The origin of amulets may be traced to the most remote ages of mankind. In our researches to discover and fix the period when remedies were first employed for the alleviation of bodily suffering, we are soon lost in conjecture or involved in fable. We are unable, indeed, to reach the period in any country, when the inhabitants were destitute of medical resources, and even among the most uncultivated tribes we find medicine cherished as a blessing and practised as an art. The feelings of the sufferer, and the anxiety of those about him, must, in the rudest state of society, have incited a spirit of industry and research to procure ease, the modification of heat and cold, of moisture and dryness; and the regulation and change of diet and habit, must intuitively have suggested themselves for the relief of pain; and when these resources failed, charms, amulets, and incantations, were the natural expedients of the barbarians, ever more inclined to indulge the delusive hope of superstition than to listen to the voice of sober reason. Traces of amulets may be discovered in very early history, though Dr. Warburton is evidently in error when he fixes the origin of these magical instruments to the age of the Ptolomies, which was not more than three hundred years before Christ. This assertion is refuted by Galen, who informs us the Egyptian King Nechepsus, who lived 630 years before Christ, had written, that a green jasper cut into the form of a dragon surrounded with rays, if applied externally, would strengthen the stomach and organs of digestion. This opinion, moreover, is supported by scripture: for what were the earrings which Jacob buried under the oak of Sechem, as related in Genesis, but amulets. And Josephus in his antiquities of the Jews,[110] informs us that Solomon discovered a plant efficacious in the cure of epilepsy, and that he employed the aid of a charm, for the purposes of assisting its virtues. The root of the herb was concealed in a ring, which was applied to the nostrils of the demoniac; and Josephus remarks that he saw himself a Jewish priest practise the art of Solomon with complete success in the presence of the Emperor Vespasian, his sons and the tribunes of the Roman army. From this art of Solomon, exhibited through the medium of a ring or seal, we have the Eastern stories which celebrate the seal of Solomon, and record the potency of his sway over the various orders of demons or of genii, who were supposed to be the invincible tormentors or benefactors of the human race. Nor were such means confined to dark and barbarous ages. Theophrastus pronounced Pericles to be insane in consequence of seeing him with an amulet suspended from his neck. And in the declining era of the Roman Empire, we find this superstitious custom so general that the Emperor Caracalla was induced to make a public edict, ordering, that no man should wear any superstitious amulets about his person.