One of the most absurd medical doctrines that ever prevailed in the dark Æras of science was the firm belief that all medicinal substances displayed certain external characters that pointed out their specific virtues. This curious theory may be traced to the Magi and ChaldÆans, who pretended that every sublunary body was under a planetary influence. To find the means of concentrating or fixing this stellary emanation became a cabalistic study, called by Paracelsus the “ars signata;” and talismans of various kinds were introduced by the professors of sideral science. The word talisman appears to be derived from the ChaldÆan and Arabic tilseman and tilsem, which mean characteristic figures or images.

Paracelsus, Porta, Crollius, and many other philosophers and physicians, cherished this vision, which had been transmitted to them through the dense mists of superstition from more ancient authorities; amongst others, Dioscorides, Ælius, and Pliny.

The lapis Ætites, or eagle-stone, which was supposed to be found in the nests of this bird, but which, in fact, is nothing more than a variety of iron-ore, was said to prevent abortion if tied to the arm, and to accelerate parturition if affixed to the thigh. This conceit arose from the noise that seemed to arise from the centre of the stone when it was shaken: “Ætites lapis agitatus, sonitum edit, velut ex altero lapide prÆgnans.” From this absurd hypothesis sprung the doctrine; and the very names of plants were supposed to indicate their specific qualities. For instance, the euphrasia, or eye-bright, exhibiting a dark spot in its corolla, resembling the pupil of the eye, was considered efficacious in affections of that organ. The blood-stone, the heliotropum, from its being marked with red specks, was employed to stop hÆmorrhage; and is to this day resorted to in some countries, even in England, to stop a bleeding from the nose.[41] Nettle-tea was prescribed for the eruption called nettle-rash. The semecarpus anacardium, bearing the form of a heart, was recommended in the diseases of this viscus. The cassuvium occidentale, resembling the formation of a kidney, was prescribed in renal complaints; and the pulmonary lichen of the oak, the sticta pulmonaria, from its cellular structure, was esteemed a valuable substance in morbid affections of the lungs. Deductions still more absurd, if possible, are recorded: thus saxifrage, and other plants that grow in rocky places, embodied as if it were in calcareous beds, were advised to dissolve the stone; and the echium, bearing some faint resemblance to a viper, was deemed infallible in the sting inflicted by this reptile. The divers colours of substances supposed to be medicinal were also another signature. Red flowers were given for derangement in the sanguiferous system, and yellow ones for those of the bile. In Crollius’s work, entitled “De Signaturis Plantarum,” many curious observations may be found; and Sennert, Keuch, Dieterich, and other writers displayed great industry in the division of these signatures, which, by the ancients, were considered as something denoting no particular quality, and were then called ?s??? ?a?a?t????; or s?a?t????, when their virtues were evident.

Amongst the various influences and indications that were attributed to colours, black was especially considered as the mark of melancholy. Baptista Porta affirms, that if a “black spot be over the spleen, or in the nails, it signifies much care, grief, contention, and melancholy.” Cardan assures us that a little before his son’s death he had a black spot, which appeared in one of his nails, and dilated itself as he approached his end.

While nature was thus supposed to mark the virtues of her productions on their external configuration, man assumed the same authoritative power, and marked medicines with certain signs or seals. For this purpose, the ancient physicians carried signets or rings, frequently worn upon the thumb, and on which were engraved their own names, sometimes written backwards, or the denominations of the nostrums they vended. On one of these seals we find the word aromaticu, from aromaticum; on another, melinu, abbreviation of melinum,—a collyrium prepared with the alum of the island of Melos. A seal of this kind is described by TÔchon d’Annecy, bearing the words psoricum crocodem, an inscription that has puzzled medical antiquaries. The word psoricum was applied to an eruptive affection of the eye; and Actuarius mentions a collyrium psoricum of Ælius; while Marcellus Empiricus records the virtues of the psoricum stratioticum, which restored sight in twenty days to a patient who had been blind for twelve years; but, when it was applied, it was ineffectual, unless the words “Te nunc resunco, bregan gresso,” were religiously pronounced. Crocodem was also supposed to apply to crocus or saffron, or to crocodes, a remedy for sore eyes, mentioned by Galen; while some learned men refer the word to the dejections of the crocodile, which were said to possess various virtues. The earth of Lemnos was sealed with the figure of Diana, and to this day the bolar argils, brought from Greece, bear various seals and characters; hence the bolus ArmeniÆ, and bolus ruber, are called terra sigillata.

The influence of colours was supposed to have been so great, that in our own annals we find John de Gaddesden, mentioned by Chaucer, ordering the son of Edward I., when labouring under the small-pox, to be wrapped up in scarlet; and to the present day, flannel, died nine times blue, is supposed to be most efficacious in glandular swellings. Tourtelle, a French army physician, has made the following singular observation on this subject: “I observed that those soldiers of the Republic who were affected with diseases connected with transpiration were more severely indisposed, and not unfrequently exhibited symptoms of putrescency, when their wet clothes had left a blue tinge on the skin, than when they had been merely wetted by the rain.” The explanation of this supposed phenomenon, is simply that those men who had been coloured by their uniforms, had, no doubt, been long wearing them, saturated by incessant rains, whereas the others had merely been exposed to occasional showers. From this observation, I do not pretend to affirm that any deleterious substances in a dye might not occasion a dangerous absorption; but the accidents that may result from such a circumstance could be easily explained without having recourse to any particular influence of colour. The colour of cloth, especially in army clothing, may also materially tend to influence cutaneous transpiration, as some colours are more powerful conductors of heat than others; and it is not impossible that the French soldiers, not belonging to fresh levies, and who had always been clad in white, might have experienced some difference of temperature when marching under intense heat in dark blue and green uniforms.

Some of the terms used by the signature doctrinarians may puzzle the most learned. The Greeks called them s?a?t???; and, in addition to the all-powerful abracadabra,—an infallible cure of ague, when suspended round the neck,—we find the magic terms of sator, asebo, tenet, obera, rotas, abrac, khiriori, gibel, engraved upon amulets. For the bite of a mad dog, pax max, and adimax, were irresistible; and for a fractured arm or a luxation, araries, dandaries, denatas, and matas, would have set at defiance the most experienced chirurgeons. I must refer the curious reader on this important subject to the work De figuris Persarum Talismanicis of Guffarel, to the Œdipus of Kircher, the book of Crollius De signaturis internis rerum, and Isagoge physico-magico-medica of Elzer.

The church vehemently denounced these abominations; and we find in the council of Laodicea an injunction forbidding the priesthood the study and practice of enchantment, mathematics, astrology, or the binding of soul by amulets. These incantations were dreaded in every age. Thus Lucan:

Mens, hausti null sanie polluta veneni,
Incantata perit.

Philosophers have justly observed that most of the diseases treated and supposed to have been cured by these mystic means, were of a nervous description, and therefore depending, in a great measure, upon moral influence. Here faith and hope assisted the physicians,—two great auxiliaries in every worldly turmoil and trouble. Therefore do we find most of these cures referred to epilepsy, paralysis, melancholy, hypochondriasis, hysteria, as well as to many periodical affections, the return of which is frequently arrested by mental impressions. A fright has checked the paroxysm of an intermittent fever; and many natural functions are impeded or brought on by a similar agency. The sight of a dentist has been often known to calm an excruciating toothache; and there is no complaint that has been cured by more singular means than this troublesome affection. In 1794, a tract was published in Florence by Dr. Ranieri Gerbi, a professor of mathematics in Pisa, entitled Storia naturale di un nuovo insetto, which he called curculio anti-odontalgicus, and which, being squeezed between the fingers, imparted to them, for the period of one year, the wonderful power of relieving toothache with the mere touch; and the author asserts that by this simple process he cured four hundred and one cases out of six hundred and twenty-nine. This may be considered a branch of magnetism, and has been treated by Schelhammar, in his book De OdontalgiÁ tactu sedandÂ.

This wonderful insect belonged to the coleoptera, and was simply the curculio and the coccinella septem-punctata, well known to entomologists, and which, according to Cipriani Zuccagni, and more particularly Carradori, possessed these singular properties, which, however, subsequent experiments have fully disproved.

While we find some charms having sufficient power over our weak imagination to cure diseases, there were others considered sufficiently energetic to occasion death. Sometimes a wax figure was made, supposed to represent the devoted victim, and which was pierced with a pointed instrument, each stab being accompanied by a magic imprecation:

Devovet absentes, simulacraque cerea fingit.

These means the ancients called carmina, incantationes, devotiones sortiariÆ. It is somewhat strange that this same ceremony of the waxen image to destroy the object of our hate was also employed to obtain love. The figure was on these occasions called by the name of the person, and afterwards placed near the fire, when, as the heat gradually melted it, the obdurate heart of the lover was simultaneously softened. At other times two images were thus exposed to heat, the one of clay, the other of wax; and, while the one melted, the other became more hardened:—a vindictive feeling, to render our own heart insensible, while we mollified that of an ingrate; or perhaps with a view to render that heart inflexible to others, while it propitiated the addresses of the supplicant. Thus Virgil:

Limus ut hic durescit, et hÆc ut cera liquescit,
Uno eodemque igni; sic nostro Daphnis amore.
Sparge molam, et fragiles incende bitumine lauros.
Daphnis me malus urit, ego hanc in Daphnide laurum.

The wishes of the ancients for those they loved were sometimes curious, and they often turned round a mystic wheel, praying that the object of their affections might fall down at their door and roll himself in the dirt.

The ancients, who daily witnessed this influence of the imagination in causing and in curing disease, have left us many valuable injunctions on the subject; and Plato thus expresses himself: “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.”