The Origin and Growth of the Healing Art: A Popular History of Medicine in All Ages and CountriesBerdoe, Edward
History
The Origin and Growth of the Healing Art: A Popular History of Medicine in All Ages and Countries
Berdoe, Edward
Medicine -- History
Brande, in his _Popular Antiquities_, gives the following charm from a
manuscript of the date of 1475:[608]—
“Here ys a charme for wyked Wych. In nomine Patris, et Filii, et
Spiritus Sancti. Amen. Per Virtutem Domini sint Medicina mei pia Crux ✠
et passio Christi ✠. Vulnera quinque Domini sint Medicina mei ✠. Virgo
Maria mihi succurre, et defende ab omni maligno Demonio, et ab omni
maligno Spiritu. Amen. ✠ a ✠ g ✠ l ✠ a ✠ Tetragrammaton. ✠ Alpha, ✠ oo,
✠ primogenitus, ✠ vita, vita. ✠ Sapiencia, ✠ Virtus, ✠ Jesus Nazarenus
rex judeorum, ✠ fili Domini, miserere mei. Amen. ✠ Marcus ✠ Matheus
✠ Lucas ✠ Johannes mihi succurrite et defendite. Amen. ✠ Omnipotens
sempiterne Deus, hunc N. famulum tuum hoc breve Scriptum super se
portantem prospere salvet dormiendo, vigilando, potando, et precipue
sompniando ab omni Maligno Demonio, eciam ab omni maligno spiritu ✠.”
One of the most famous charms of this kind is the “Solomon’s Seal.”
[Illustration: Solomon's Seal]
Amongst the Cabalists an amulet, with the names “Senoi, Sansenoi,
Semongeloph,” upon it, was fastened round the neck of the new-born
child.[609]
The first Psalm, when written on doeskin, was supposed to help the
birth of children; but the writer of such Psalm amulets, as soon as he
had written one line, had to plunge into a bath. “Moreover,” says Mr.
Morley, “that the charm might be the work of a pure man, before every
new line of his manuscript it was thought necessary that he should
repeat the plunge.”[610]
SACRED NAMES AS CHARMS.
Some of the Jews accounted for the miracles of healing wrought by our
Saviour by declaring that He had learned the Mirific Word, the true
pronunciation of the name Jehovah; this word stirs all the angels and
rules all creatures. They said that He had gained admission to the Holy
of Holies, where He learned the sacred mystery, wrote it on a tablet,
cut open His thigh, and having put the tablet in the wound, closed the
flesh by uttering the mystic Name. The names of angels and evil spirits
were also held to be potent by the Cabalists. The name of a bad angel,
Schabriri, was used when written down as a charm to cure ophthalmia.
STOLEN PROPERTY AS A CHARM.
In Mr. Andrew Lang’s delightful _Custom and Myth_ he says that he once
met at dinner a lady who carried a _stolen_ potato about with her as a
cure for rheumatism. The potato must be stolen, or the charm would not
work.
A small piece of beef, if _stolen_ from a butcher, is supposed by some
persons to charm away warts.
BOOK IV.
_CELTIC, TEUTONIC, AND MEDIÆVAL MEDICINE._
CHAPTER I.
MEDICINE OF THE DRUIDS, TEUTONS, ANGLO-SAXONS, AND WELSH.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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