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Beside
See also Folk Medicine, Alternative Remedies & Herbal Cures - 100 Books on DVDrom and Alternative Medicine & Spiritual Healing - 175 Books on DVDrom
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Beside their native herbal medicines and the more scientific therapeutics and pathology which they had borrowed from the Greeks the Anglo-Saxons made a large use of charms and what are called magical rites in the treatment of disease. It would be a mistake to suppose, as is sometimes thought, that this was their only or chief method of treatment or that it was in any way peculiar to the Anglo-Saxons. A great deal of it was taken from the later Greek and Latin medical writers who show a credulity and superstition quite equal to that of the Anglo-Saxons. Again, the magical and superstitious medicine lasted much longer than the Anglo-Saxon period. It went on all through the Middle Ages up to recent times and is not extinct even at the present day. But it is by no means characteristic of our own country. Indeed, the numerous collections of “folk-lore,” or what is called “folk medicine,” from the peasantry of continental countries show that these ancient superstitions are more prevalent and more inveterate among them than they are among our own people. What is most remarkable is not only that the same general beliefs have survived but that the very same forms of words have in many cases been preserved for centuries and may be even now recited in certain places.
It is very difficult to define precisely what is meant by magical medicine or what by charms. But, broadly, they imply a belief in some supernatural efficacy belonging to verbal formulae, recited or written, in special circumstances or with reference to special objects. Originally it would seem that this belief implied also the belief in spirits, demons, or some supernatural beings who could be either conciliated or coerced by the use of certain words. The belief in supernatural personages gradually waned and in the case we are now considering heathen or mystical conjurations were to a large extent replaced by Christian prayers and benedictions, while the occult rites of unknown origin were superseded by the services of the Church.
Without pretending to a complete classification the various magical processes and charms may be brought under the following heads: 1. Prayers or invocations addressed to medicinal herbs or to supernatural beings supposed to have power over them. 2. Special verbal formulae or observances employed in collecting the medicinal herbs or other natural remedies. 3. Prayers and mystical words repeated over the patient or written and applied to some parts of his body, with or without ordinary remedies. Such words are very often in a foreign tongue unknown to those who use them, such as Latin among the barbarous or uneducated, Greek or Hebrew among the Latins, and so on, sometimes in a quite unknown language, which have been called Ephesian charms. But they may also be in the vernacular. 4. Direct conjurations or exorcisms addressed to diseases as if they were evil spirits. 5. Narrative charms—that is, trivial stories relating to sacred or legendary persons who suffered from or did something analogous to what the patient is suffering from. 6. Material magic—that is, the attribution of magical power to certain objects, such as plants or parts of animals, stones, or engraved gems called amulets, these objects being not used medicinally but applied in some way to the patient's body. 7. Transference of disease, by a magical formula or ceremony, to some animal or material object or in some way to the outside world. Examples of all these can be found in older medical literature as well as in the Anglo-Saxon books and also throughout succeeding centuries.
The actual origin of these beliefs and practices is extremely obscure and cannot here be considered. Doubtless there was an element of traditional popular belief in each particular country and also, as regards European medicine, an introduction of Oriental superstitions. But they formed no part of the regular classical medicine of the Greeks and Romans till the period of its decline. Hippocrates, Galem, Aretaeus, and Celsus are entirely free from such superstitions. The first Greek medical writer of any repute who introduced the incantations into the practice of medicine was Alexander Trallianus, who has been already referred to as having been a great authority with the Anglo-Saxon leeches. Alexander has been blamed, and justly, for thus lowering the character of Greek medicine. He was, however, followed in this by later Greek physicians and by those late Latin writers to whom the Anglo-Saxons were much indebted. The Latin work of Marcellus Empiricus, older than Alexander, which appears to be partly founded on Roman popular 