Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 39.djvu/88

78 from the skin of birds or small animals"—so writes Mr. Paul Beckwith.

Once more, certain plants and roots are endowed with, magical virtues, chiefly in the way of charms. Like the Homeric Greeks, semi-cultured people believe that "certain roots ward off the evil influences of spirits." Mr. Theall well puts it, when he says that "charms and medicines are classed together by the Kaffirs." Among the ancients the art of medicine was little more than a trade in charms, philters, and amulets. In his history of folk medicine, Mr. Black mentions many of these curious remedies. Let it, therefore, be enough to say that all folk nostrums are believed to work like charms; otherwise they would not be prescribed.

The patent-medicine man can put anything he likes in his preparation, because his patients have unquestioning faith in nostrums mysteriously compounded. Thus, when the Chinese physician is out of drugs, he writes the prescription on a piece of paper, rolls it into pills, and the sick man swallows it. The whole theory of early patent medicine is based on analogy or on the association of ideas: for example, it makes no difference whether you swallow the name of the remedy or whether you take the remedy itself.

This theory was fully worked out in the mind cures and faith cures of the middle ages. Study the origin and history of plant names. Scan the list, and what do you find?

Some plants have animal prefixes, as dog-elder, dog-rose, cat'stail, cow-bane, etc. Other plants derive their names from religious sources. Thus they are associated with the Virgin Mary, Saint John the Baptist, Saint James. Likewise, the Latter-day Saints have particular plants dedicated to their memory. Most of the plants with mystic names were supposed to have magical virtues, and so they were largely used in folk medicine. The weird associations clustering around many roots and herbs were enough to invest them with great repute. According to Mr. Dyer, "the plants which formed the witches' pharmacopœia were generally selected either from legendary associations or by reason of their poisonous and soporific qualities." In folk medicine, herbs are used not so much for their inherent medical properties as for their reputed magical virtues.

Another stage in the evolution of patent medicine is typified in the therapeutics of mediæval mystics and alchemists. The great plant in their pharmacopœia was the mandrake. Why? Simply because the roots of this plant were shaped like the human body. A preparation of mummy was also widely used. Why? On the magical reasoning that flesh thus embalmed would preserve the body impregnated with it. Then the alchemists