One can scarcely credit that at any period there could have existed men of science and genius who believed that there were supernatural means of curing disease, did we not even to the present day find imbeciles who verily dread the malpractices of the devil and his vicarious agents. Ancient writers divided their cures into lawful and unlawful. The former were obtained from divine aid; the latter from sorcerers, witches, magicians, wizards, and cunning men, who treated all maladies by spells, cabalistic words, charms, characters, images, amulets, ligatures, philters, incantations, &c.; by which means, according to Cardan, Artesius, Picatrix, and sundry wise men, the aforesaid sorcerers and witches could prevent fire from burning, find out thieves and stolen goods, show absent faces in a glass, make serpents lie still, stanch blood, salve gout, biting of mad dogs, toothache, et omnia mundi mala. “Many doubt,” says Nicholas Taurellus, “whether the devil can cure such diseases he hath not made, and some flatly deny it; however, common experience confirms, to our astonishment, that magicians can work such feats, and that the devil, without impediment, can penetrate through all the parts of our body, and cure such maladies by means to us unknown.” Some of these means were rather singular; for St. Austin mentions as one of these processes, “Agentes cum patientibus conjungunt, colligere semina rerum eaque materiÆ applicare;” and learned divines, moreover inform us, that to resist exorcisms these witches and magicians had St. Catherine’s wheel imprinted on the roof of their mouths, or on some other part. Taurellus asserts, that to doubt it is to run into a sceptical extreme of incredulity. Godelman affirms that Satan is an excellent physician; Langius maintains that Jupiter Menecrates was a magician; and Marcellus Donatus pays the same compliment to Solomon, who, he says, “cured all the diseases of the mind by spells, charms, and drove away devils, and that Eleazar did the same before Vespasian.” Galen, in his book “de Medicamentis facilÈ purandis,” observes after a preparation, “hÆc enim suffita, dÆmonus abigunt.”

This fact being clearly ascertained, the next question was whether it was lawful in a desperate case to crave the help of the evil one on the principle

Flectere si nequeunt Superos, Acheronta movebunt.

Paracelsus rather impiously argues that we might, as it matters not, he says, “whether it be God or the devil, angels or unclean spirits, (immundi spiritus,) that cure him, so that he be eased. If a man fall in a ditch, what matter is it whether a friend or an enemy help him out? If I be troubled with such a malady, what care I whether the devil himself, or any of his ministers, by God’s permission, redeem me?”—and he therefore concludes, that diseases brought on by malefices can only be cured by incantations. However, this doctrine was denounced as abominable by Remigius, Bodinus, Godelmannus, Erastus, and various divines and schoolmen; and Delrio plainly declares, “mori prÆstat quÀm superstitiosÈ canari.” Therefore pontificial writers and sages recommend adjuration and exorcism by “fire, suffumigations, lights, cutting the air with swords (gladiorum ictus), sacred herbs, odours,” &c., though some hungry devils can only be cast out by fasting.

Witches and impostors, says Lord Bacon, have always held a competition with physicians. Galen complains of this superstition, and observes that patients placed more confidence in the oracles of Esculapius and their own idle dreams than in the prescriptions of doctors. The introduction of precious stones into medical practice owed its origin to a superstitious belief that, from their beauty, splendour, and high value, they were the natural receptacles for good spirits. Mystery, in the dark ages, and, alas! even now, increases the confidence in remedial means; reveal their true nature, the charm is dissolved: “Minus credunt quÆ ad suam salutem pertinent si intelligunt,” said Pliny. One cannot but wonder when we behold men pre-eminent in deep learning and acute observation becoming converts to such superstitious practices. Lord Bacon believed in spells and amulets; and Sir Theodore Mayence, who was physician to three English sovereigns, and supposed to have been Shakspeare’s Dr. Caius, believed in supernatural agency, and frequently prescribed the most disgusting and absurd medicines, such as the heart of a mule ripped up alive, a portion of the lungs of a man who had died a violent death, or the hand of a thief who had been gibbeted on some particular day. Nauseous medicines have ever been deemed the most efficacious, on the reasoning that as every thing medicinal is nauseous, every thing that is nauseous must be medicinal. The ancients firmly believed that blood can be stanched by charms; the bleeding of Ulysses was stopped by this means; and Cato the Censor has given us an incantation for setting dislocated bones. To this day charms are supposed to arrest the flow of blood:

Tom Pots was but a serving-man,
But yet he was a doctor good,
He bound his kerchief on the wound,
And with some kind words he stanch’d the blood.

Sir Walter Scott says, in the “Lay of the Last Minstrel,”—

She drew the splinter from the wound,
And with a charm she stanch’d the blood.

The strength of imagination in effecting wonderful cures has been observed in all ages; and Avicenna declares, “that he prefers confidence before art, precepts, and all remedies whatsoever.” Our learned Burton says, “that this strong imagination or conceit is Astrum Hominis, and the rudder of this our ship, which reason should steer, but overborne by phantasie, cannot manage, and so suffers itself and the whole vessel of ours to be overruled and often overturned.”

Nothing could be more absurd than the notions regarding some of these supposed cures: a ring made of the hinge of a coffin had the power of relieving cramps; which were also mitigated by having a rusty old sword hung up by the bedside. Nails driven in an oak-tree prevented the toothache. A halter that had served in hanging a criminal was an infallible remedy for a headache, when tied round the head; this affection was equally cured by the moss growing on a human skull, dried and pulverized, and taken as a cephalic snuff. A dead man’s hand could dispel tumours of the glands by stroking the parts nine times, but the hand of a man who had been cut down from the gallows was the most efficacious. To cure warts, one had nothing to do but to steal a piece of beef from the butcher, with which the warts were to be rubbed; then inter it in any filth, and as it rotted, the warts would wither and fall.

The chips of a gallows on which several persons had been hanged, when worn in a bag round the neck, would cure the ague. A stone with a hole in it, suspended at the head of the bed, would effectually stop the nightmare; hence it was called a hag-stone, as it prevents the troublesome witches from sitting upon the sleeper’s stomach. The same amulet tied to the key of a stable-door, deterred witches from riding horses over the country.

Rickety children were cured by being drawn through a cleft tree, which was afterwards bound up, and as the split wood united, the child acquired strength. Creeping through a perforated stone to cure various disorders was a Druidical rite, still practised in the East. In the parish of Marden there is a stone with a hole in it, fourteen inches in diameter, through which children are drawn for the rickets; and, in the North, infants are made to pass through a hole cut in a groaning cheese the day of their christening.

Second sight, which, as an hereditary faculty, was deemed a malady, was cured in the Isle of Man, according to Mr. Aubrey’s account, by baptizing a child upon the first sight of its head. This ceremony exempts the succeeding generation from the troublesome gift.

It is a melancholy reflection that, at various periods, impostors have impiously called in Scriptural aid to promote their sordid or ambitious views. Chiromancers have quoted the Bible in support of their doctrines and adduced the following lines of Job,—“He sealeth up the hand of every man, that all men may know his works:” while, in the like manner, the Holy Inquisition of Spain and Portugal justified their atrocities on the score of the parable of the marriage of the king’s son, in the 22nd of St. Matthew.

Unlawful cures, as they were called, being thus anathematized, lawful remedies were resorted to, and the patient was first ordered to pray with due devotion before he took his physic; or, as Burton observes, not one without the other, but both together; for, as he adds, to pray alone, and reject ordinary means, is to do like him in Æsop, that, when his cart was stalled, lay flat on his back, and cried out “Help, Hercules!” However, Hyperius maintains that no physicians can hope for success unless “with a true faith they call upon God and teach their patients to do the like.” Comineus, when he addressed the Christian princes after the overthrow of Charles of Burgundy, bade them “first pray with all submission and penitency, confess their sins, and then take physic.”

Another question of importance that led to much controversy was, whether it were lawful to seek the aid of the saints; the learned Burton’s remarks on this controverted point are so curious that they are worth relating. “They (the papists) have a proper saint for almost every peculiar infirmity: for poisons, gout, agues, Petronella; St. Romanus, for such as are possessed; St. Vitus for madmen, &c.; and as, of old, Pliny reckons up gods for all diseases. All affections of the mind were heretofore accounted gods: Love and Sorrow, Virtue, Honour, Liberty, Contumely, Impudency, had their temples; Tempests, Seasons, Crepitus Ventris, Dea Vacuna, Dea Cloacina. Varro reckons up thirty thousand gods; Lucian makes Podagra, the gout, a goddess, and assigns her priests and ministers. ’Tis the same devil still, called heretofore, Apollo, Mars, Venus, &c.; the same Jupiter, and those bad angels, are now worshipped and adored by the name of St. Sebastian, St. Barbara, &c.; and our Lady succeeds Venus in many offices; and God often winks at these impostures, because they forsake his word, and betake themselves to the devil, as they do, that seek after holy water, crosses,” &c.

Amidst this violent denunciation against popery and devilment, evil spirits and saints, it is somewhat singular to find a spirit of anomalous perversity which justifies suicide to rid ourselves of disease and suffering; and these very sanctimonious censors quote ancient and modern authorities to sanction a practice which every Christian must condemn. Let us pursue the disquisition of our learned bookworm Burton:—“Another doubt is made by philosophers, whether it be lawful for a man in such extremity of pain and grief to make away himself, and how those men that do so are to be censured. The Platonists approve of it, that it is lawful in such cases upon a necessity. Plotinus (L. de Beatitud.) and Socrates himself defend it (in Plato’s PhÆdon): If any man labour of an incurable disease, he may despatch himself, if it be to his good. Epictetus and Seneca say, Quamcunque veram esse viam ad libertatem;—any way is allowable that leads to liberty. Let us give God thanks no man is compelled to live against his will. Quid ad hominem claustra, carcer, custodia? liberum ostium habet. Death is always ready at hand: Vides illum precipitem locum, illud flumen? There is liberty at hand. Effugia cervitutis et doloris sunt, as that Laconian lad cast himself headlong, Non serviam, aiebat puer; to be freed of misery. Wherefore hath our mother earth brought out poisons (saith Pliny) in so great a quantity, but that men in distress might make away themselves? which kings of old had ever in readiness, ad incerta fortunÆ venenum sub custode promptum. Many worthy men and women, quorum memoria celebratur in ecclesiÂ, sayeth Leminctius, killed themselves to save their chastity and honour, when Rome was taken. Jerome vindicates the same, and Ambrose commendeth Pelagia for so doing. Eusebius admired a Roman matron for the same fact, to save herself from the lust of Maxentius the tyrant. Adelhelmus, the Abbot of Malmesbury, calls them, beatas virgines quÆ sic, &c. Sir Thomas More, in his Utopia, commends voluntary death if one be sibi aut aliis molestus; especially if to live be a torment to him, let him free himself with his own hand from this tedious life, or from a prison, or suffer himself to be freed by others.” However, be it said in justice to our worthy Burton, he condemns this practice as “a false and pagan position, founded in prophane stoical paradoxes and wicked examples;” and although he denounces most fulminating anathemas on papists, he concludes by saying, “we ought not to be rash and rigorous in our censures, as some are; Charity will judge and hope best; God be merciful unto us all!”

But why should we marvel at the credulity and superstition of our forefathers, when we daily observe equal absurdities? Fanaticism and bigotry will ever strive to speculate on human weakness, and endeavour to surround with impenetrable mists every rebel to their power who gropes for the shrine of reason and of truth. Johanna Southcote had her votaries, and Prince Hohenlohe is still considered by many a pious person, as a vicarious instrument of divine mercy. No miraculous recovery recorded in the dark ages can surpass the tenebral absurdity of the following relation of one of his cures:

Miss O’Connor was a nun in a convent near Chelmsford, and in December 1820, being about thirty years old, was suddenly attacked by a violent pain in the right hand, which extended with much swelling and inflammation up the arm. The whole limb became red, swollen, extremely painful, and entirely useless. Every remedy, both topical and directed to the system, was tried in vain for a year and a half. There was no suppuration, nor any formation of pus; but the malady continued obdurate, and yielded to no application. The resources of the flesh having manifestly failed, Mrs. Gerard, the worthy superior, very properly betook herself to those of the spirit. She made a request through a friend to Prince Hohenlohe to assist the patient in this her extreme case; when the following precious document, which it would be impious to translate into heretical English, was received:

It is to be regretted that this letter, which was no doubt a circular to his proselytes, with necessary blanks to be filled up pro re natÂ, as the doctors have it, was not drawn out in better French. Howbeit, on the appointed day, asserts Dr. Baddely (the lady’s unsuccessful medical attendant), Miss O’Connor went through the religious process prescribed by her princely physician. Mass being said, Miss O. not finding the immediate relief she expected from her faith, or faithfully expected, exclaimed somewhat impatiently, not having the fear of Job before her eyes, “Thy will be done, O Lord, since thou hast not thought me worthy of this cure;” when behold! immediately after she felt an extraordinary sensation throughout the whole arm to the end of the fingers. The pain instantly left her, the swelling gradually subsided, and Dr. B., who no doubt was the pet physician of the nuns, declares that the hand shortly resumed its natural size and shape.

Now, Miss O’Connor was most likely a young lady from Ireland, where this miraculous cure was re-echoed in every chapel. The protestants were naturally offended by a report which seemed to impugn the sanctity of the reformed religion, and they thought it incumbent on them, for the welfare of church and state, to get up a miracle of their own which would cast Prince H., Nun O., and Dr. B. in the shade. The following statement was therefore published and certified upon oath by sundry most respectable and most worthy Orangemen:

“I pledge you the word and honour of an Orangeman that the following facts, sworn to by all present, occurred yesterday evening. A party of gentlemen dined with me, and after dinner a vase, containing some orange lilies, was placed upon the table by my directions. We drank several toasts; but on the glorious and immortal memory being given, an unblown lily, which the party had remarked, expanded its leaves and bloomed before us in all its splendour!” How appropriate are the lines of Otway when applied to the propagators of such absurdities, who dare to call upon our faith to give credence to their impostures.

You want to lead
My reason blindfold like a hamper’d lion
Check’d of its noble vigour; then, when baited
Down to obedient tameness, make it crouch
And show strange tricks, which you call signs of faith:
So silly souls are gull’d, and you get money.

A curious anecdote is related of Lord Chief Justice Holt. When a young man, he happened, with some of his merry companions, to run up a score at a country inn, which they were not able to pay. In this dilemma they appealed to Holt, to get them out of the scrape. Our young lawyer had observed that the inn-keeper’s daughter looked very ill, and, passing himself for a medical student, asked her father what ailed her, when he was informed that she suffered from an ague. Holt immediately gathered various plants, mixed them up with great ceremony, and after rolling them up in parchment, scrawled upon the ball some cabalistic characters. The amulet, thus prepared, he suspended round the neck of the young woman, and, strange to say, the ague did not return. After this cure the doctor offered to pay the bill, to which the grateful landlord would not consent, allowing Holt and his party to leave the house.

Many years after, when on the bench, a woman was brought before him, accused of witchcraft—the very last person tried upon such a charge. Her only defence was, that she possessed a ball invariably efficacious in the cure of agues. The charm was produced, handed to the judge, who recognised the identical ball which he had prepared in his youthful frolics.

Not only did these victims of superstition firmly believe that evil spirits had the power of inflicting disease, and afterwards salve the mischief, but they were also invested with the privilege of killing and subsequently restoring to life. The story related of the truly learned Agrippa, who was falsely represented as a necromancer, is curious.

Agrippa had occasion one time to be absent for a few days from his residence in Louvain. During his absence he intrusted his wife with the key of his museum, but with an earnest injunction that no one on any account should be allowed to enter it; Agrippa happened at that time to have a boarder in his house, a young fellow of insatiable curiosity, who constantly importuned his hostess, till at length he obtained from her the forbidden key. The first thing that attracted his attention was a book of spells and incantations. He spread the volume before him, and, thinking no harm, began to read aloud. He had not long continued this occupation, when a knock was heard at the door of the chamber. The youth took no notice, but continued reading. Presently there followed a second and a louder knock, which somewhat alarmed the reader. The space of a minute having elapsed, and no answer been made, the door opened and a demon entered. “For what purpose am I called?” said the unwelcome visitor in a stern voice: “What is it you demand to have done?” The youth was seized with the greatest alarm and struck speechless. The demon then rushed upon him, seized him by the throat, and strangled him, indignant no doubt in having been interrupted in some more interesting pursuit to no purpose.

At the expected time Agrippa came home, and to his great surprise found a number of devils capering about, and playing strange antics on the roof of his house. By his art he caused them to desist from their gambols, of which he demanded the cause. The chief of them then related to him what he had done, how he had been disturbed and insulted, and how he had thought proper to revenge himself. Agrippa became much alarmed at the probable consequences of this unfortunate adventure, and he ordered the demon, without loss of time, to reanimate his victim, and walk about the streets with him, that the public might behold him alive. The infernal spirit reluctantly obeyed, and went forth with the student in the marketplace and promenades. This excursion over, however, he maliciously allowed his companion to fall down, when life once more flitted from his body. For a time it was thought that the student had been killed by a sudden attack of illness; but, presently, the marks of strangulation became evident, and the truth came out. Agrippa was thus suddenly obliged to quit the town, and seek refuge in a distant state.

It was further related of this supposed wizard, that he was always accompanied by a familiar spirit in the shape of a black dog; and that when he lay on his deathbed he was earnestly exhorted to repent of his sins. Struck with remorse, he took hold of the dog, and removed from his neck a collar studded with cabalistic nails, exclaiming, “Begone, wretched animal, that has been the cause of my perdition!” and lo! the dog immediately ran away, and, plunging into the river Soane, disappeared. It is to be regretted that historians do not relate whether the water hissed or not when the canine devil took his last leap.

It merits notice, that the mystic and medicinal celebrity of various substances have to this hour survived the traditions of their superstitious origin; coral, for instance, which was considered as possessed of the power of keeping off evil spirits, and rendering effete the malefices of the evil eye, was constantly worn as an amulet; and Paracelsus informs us that it should be worn round the necks of infants, as an admirable preservative against fits, sorcery, charms, and poisons. We still find necklaces of this substance suspended by fond mothers and nurses round the necks of infants. In the West Indies these chaplets are worn by the negroes as a magic protection against Obiism, and they even affirm that the colour of the coral is affected by the state of health of the wearer, and becomes paler when he is ill.

The irrational belief in the mysterious powers of certain remedies went so far in former days, that when they were applied to the weapon that had inflicted an injury, their indirect sympathetic action was considered as effectual as if they had been used to heal the wound. The sympathetic powder of Sir Kenelm Digby, which was nothing else but pulverized green vitriol, was eulogized in a discourse pronounced by its inventor, at Montpellier, in 1658. Our James I. purchased this wonderful discovery from Sir Kenelm, who pretended that he had obtained it from a Carmelite friar, who had learned it in America and Persia. This superstitious practice is alluded to by Walter Scott, in the “Lay of the Last Minstrel:”

But she has ta’en the broken lance,
And wash’d it from the clotted gore,
And salved the splinter o’er and o’er.

Dryden has also illustrated this absurdity in his “Enchanted Island,” where Ariel says,

Anoint the sword which pierced him, with this
Weapon-salve, and wrap it close from air
Till I have time to visit it again.

Sir Kenelm’s sympathetic powder was applied in the same manner; the weapon being covered with ointment and dressed three times a day. But it was not mentioned that at the same time the wound was to be brought together, and bound up with clean linen bandages for seven days. This wonderful cure was then simply the process of what surgeons call healing by first intention, which means uniting the lips of the wound without suppuration. Dr. Paris apprehends that this secret was suggested to the worthy knight by the cures operated by the rust of the spear of Telephus, which, according to Homer, healed the injuries it had occasioned; and this rust was most probably verdigris.

To this day the Irish peasantry, and even many of the superior classes, firmly believe in the malevolent and destructive effect of the evil eye, when cast upon man or beast. Hence the absurd custom that prevails, especially in the western provinces, of adding “God bless it,” to any expression of admiration; and if perchance a Sassenagh traveller exclaimed “What a sweet child!” or, “What a fine cow!” without the adjunctive benediction, he would be suspected of malefice, and the priest forthwith summoned to save the devoted victim of sorcery. In Scotland dairy-maids drive cattle with a switch of the mountain ash, or roan-tree, considered as held sacred since the days of Druidism; and in some districts the sheep and lambs are made to pass through a hoop of its wood on the first day of May.

The toad was also considered to be possessed of marvellous qualities for the cure of various maladies, more especially the stone that was supposed to be occasionally found in the reptile’s head, and which was called Crapaudina. Lupton, in his seventh book of “Notable Things,” thus instructs us how to obtain it. “You shall knowe whether the tode stone be the ryght and perfect stone or not. Holde the stone before a tode, so that he may see it; and if it be a ryght and true stone, the tode will leape towarde it and make as though he would snatch it, he envies so much that man should have this stone.” This famous toadstone is simply one of the fossil teeth of various fishes, and is chiefly formed of phosphate of lime. Its high polish and convexity has often induced lapidaries to have it set in rings and other jewels, to which marvellous powers were attached.

Pulverized toads were not only employed in medicine with supposed advantage, but were also considered a slow but certain poison. Solander relates, that a Roman woman, desirous of poisoning her husband gave him this substance; but instead of attaining her criminal desire, it cured him of a dropsy that had long perplexed him. Boccaccio relates the story of Pasquino and Simona, two young lovers, who, wandering in a garden, plucked some sage-leaves, with which Pasquino rubbed his teeth and gums. In a few minutes he fell ill and expired. Simona accused of being his assassin, was brought before a magistrate, who ordered an immediate investigation of the matter, when, on proceeding to the garden, Simona, after relating the particulars of the case, took some leaves from the same plant and used them in a similar manner. In a few minutes the lovers were reunited in death; when it was discovered that a large toad was under the root of the plant to which it had communicated its deadly venom.

Regarding unlawful cures, have we not seen vaccination, when first introduced, condemned from the very pulpit as an impious interference in a disease which seemed to have been assigned to mankind by the Creator as an inevitable doom? Did not these desperate bigots even pronounce that we were not warranted to seek in the brute creation a human remedy or preservative? What is still more worthy of remark, is the coincidence of a similar idea in India, where the greatest obstacle vaccination encountered arose from a belief that the natural smallpox was a dispensation of a malicious deity, called Mah-ry-Umma, or rather that the disease was an incarnation of the goddess herself into the person who was affected by it: the fear of irritating her, and of exposing themselves to her resentment, necessarily rendered the natives averse to vaccination, until it was impressed upon their easy belief, that Mah-ry-Umma had altered her mind, and chosen this new and milder mode of manifesting her visits to her votaries.

Could there ever have existed a more superstitious belief than that which vested in the regal touch a healing power? Yet from Edward the Confessor to the accession of the House of Hanover, it was generally thought in these realms that our kings could cure scrofula with their anointed fingers!

Dr. Paris’s truly philosophic remarks on this subject, in his valuable work, entitled Pharmacologia, are worthy of quotation:—“Credulity, although it is nearly allied to superstition, yet differs from it widely. Credulity is an unbounded belief in what is possible, although destitute of proof, and perhaps of probability; but superstition is a belief in what is wholly repugnant to the laws of the physical and moral world. Credulity is a far greater source of error than superstition; for the latter must be always more limited in its influence, and can exist only, to any considerable extent, in the most ignorant portions of society; whereas the former diffuses itself through the minds of all classes, by which the rank and dignity of science are degraded, its valuable labours confounded with the vain pretensions of empiricism, and ignorance is enabled to claim for itself the prescriptive right of delivering oracles, amidst all the triumph of truth and the progress of philosophy. Credulity has been justly defined belief without reason, while scepticism, its opposite, is reason without belief, and the natural and invariable consequence of credulity; for it may be observed that men who believe without reason are succeeded by others whom no reasoning can convince.”