Three Thousand Years of Mental HealingCutten, George Barton
History
Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing
Cutten, George Barton
Mental healing
_Erysipelas._--The elder seems to have been efficacious in erysipelas
as well as in epilepsy, at least so we are told in the "Anatomie of
the Elder." The following is the method of preparing the amulet. It is
to be made of "Elder on which the sun never shined. If the piece
betwixt the two knots be hung about the patient's neck, it is much
commended. Some cut it in little pieces, and sew it in a knot in a
piece of a man's shirt, which seems superstitious."
_Evil-eye._--Coral was supposed to avert the baneful consequences of
the evil-eye, and Paracelsus recommends it to be worn about the necks
of children. Douce has given engravings of several Roman amulets
which were intended to be used against fascinations in general, but
more particularly against that of the evil-eye.[114]
_Eye Diseases._--Cotta relates, so says Pettigrew, "a merrie historie
of an approved famous spell for sore eyes. By many honest testimonies
it was a long time worne as a Jewell about many necks, written in
paper and enclosed in silke, never failing to do sovereigne good when
all other helpes were helplesse. No sight might dare to reade or open.
At length a curious mind, while the patient slept, by stealth ripped
open the mystical cover, and found the powerful characters Latin:
'Diabolus effodiat tibi oculos impleat foramina stercoribus.'"
Vivisection was practised to procure an amulet for sore eyes,
according to the following prescription: "If a man have a white spot,
as cataract, in his eye, catch a fox alive, cut his tongue out, let
him go, dry his tongue and tie it up in a red rag and hang it round
the man's neck." Pliny's way was to "take the tongue of a foxe, and
hange the same about his necke, so long it hangeth there his sight
shall not wax feeble."
Like was also used to cure like, at least in the following directions:
"Take the right eye of a Frogg, lap it in a piece of russet cloth and
hang it about the neck; it cureth the right eye if it bee enflamed or
bleared. And if the left eye be greved, do the like by the left eye of
the said Frogg."[115]
_Fevers._--Charms rather than amulets were employed in fevers, yet we
find that among the ancients Chrysippus believed in amulets for
quartan fevers and Pliny taught that the longest tooth of a black dog
cured quartan fevers.
_Gout._--Alexander of Tralles has preserved for us a remedy for gout
as follows: "A remedy for the gout. Write, on a golden plate at the
wane of the moon, what follows, rolling round it the sinews of a
crane. Put it in a little bag, and wear it near the ankles. The words
are meu, treu, mor, phor, teux, za, zor, phe, lou, chri, ge, ze, ou,
as the sun is consolidated in these names, and is renewed every day;
so consolidate this plaster as it was before, now, now, quick, quick,
for, behold, I pronounce the great name, in which are consolidated
things in repose, iaz, azuf, zuon, threux, bain, choog; consolidate
this plaster as it was at first, now, now, quick, quick."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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