Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing Part 9

Pope portrays this astrological import in his couplet,

"Of talismans and sigils knew the power, And carefully watch'd the planetary hour."

The amulet was always carried about the person, while the other two might be in the possession of the person in the case of the talisman, or, in the case of the charm, if a material object it could be placed entirely outside of one's care. The talisman and amulet must be a compound of some substance, the charm might be a gesture, a look, or a spoken word. Notice the example of charms according to Tennyson's words,

"Then, in one moment, she put forth the charm Of woven paces and of waving hands."

They were all used for defensive purposes, _i. e._, to keep away evil, in the form of demons, disease, or misfortune, but they might, especially the talisman, also attract good. Their power was of a magical character, and was exercised in a supernatural manner.

The idea of the talisman probably originated from the belief that certain properties or virtues were impressed upon substances by planetary influences. "A talisman," says Pettigrew, "may in general terms be defined to be a substance composed of certain cabalistic characters engraved on stone, metal, or other material, or else written on slips of paper." Hyde quotes a Persian writer who defines the Telesm or Talismay as "a piece of art compounded of the celestial powers and elementary bodies, appropriated to certain figures or positions, and purposes and times, contrary to the usual manner."

We are told by Maimonides that images or idols were called Tzelamim on account of the power or influence which was supposed to reside in them, rather than on account of their particular figure or form.

Townley has opined that the reason for the production of astrological or talismanic images was probably the desire of early peoples to have some representation of the planets during their absence from sight, so that they might at all times be able to wors.h.i.+p the planetary body itself or its representative. To accomplish this purpose, the astrologers chose certain colors, metals, stones, trees, etc., to represent certain planets, and constructed the talismans when the planets were in their exaltation and in a happy conjunction with other heavenly bodies. In addition to this, incantations were used in an endeavor to inspire the talisman with the power and influence of the planet for which it stood.

Pettigrew says: "The Hebrew word for talisman (magan) signifies a paper or other material, drawn or engraved with the letters composing the sacred name Jehovah, or with other characters, and improperly applied to astrological representations, because, like the letters composing 'The Incomparable Name,' they were supposed to serve as a defence against sickness, lightning, and tempest. It was a common practice with magicians, whenever a plague or other great calamity infested a country, to make a supposed image of the destroyer, either in gold, silver, clay, wax, etc., under a certain configuration of the heavens, and to set it up in some particular place that the evil might be stayed."[76]

The Jewish phylacteries must therefore be considered talismans and not amulets. The writings contained in them are portions of the law and are prepared in a prescribed manner. Three different kinds are used: one for the head, another for the arm, and the third is attached to the door-posts. The following is a Hebrew talisman supposed to have considerable power: "It overflowed--he did cast darts--Shadai is all sufficient--his hand is strong, and is the preserver of my life in all its variations."[77]

Arnot gives an account of some Scottish talismans not unlike the phylacteries of the Jews, which were for use on the door-posts. "On the old houses still existing in Edinburgh," he says, "there are remains of talismanic or cabalistical characters, which the superst.i.tious of earlier days had caused to be engraven on their fronts. These were generally composed of some text of Scripture, of the name of G.o.d, or, perhaps, of an emblematic representation of the resurrection."[78]

The connection of astrology, or, as he calls it, "astronomy," and the talisman with medicine is well portrayed by Chaucer in his picture of a good physician of his day. He says:

"With us there was a doctor of phisike; In al the world, was thar non hym lyk To speke of physik and of surgerye, For he wos groundit in astronomie.

He kept his pacient a ful gret del In hourys by his magyk naturel; Wel couth he fortunen the ascendent Of his ymagys for his pacient."

Fosbrooke has divided talismans into five cla.s.ses, examples of some of which I have already given. They are: "1. The _astronomical_, with celestial signs and intelligible characters. 2. The _magical_, with extraordinary figures, superst.i.tious words, and names of unknown angels. 3. The _mixed_, of celestial signs and barbarous words, but not superst.i.tious, or with names of angels. 4. The _sigilla planetarum_, composed of Hebrew numeral letters, used by astrologers and fortune-tellers. 5. _Hebrew names and characters_. These were formed according to the cabalistic art."

The doctrine of signatures bears a close resemblance to talismans, and some believe that talismans have largely grown out of this doctrine. Dr. Paris[79] defines the doctrine as the belief that "every natural substance which possesses any medical virtues indicates, by an obvious and well-marked external character, the disease for which it is a remedy or the object for which it should be employed." Southey says,[80] "The signatures [were] the books out of which the ancients first learned the virtues of herbs--Nature having stamped on divers of them legible characters to discover their uses." Some opined that the external marks were impressed by planetary influences, hence their connection with talismans; others simply reasoned it out that the Almighty must have placed a sign on the various means which he had provided for curing diseases.

Color and shape were the two princ.i.p.al factors in interpreting the signatures. White was regarded as cold and red as hot, hence cold and hot qualities were attributed to different medicines of these colors respectively. Serious errors in practice resulted from this opinion.

Red flowers were given for disorders of the sanguiferous system; the petals of the red rose, especially, bear the "signature" of the blood, and blood-root, on account of its red juice, was much prescribed for the blood. Celandine, having yellow juice, the yellow drug, turmeric, the roots of rhubarb, the flowers of saffron, and other yellow substances were given in jaundice; red flannel, looking like blood, cures blood taints, and therefore rheumatism, even to this day, although many do not know why _red_ flannel is so efficacious.

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 sh.e.l.l 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 princ.i.p.al 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; p.r.i.c.kly plants like thistles and holly were prescribed for pleurisy and st.i.tch 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."

The Emperor Francis I, when infected with smallpox, was rolled up in a scarlet cloth, by order of his physicians, as late as 1765; notwithstanding this treatment he died. Kampfer says that "when any of the j.a.panese emperor's children are attacked with the small-pox, not only the chamber and bed are covered with red hangings, but all persons who approach the sick prince must be clad in scarlet gowns."

By a course of reasoning similar to that used in the treatment of small-pox, it was supposed that flannel dyed nine times in blue was efficacious in removing glandular swellings.[81]

The astrological factor in talismans was most important because it was considered that certain stars and planets in certain relations produced certain diseases and contagious disorders. Astrologers, for example, attributed the plague to a conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in Sagittarius, on the tenth of October, or to a conjunction of Saturn and Mars in the same constellation, on the twelfth of November. Burton makes the most generous melancholy, as that of Augustus, to come from the conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in Libra; the bad, as that of Catiline, from the meeting of Saturn and the moon in Scorpio. If these disorders were produced by planets it was reasonable to suppose that they could be cured by planets.

The virtue of herbs depended upon the planet under which they were sown or gathered. For example, verbena or vervain should be gathered at the rising of the dog-star, when neither the sun nor the moon shone, but an expiatory sacrifice of fruit and honey should previously have been offered to the earth. If this was carried out it had power to render the possessor invulnerable, to cure fevers, to eradicate poison, and to conciliate friends.h.i.+p. Notice also, that black h.e.l.lebore, to be effective, was to be plucked not cut, and this with the right hand, which was then to be covered with a portion of the robe and secretly to be conveyed to the left hand. The person gathering it was to be clad in white, to be barefooted, and to offer a sacrifice of bread and wine.

Not only the planets and the stars, but the moon has had a potent influence on medicine. For instance, mistletoe was to be cut with a golden knife, and when the moon was only six days old. Brand[82]

quotes from _The Husbandman's Practice, or Prognostication Forever_, published in 1664, the following curious pa.s.sage, "Good to purge with electuaries, the moon in Cancer; with pills, the moon in Pisces; with potions, the moon in Virgo; good to take vomits, the moon being in Taurus, Virgo, or the latter part of Sagittarius; to purge the head by sneezing, the moon being in Cancer, Leo, or Virgo; to stop fluxes and rheumes, the moon being in Taurus, Virgo, or Capricorne; to bathe when the moon is in Cancer, Libra, Aquarius, or Pisces; to cut the hair off the head or beard when the moon is in Libra, Sagittarius, Aquarius, or Pisces."

The Loseley ma.n.u.scripts provide us with further examples. "Here begyneth ye waxingge of ye mone, and declareth in dyvers tymes to let blode, whiche be G.o.de. In the furste begynynge of the mone it is profetable to yche man to be letten blode; ye ix of the mone, neyther be nyght ne by day, it is not good." They also tell of a physician named Simon Trippe, who wrote to a patient in excuse for not visiting him, as follows: "As for my comming to you upon Wensday next, verely my promise be past to and old pacient of mine, a very good gentlewoman, one Mrs. Clerk, wch now lieth in great extremity. I cannot possibly be with you till Thursday. On Fryday and Saterday the signe wilbe in the heart; on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, in the stomake; during wch time it wilbe no good dealing with your ordinary physicke untill Wensday come sevenight at the nearest, and from that time forwards for 15 or 16 days pa.s.sing good."[83]

Not unlike this is an incident of the year 686, given by Bede, where "a holy Bishop having been asked to bless a sick maiden, asked 'when she had been bled?' and being told that it was on the fourth day of the moon, said: 'You did very indiscreetly and unskilfully to bleed her on the fourth day of the moon; for I remember that Archbishop Theodore, of blessed memory, said that bleeding at that time was very dangerous, when the light of the moon and the tide of the ocean is increasing; and what can I do to the girl if she is like to die?'"[84]

"So great, indeed," says Fort, "became the abuse of medical astrology, whether by the direct juxtaposition of stellar influence, or through apposite images, that a celebrated Church Council at Paris declared that images of metal, wax, or other materials fabricated under certain constellations or according to fixed characters--figures of peculiar form, either baptized, consecrated, or exorcised, or rather desecrated by the performance of formal rites at stated periods which it was a.s.serted, thus composed, possessed miraculous virtues set forth in superst.i.tious writings--were placed under the ban and interdicted as errors of faith."[85]

We shall see that magnetism developed from astrology, and some other forms of mental healing from magnetism. One of these, sympathetic cures, was talismanic in its character, and therefore I give a brief account of its method of working, in this place.

Sympathetic cures probably started with Paracelsus, although Von Helmont tells us that the secret was first put forth by Ericcius Wohyus, of Eburo. As a development from magnetism the former originated the "weapon salve" which excited so much attention about the middle of the seventeenth century. The following was a receipt given by him for the cure of any wound inflicted by a sharp weapon, except such as had penetrated the heart, the brain, or the arteries.

"Take the moss growing on the head of a thief who has been hanged and left in the air; of real mummy; of human blood, still warm--of each, one ounce; of human suet, two ounces; of linseed oil, turpentine, and Armenian bole--of each, two drachms. Mix all well in a mortar, and keep the salve in an oblong, narrow urn." With the salve the weapon (not the wound), after being dipped in blood from the wound, was to be carefully anointed, and then laid by in a cool place. In the meantime, the wound was washed with fair, clean water, covered with a clean soft linen rag, and opened once a day to cleanse off purulent matter. A writer in the _Foreign Quarterly Review_ says there can be no doubt about the success of the treatment, "for surgeons at this moment follow exactly the same method, _except_ anointing the weapon!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: SIR KENELM DIGBY]

The weapon-salve continued to be much spoken of on the Continent, and Dr. Fludd, or A Fluctibus, the Rosicrucian, introduced it into England. He tried it with great success in several cases, but in the midst of his success an attack was made upon him and his favorite remedy, which, however, did little or nothing to diminish the belief in its efficacy. One "Parson Foster" wrote a pamphlet ent.i.tled "Hyplocrisma Spongus; or a Spunge to wipe away the Weapon-salve," in which he declared that it was as bad as witchcraft to use or recommend such an unguent; that it was invented by the devil, who, at the last day, would seize upon every person who had given it the least encouragement. "In fact," said Parson Foster, "the Devil himself gave it to Paracelsus; Paracelsus to the emperor; the emperor to the courtier; the courtier to Baptista Porta; and Baptista Porta to Dr.

Fludd, a doctor of physic, yet living and practising in the famous city of London, who now stands tooth and nail for it." Dr. Fludd, thus a.s.sailed, took up his pen and defended the unguent in a caustic pamphlet.

The salve changed into a powder in the hands of Sir Kenelm Digby, the son of Sir Edward Digby who was executed for his partic.i.p.ation in the Gunpowder Plot. Sir Kenelm was an accomplished scholar and an able man, but at the same time a most extravagant defender of the powder of sympathy for the healing of wounds. This powder came into sudden and public notoriety through an accident to a distinguished person. Mr.

James Howell, the well-known author of the Dendrologia, in endeavoring to part two friends in a duel, received a severe cut on the hand.

Alarmed by the accident, one of the combatants bound up the cut with his garter and conveyed him home. The king sent his own surgeon to attend Mr. Howell, but in four or five days the wound was not recovering very rapidly and he made application to Sir Kenelm. The latter first inquired whether he possessed anything that had the blood upon it, upon which Mr. Howell produced the garter with which his hand had been bound. A basin of water in which some powder of vitriol had been dissolved was procured, and the garter immediately immersed in it, whereupon, to quote Sir Kenelm, Mr. Howell said, "I know not what ails me, but I find that I feel no more pain. Methinks that a pleasing kind of freshness, as it were a wet cold napkin, did spread over my hand, which hath taken away the inflammation that tormented me before." He was then advised to lay away all plasters and keep the wound clean and in a moderate temperature.

To prove conclusively the efficacy of the powder of sympathy, after dinner the garter was taken out of the basin and placed to dry before the fire. No sooner was this done than Mr. Howell's servant came running to Sir Kenelm saying that his master's hand was again inflamed, and that it was as bad as before. The garter was again placed in the liquid and before the return of the servant all was well and easy again. In the course of five or six days the wound was cicatrized and a cure performed.

This case excited considerable attention at court, and on inquiry Sir Kenelm told the king that he learned the secret from a much-travelled Carmelite friar who became possessed of it while journeying in the East. Sir Kenelm communicated it to Dr. Mayerne, the king's physician, and from him it was known to even the country barbers. Even King James, the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Buckingham, and many other n.o.ble personages believed in its efficacy.

It would be a waste of time, had we s.p.a.ce, to present fully Sir Kenelm's profound and lengthy explanation of the cure. He tried to make the cure more reasonable and acceptable by bringing forth certain alleged phenomena which he thought proved sympathy, and were therefore a.n.a.logous in character. Surgeon-General Hammond calls attention to the fact that these inferences were invariably false. "It is a very curious circ.u.mstance," says he, "that of these, there is not one which is true. Thus he is wrong when he says that if the hand be severely burnt, the pain and inflammation are relieved by holding it near a hot fire; that a person who has a bad breath is cured by putting his head over a privy and inhaling the air which comes from it; that those who are bitten by vipers or scorpions are cured by holding the bruised head of either of those animals, as the case may be, near the bitten part; that in times of great contagion, carrying a toad, or a spider, or a.r.s.enic or some other venomous substance, about the person is a protection; that hanging a toad about the neck of a horse affected with farcy dissipates the disease; that water evaporated in a close room will not be deposited on the walls, if a vessel of water be placed in the room; that venison pies smell strongly at those periods in which the 'beasts which are of the same nature and kind are in rut'; that wine in the cellar undergoes a fermentation when the vines in the field are in flower; that a table-cloth spotted with mulberries or red wine is more easily whitened at the season in which the plants are flowering than at any other; that was.h.i.+ng the hands in the rays of moonlight which fall into a polished silver basin (without water) is a cure for warts; that a vessel of water put on the hearth of a smoky chimney is a remedy for the evil, and so on--not a single fact in all that he adduces. Yet these circ.u.mstances were regarded as real, and were spoken of at the times as irrefragable proofs of the truth of Sir Kenelm's views."[86]

We need have no doubt concerning the operation of sympathetic cures, for Sir Kenelm has told us of their virtue in his own words.[87] His method was what was called the cure by the wet way, but the cure could also be effected in a dry way. Straus, in a letter to Sir Kenelm, gives an account of a cure performed by Lord Gilbourne, an English n.o.bleman, upon a carpenter who had cut himself severely with his axe.

"The axe, bespattered with blood, was sent for, besmeared with an anointment, wrapped up warmly, and carefully hung up in a closet. The carpenter was immediately relieved, and all went well for some time, when, however, the wound became exceedingly painful, and, upon resorting to his lords.h.i.+p it was ascertained that the axe had fallen from the nail by which it was suspended, and thereby become uncovered."

Dryden in "The Tempest" (Act V, Sc. I) makes Ariel say, in reference to the wound received by Hippolito from Ferdinand:

"He must be dress'd again, as I have done it.

Anoint the sword which pierced him with this weapon-salve, and wrap it close from air, till I have time to visit him again."

And in the next scene we have the following dialogue between Hippolito and Miranda:

"_Hip._ O my wound pains me.

_Mir._ I am come to ease you.

[_She unwraps the sword._

_Hip._ Alas! I feel the cold air come to me; My wound shoots worse than ever.

[_She wipes and anoints the sword._

_Mir._ Does it still grieve you?