A History of Magic and Experimental Science, Volume 2 (of 2): During the First Thirteen Centuries of Our EraThorndike, Lynn
History
A History of Magic and Experimental Science, Volume 2 (of 2): During the First Thirteen Centuries of Our Era
Thorndike, Lynn
Magic -- History; Science -- History
Hildegard’s chapters on quadrupeds are so delightfully quaint that I
cannot pass them over, although the properties which she attributes
to them and the methods by which their virtues are utilized are not
essentially different from those in examples already given. The camel,
however, is peculiar in that its different humps have quite different
virtues.[416] The one next to its neck has the virtues of the lion; the
second, those of the leopard; the third, those of the horse. A cap of
lion’s skin cures ailments of the head whether physical or mental.[417]
Deafness may be remedied by cutting off a lion’s right ear and holding
it over the patient’s ear just long enough to warm it and to say, “Hear
_adimacus_ by the living God and the keen virtue of a lion’s hearing.”
This process is to be repeated many times. The heart of a lion is
somewhat similarly employed, but without any incantation, to make a
stupid person prudent. Burying a lion’s heart in the house is regarded
as fire insurance against its being struck by lightning, “for the lion
is accustomed to roar when he hears thunder.” Digestion is aided by
drinking water in which the dried liver of a lion has been left for
a short time. Placing a bit of the skin from between a bear’s eyes
over one’s heart removes timidity and anxiety.[418] If anyone suffers
from paralysis or one of those changeable diseases which wax and wane
with the moon like lunacy, let him select a spot where an ass has been
slain, or has died a natural death, or has wallowed, and let him
spread a cloth on the grass or ground and repose there a short time and
sleep if he can. Afterwards you should take him by the right hand and
say, “Lazarus slept and rested and rose again; and as Christ roused
him from foul decay, so may you rise from this perilous pestilence
and the changing phases of fever in that conjunction in which Christ
applied Himself to the alleviation of such complaints, prefiguring
that He would redeem man from his sins and raise him from the dead.”
With a brief interval of time allowed between, the same performance
is to be repeated thrice in the same place on the same day, and then
again thrice on the next and the third days, when the patient will be
cured.[419]
[Sidenote: The unicorn, weasel, and mouse.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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