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 IX

MAGIC AND MEDICINE

"Amulets and things to be borne about I find prescribed, taxed by some, approved by others. Look for them in Mizaldus, Porta, Albertus, etc. A ring made with the hoof of an ass's right forefoot, carried about, etc. I say, with Renodeus, they are not altogether to be rejected. Piony doth help epilepsies. Pretious stones most diseases. A wolf's dung carried about helps the cholick. A spider an ague, etc. Such medicines are to be exploded that consist of words, characters, spells, and charms, which can do no good at all, but out of a strong conceit, as Pomponatious proves, or the devil's policy, that is the first founder and teacher of them."


 * "Anatomy of Melancholy."

Charms, enchantments, amulets, incantations, talismans, phylacteries, and all the armoury of witchcraft and magic have been intimately mixed up with pharmacy and medicine in all countries and in all ages. The degradation of the Greek term pharmakeia from its original meaning of the art of preparing medicine to sorcery and poisoning is evidence of the prevalence of debasing superstitions in the practice of medicine among the cultivated Greeks. Hermes the Egyptian, Zoroaster the Persian, and Solomon the Hebrew were famous among the early practitioners and teachers of magic. These names served to conjure with. Those who bore them were probably wise men above the average