Three Thousand Years of Mental HealingCutten, George Barton
History
Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing
Cutten, George Barton
Mental healing
Lungwort, whose leaves bear a fancied resemblance to the surface of
the lungs, was considered good for pulmonary complaints, and
liverwort, having a leaf like the liver, cured liver diseases.
Eye-bright was a famous application for eye diseases, because its
flowers somewhat resemble the pupil of the eye; bugloss, resembling a
snake's head, was valuable for snake bite; and the peony, when in bud,
being something like a man's head, was "very available against the
falling sickness." Walnuts were considered to be the perfect signature
of the head, the shell represented the bony skull, the irregularities
of the kernel the convolutions of the two hemispheres of the brain,
and the husk the scalp. The husk was therefore used for scalp
wounds, the inner peel for disorders of the meninges, and the
kernel was beneficial for the brain and tended to resist poisons.
Lilies-of-the-valley were used for the cure of apoplexy, the signature
reasoning being, as Coles says, "for as that disease is caused by the
drooping of humors into the principal ventrices of the brain, so the
flowers of this lily, hanging on the plants as if they were drops, are
of wonderful use herein."
Capillary herbs naturally announced themselves as good for diseases
of the hair, and bear's grease, being taken from an animal thickly
covered with hair, was recommended for the prevention of baldness.
Nettle-tea is still a country remedy for nettle rash; prickly plants
like thistles and holly were prescribed for pleurisy and stitch in
the side, and the scales of the pine were used in toothache, because
they resemble front teeth. "Kidney-beans," says Berdoe, "ought to have
been useful for kidney diseases, but seem to have been overlooked
except as articles of diet." Poppy-heads were used "with success" to
relieve diseases of the head, and the root of the "mandrake," from its
supposed resemblance to the human form, was a very ancient remedy for
barrenness and was evidently so esteemed by Rachel, in the account
given in Genesis 30:14 ff.
In the treatment of small-pox red bed coverings were employed in
order to bring the pustules to the surface of the body. The patient
must be indued with red; the bed furniture and hangings should be red
and red substances were to be looked upon by the patient; burnt
purple, pomegranate seeds, mulberries or other red ingredients were
dissolved in their drink. John of Gladdesden, physician to Edward II,
prescribed the following treatment as soon as the eruption appeared:
"Cause the whole body of your patient to be wrapped in scarlet cloth,
or any other red cloth, and command everything about the bed to be
made red." He further says that "when the son of the renowned King of
England (Edward II) lay sick of the small-pox I took care that
everything around the bed should be of a red color; which succeeded so
completely that the Prince was restored to perfect health, without a
vestige of a pustule remaining."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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