Page:Chronicles of pharmacy (Volume 1).djvu/175



The Egyptians, according to Celsus, believed that there were thirty-six demons or divinities in the air, to each of whom was attributed a separate part or organ of the human body. In the event of disease affecting one of these parts the priest-physician invoked the demon, calling him by his name, and requiring him in a special form of words to cure the afflicted part.

Solomon was credited among many Eastern people with having discovered many of the secrets of controlling diseases by magical processes. According to Josephus he composed and bequeathed to posterity a book of these magical secrets. Hezekiah is said to have suppressed this work because it was leading the people to pray to other powers than Jehovah. But some of the secrets of Solomon were handed down in certain families by tradition. Josephus relates that a certain Jew named Eleazor drew a demon from the nose of a possessed person in the presence of the Emperor Vespasian and a number of Roman officers, by the aid of a magic ring and a form of invocation. In order to prove that the demon thus expelled had a real separate existence, he ordered it to upset a vessel of water which stood on the floor. This was done. Books professing to give Solomon's secrets were not uncommon among Christians as well as Jews. Goethe alluded to such a treatise in "Faust" in the line

Für solche halbe Höllenbrut, Ist Salomoni's Schlüssel gut.

Throughout their history the Jewish people have studied and practised magic as a means of healing. According to the Book of Enoch the daughters of men were instructed in "incantations, exorcisms, and the