic views began to grow more complete from the third century on. This was the foundation of the religio-mystic system which, during the middle ages, and even beyond the period of the Renaissance, oppressed humanity like a suffocating nightmare, and not only checked progress, but also filled each branch of human knowledge with the most frightful superstition and the crassest mysticism. This was the case also in medicine; in fact, this branch of science has probably suffered most from the alliance of Christianity with the fantastic doctrines of philosophical schools.
The ancient doctrine of demons passed under the influence of Christian mysticism through certain changes and transitions, especially in its relation to the bodily condition of individuals. The variations in this doctrine were naturally most plainly evidenced in the medical views of the day. It was believed that every human being from birth was allotted a good and an evil demon. The good spirit held his hand protectingly over his human charge, whereas the evil demon only waited his chance to inflict injury upon man, forming especially the determining principle in the etiology of disease. It is true, the evil spirits apparently were no longer allowed to have such full sway over the health of humanity as they formerly had. God now utilized them principally as executors of punishments which he intended for mankind as a retribution for various forms of delinquency. Thus the Church Father, Anastasius (Sprengel, Vol. II., page 210), tells us that the reason why so many lepers and cripples were found among Christians was that God, enraged at the luxury of the members of the community, had sent the evil demon of disease among them. The wrath of God from that time until late in modern times has been considered a fully efficacious principle of pathology; in fact, there are numbers of people even to-day who believe that not natural, but supernatural and unearthly, factors are active in the bodily ailments of mankind.
The idea of good and evil demons, however, now assumed a specifically Christian character which, it is true, greatly resembled the ancient Babylonian notion, excepting that the good demons were replaced by angels and saints, whereas the evil spirits were embodied in the devil. Both, saints as well as devils, were thenceforth destined to play a part in the domain of medicine. It is true, the general recognition which they enjoyed during the middle ages and a considerable period of modern times has probably now passed away, but there still exist numerous classes of our people in whom the medical rÔle of saints as well as devils is most willingly acknowledged.
We have referred elsewhere to the therapeutic accomplishments of the saints during the middle ages. We will here only dwell upon the influence which the devil, the Christian successor of the ancient evil spirit, has exerted upon the medical views of all classes of the people. This influence was very great. The devil and his subordinate infernal spirits were considered the “disturbers of peace” in the health of humanity. Disease in its various forms was their work; they resolved to inflict it either from inherent villainy or as incited by various magical arts of evil men. It was especially the latter form of diabolical activity that, during the entire middle ages and during a considerable part of modern times, was accepted as uncontestedly authentic, and the imagination of mankind at that period was inexhaustible in inventing the greatest variety of infamous actions which the devil was able to perform either of his own accord or as summoned by incantations. Any one desiring to acquaint himself thoroughly with these delusive ideas should read the work of the Friar CÆsarius, who lived about 1225, in the Rhenish-Cistercian monastery of Heisterbach. Naturally, we are only interested in the medical acts which the devil was always ready to perform. According to the history of medical superstition, the devil, who was invoked by various spells or appeared of his own volition, was able to influence each individual bodily organ in a manner most disagreeable to the possessor of the same. Neither were the Prince of Hell and his hosts always satisfied to tease and to plague an individual being, but very frequently they carried on this business wholesale. They threw themselves upon the entire population of a country, and caused sickness in all who crossed their path. The great epidemic of St. Vitus’s dance of the fourteenth century, for instance, was considered to be the work of the devil, and the clergy busied themselves in driving out this devil’s pest by means of sprinkling holy water and by the utterance of conjuring formulas.
The sexual life of men as well as of women offered an especially fruitful field for the activity of the devil and of his infernal companions. Thus, it was a favorite trick of the ruler of hell and of his subordinate demons to assume the shape of the husband or lover of this or that female, and, under this mask, to assume rights which should be permitted only to the husband. The infernal spirit that played this rÔle was called Incubus. Thus, for instance, Hinkmer tells us of a nun who was mischievously claimed by such an infernal paramour, and who could be relieved of him only by priestly aid. But hell also contained female constituents who played the same rÔle for the male as did Incubus for women. Such a wanton woman of hell was called Striga or Lamia (compare Hansen, pages 14 and 72). These amorous female friends of hell did not even stop when they met eminent saints. In the convent of St. Benedetto, near the Italian town of Subiaco, a rose-bush is shown even to-day into which the naked St. Benedict threw himself in order to resist the unholy temptation. And every one is sufficiently acquainted with the troubles which St. Anthony of Padua had with these infernal women. However, we physicians know well enough the cause of these temptations. They may surely and actually have approached the nun of whom Hinkmer reports, also St. Benedict and St. Anthony; however, they were not the devil’s prostitutes, but the expressions of suppressed and disregarded impulses of nature which, in the form of voluptuous imaginations, appeared before the eyes of persons removed from terrestrial gratifications; for nature does not even exempt a saint, and the ancient saying, “Naturam expellas furcÂ, tamen usque recurret,” applies to them as well as to any other mortal.
Finally these liberties which the devil and his infernal host were said to take as regards matters pertaining to love, assumed general and quite serious forms; in fact, they gave rise to delicately contrived legal questions. Namely, the idea had suggested itself that the devil was able not only to call forth promiscuous love between men and women, but that sometimes he derived a particular enjoyment if he could manage to prevent a marriage that had already been consummated by rendering the husband impotent. Maleficium was the technical term for such an event, equally saddening to husband as to wife, and the theologians, philosophers, and jurists of the middle ages have written the most learned commentaries regarding the legal consequences of this impotentia ex maleficio. It was disputed whether or not this form of impotence would constitute a legal cause for dissolution of marriage which, after all, was a divine institution; the reasons also why God permitted the devil to play such a reprehensible game were investigated in a most serious and profound manner. Any one interested in this question of impotentia ex maleficio may read the most excellent description of this subject by Hansen (Chapter III.).
This impotentia ex maleficio—i.e., one of the most extravagant outgrowths of medical superstition—occasionally also gave rise to scandalous lawsuits. This was the case in the disgraceful divorce suit which took place about the year 860 between King Lothaire II. and his spouse Teutberga. Lothaire was said to have lost his procreative power completely, owing to infernal artifices of his concubine, Waldrada. The reason why a concubine should undertake such a step, which, after all, was bound to discredit her title and office in the eyes of her lover, is not quite evident. However, at that period it was not difficult to find an explanation for this remarkable fact. It was stated, e.g., that Waldrada was instigated to this act solely by jealousy and selfishness, in order to divorce the king from his consort. This first step once taken, the courtesan, by removing the spells cast by her, would take good care that the king should soon be delivered from the odious condition of impotence. However, Waldrada had reckoned without her host—i.e., in this case, without Hinkmar, Archbishop of Rheims; for this latter gentleman, exceedingly well versed in all matters ecclesiastic, politic, and diabolic, a genuine clerical fighting-cock, very soon closely investigated the impotence of his royal master. In an extensive memorial he considered the royal impotence according to its legal, theologic, philosophic, moral, and various other aspects. Medical superstition, accordingly, had acquired such power that the sovereign of the holy Roman and German empires had to submit his potestas in venere to the test of public discussion.
But conditions were to become much worse. When, about the thirteenth century, scholasticism had usurped full control of human reason, and all sciences were permitted to be pursued only in a scholastic sense, medicine was entirely divorced from the actual conditions of life. It was completely detached from nature, its great teacher, and irretrievably entangled in the subtleties of an uncertain philosophy. Its activity now depended exclusively upon the study of the ancients—by no means, however, upon that study in which an attempt was made to master the intellectual spirit of ancient medicine, but which consisted in a slavish adherence to the letter. Every decision of the ancients, without any regard to nature, was made a dogma, and he was the best physician who was most familiar with these dogmas, who understood best how to interpret them most keenly. Mankind had entirely lost the conception that the ancients had attained worth and importance only in that they measured things by the standard of unbiased experience, and tested their conclusions according to the phenomena of nature as described from accurate observation of the sick.
It is quite obvious that superstition met with a well-prepared soil in a system of medicine that was overburdened with dogmas and degraded into utter subserviency to a vainglorious philosophy. The natural result was that the medical art of a period of the middle ages, steeped in scholasticism, was nothing but a chaos of the most despicable superstition and folly. The most shocking result of these conditions was the belief in witches, and, with this, medical superstition entered upon a new stage. Whereas until then it had possessed a restricted, mere local vitality, and entailed danger only upon those who, from thoughtlessness, lent a willing ear to it, now it degenerated into a mental epidemic which threatened equally all classes of the people. The unspeakable misery which this variety of medical superstition has brought to the Western world is well known, so that we may refrain from entering into details, referring our readers to the excellent work of Hansen on this subject.
Physico-medical thought was so thoroughly destroyed by the above-described conditions that, even when humanity commenced to shake off the scholastic yoke, during the period of Renaissance, medicine was only able, in part, to follow this lead. Altho, under the inspiration of the ancients, it returned to nature, it was not able to rid itself of the superstitious idea of the continuous interference of supernatural powers with the performance of the most common functions of the body. The Church still persisted in the implicit belief in such views, and still dominated men’s minds so thoroughly that even many physicians, who in other respects were entirely unbiased, remained on this point dutiful children of the Church; in fact, even those who were fully aware of the shortcomings of the Christian Church unhesitatingly adhered to the belief in demons as developed from antique conceptions by the Church Fathers. Thus, for instance, Dr. Martin Luther was a strict believer in the doctrine which taught men to hold the devil responsible for the origin of all diseases. He thus expressed himself, for instance: “No disease comes from God, who is good and does good to everybody; but it is brought on by the devil, who causes and performs all mischief, who interferes with all play and all arts, who brings into existence pestilence, Frenchmen, fever, etc.” He accordingly believed that he himself was compelled to scuffle with the devil when his physical condition was out of order. Thus, when suffering from violent headache, he wrote to the Elector, John of Saxony: “My head is still slightly subject to him who is the enemy of health and of all that is good; he sometimes rides through my brain, so that I am not able to read or to write,” and upon another occasion he said, in regard to his health: “I believe that my diseases are by no means due to natural causes, but that ‘Younker Satan’ plays his pranks with me by sorcery.”
The devil was also held responsible for the appearance of monsters; it was believed that the ruler of hell helped young girls against their will to enjoy the delights of motherhood. However, these delights were said to be of a peculiar kind, in that intercourse with the devil was always bound to be followed by the birth of the most frightful monsters. The devil then unloaded these most remarkable monsters into respectable people’s houses. Even Luther was not able to free himself from this most astonishing delusion. On the contrary, he was devoted to it with such conviction that, when once in Dessau, he heard of a monster (according to medical opinion, it was a question of a rhachitic child) that had grown to be twelve years of age, he advised, in all seriousness, that this sinful product of devilish intercourse be thrown into the river Mulde (compare MÖhsen, Vol. II., page 506, etc., on “The Relations of Luther to the Devil”).
If it was very improper of the devil to visit even clerical gentlemen, he crowned his wickedness, in that he very unceremoniously honored even ministers in the pulpit with his visit. Such an occurrence took place in Friedeberg, Neumark, in 1593, in which otherwise harmless town the devil commenced suddenly to create an unheard-of commotion. He harassed about one hundred and fifty people, and even in church he gave so little rest to those he possessed, that they raised various kinds of mischief in this holy place. When, thereupon, the preacher, Heinrich Lemrich, thundered against these deviltries from the pulpit, the devil became so incensed that immediately he promenaded into the Reverend Lemrich himself, so that the good minister raged in the pulpit exactly as did the members of his congregation down below in the nave.
However, this variety of medical superstition finally spread to such an extent that, as medical aid was powerless against the devil, the aid of God, by order of the consistory, was invoked from all pulpits of the Margravate against the above-described misdeeds of hell’s ruler.
But the clergy adopted still another plan to checkmate the devil. In various publications they enumerated the villainies which Satan might visit on mankind, so that each and every one would be enabled to protect himself against the aggressions of the devil, in whatever form he might make his appearance. The first publication of this character was issued in 1555 by the General Superintendent of the Electorate of Brandenburg, Professor of the University of Frankfort, Herr Musculus; it bore the very appropriate title, The Pantaloon Devil. In fact, as early as 1575 a compilation was published in Frankfort-on-the-Main, in which twenty-four different forms, which the devil might assume in visiting humanity, were discussed most conscientiously and with becoming diffuseness of style (compare MÖhsen, Vol. II., page 426, etc.).
From that time it was impossible for mankind to shake off the belief in devil and demons. The thought of being possessed played a conspicuous part even in the first half of the nineteenth century, thanks to the activity of Justinus Kerner, and even medicine felt called upon to busy itself more thoroughly with this newly resurrected belief. This was done, for instance, by Dr. Klencke, who, in 1840, published a little book exclusively for the purpose of disproving the existence of spirits.
We have so far shown the potent influence exerted upon medical superstition by antique as well as by medieval philosophy. But the newer philosophy greatly influenced the destiny of medicine, even at the end of the eighteenth and at the beginning of the nineteenth centuries. The natural philosophy based upon the doctrines of Schelling once more submerged the art of healing in mysticism, and thus necessarily abetted superstition. The physician no longer conceived disease as the effect of disturbances in the life of the bodily organs, but held various forms of inconceivable powers responsible for the incidence of a malady. The soul wrapped in sin had power to lead the life of the body from the normal into the pathological condition, and, accordingly, prayer and the belief in Christian dogmas again became active as curative factors. It was especially the Munich clinician, Nepomuk von Ringseis, who placed such theories before his pupils, and who, in his “System of Medicine,” published in 1840, made them generally known. Ringseis states in this book: “As disease is originally the consequence of sin, it is, altho not always indispensable, yet according to experience, incomparably more safe that physician as well as patient should obtain absolution before any attempt at healing be made.” Another passage reads: “Christ is the all-restorer, and as such He cooperates in every corporeal cure.” In this sense Ringseis calls the sacraments “the talismans coming from the Physician of all physicians, and, therefore, the most excellent of all physical, stimulating, and alterative remedies.”
Thus, after almost three thousand years, medicine had returned to the stage at which it originated—namely, to the view that incorporeal, supernatural factors were to play a determining part in pathology and therapy. However, that there are plenty of individuals even in our time who are at any moment ready again to sacrifice wantonly all enlightenment and all progress to this varied superstition, is demonstrated by the cases of Mrs. Eddy and the Reverend Dowie, those modern representatives of medical superstition. There is only one protection against these relapses, against these atavistic tendencies, and that is education in natural science. The more it becomes disseminated among the people the less danger there will be that the heresies of a false philosophy, or of an overheated religious sentiment, may again conjure up medical superstition to the detriment of humanity.
