MINOR SUPERSTITIONS. 



transfer an illness with which he was seized to the 

 body of one of his horses. This feat, it was 

 "believed, was accomplished by the supernatural 

 prescription. The unfortunate women who con- 

 fessed to these things were deceived in the expec- 

 tation which led to the act: they could not so 

 save themselves ; they were both convicted, and 

 perished at the stake. 



MAGIC. 



Medicine. 



Magic is a general name for wonderful effects 

 produced in some mysterious way. The name is 

 derived from the Magi, who were the priest-caste 

 among the ancient Medes and Persians, corres- 

 ponding to the Levites among the Israelites. 

 The Magi were great astrologers and wonder- 

 workers, and all such arts have since been desig- 

 nated as magic. Medicine, in its early form, is 

 intimately allied to magic. It would soon be dis- 

 covered by accident that certain plants produced 

 powerful effects, both good and bad, upon the 

 bodies of men and animals ; and the reverence 

 arising from their real virtues would lead to 

 .ascribing to them all manner of imaginary ones. 

 The laws of nature being little known, one thing 

 was not more incredible than another ; and effects 

 were assigned to causes in the most arbitrary 

 and accidental way. The Rosicrucian physicians 

 treated a case of wounding by applying the salve 

 to the weapon instead of to the wound itself; 

 and this may be taken as the type of magical, as 

 contrasted with rational medicine. In modern 

 times, drugs are mostly drawn from the mineral 

 and vegetable kingdoms ; but while the healing 

 art was in the mystic stage, animal substances 

 were most esteemed. If the juice of a plant could 

 affect the living body, how much more must the 

 life-blood of another animal ! And the rarer the 

 kind of blood, so much the rarer the virtue. The 

 blood of an innocent child, or of a virgin, was 

 believed to cure the leprosy ; that of an executed 

 criminal, the falling sickness. The hearts of 

 animals, as being the seat of life, were held to be 

 potent drugs. The fat of a hog had been found 

 by experience to benefit a sore ; what virtue, then, 

 must there be in human fat, with the solemn mys- 

 teries of the grave about it ! 



In early stages of society, women are the 

 -doctors ; while the men fight and hunt, the women 

 gather herbs and decoct salves for their wounds ; 

 and the art would naturally become a sort of pro- 

 fession in the hands of the older women who had 

 a reputation for superior skill of that kind. Mostly 

 a blind groping a mystery to themselves as well 

 as others their operations were looked upon with 

 awe. The 'wise woman' with her kettle, cooking 

 her mysterious broth, adding ingredient after 

 ingredient (for the more, the rarer, the horribler 

 they were, would not the compound be the more 

 efficacious ?), inspired not only hope but fear ; for 

 the art might be, and doubtless was, used to hurt 

 as well as to heal. Roman matrons were often 

 accused and convicted of poisoning by their de- 

 coctions ; and during seasons of pestilence, these 

 female druggists were persecuted with indiscrim- 

 inate fury, as were witches afterwards in Europe. 

 So much was the notion of poison uppermost in 

 the Roman mind respecting them, that -uenefica, 

 literally ' a poison-maker,' was the general name 



for a preparer of magic medicines, an enchantress 

 or sorceress the corresponding character to our 

 witch. 



The word witch, Ang.-Sax. wicce, is from the 

 Gothic root veihan (allied to the Latin facio), 

 which means simply 'to do.' So important are 

 all acts of a religious nature, that in most lan- 

 guages the word signifying 'to do' means also, 

 without any addition, ' to perform sacrifice or reli- 

 gious rites ; ' and of this nature the brewings and 

 incantations of the ' wise women ' were considered 

 to be. Shakspeare's ' weird sisters ' use /'// do, I'll 

 do, I'll do, in this significant way. The heathen 

 wicce, though looked upon with awe, had by no 

 means the unmixed malevolent nature ascribed to 

 her successor, the witch, in Christian times, whom 

 the accusation of heresy and of being in compact 

 with the devil converted into a sort of incarnate 

 demon. 



The operation of magical medicines was not, as 

 is the case with those of the modern pharma- 

 copoeia, confined to physical effects on living 

 bodies to which they were applied ; associated with 

 incantations and other ceremonies, as they always 

 were, they could be made to produce almost 

 any desired effect raise or lay storms ; fertilise 

 a field or blast it ; kill or cure a man absent as 

 well as present ; and give the power of predicting 

 future events. How a belief in imaginary virtues 

 of things may grow out of the experience of theii 

 real virtues, is indicated by Dr Livingstone, when 

 speaking of the belief in rain-making among the 

 tribes in the heart of Southern Africa. The African 

 priest and the medicine-man is one and the same, 

 and his chief function is to make the clouds give 

 out rain. The preparations for this purpose are 

 various charcoal made of burned bats ; internal 

 parts of animals, as lions' hearts and hairy calculi 

 from the bowels of old cows ; serpents' skins and 

 vertebras ; and every kind of tuber, bulb, root, and 

 plant to be found in the country. ' Athough you 

 disbelieve their efficacy in charming the clouds to 

 pour out their refreshing treasures, yet, conscious 

 that civility is useful everywhere, you kindly state 

 that you think they are mistaken as to their 

 power ; the rain-doctor selects a particular bulbous 

 root, pounds it, and administers a cold infusion to 

 a sheep, which in five minutes afterwards expires 

 in convulsions. Part of the same bulb is converted 

 into smoke, and ascends towards the sky ; rain 

 follows in a day or two. The inference is obvious.' 

 The religion of this part of Africa may be charac- 

 terised as medicine-worship. 



Incantations. 



A yet more powerful source of magical power 

 lies in set forms of speech solemnly composed 

 words. As all early compositions were in verse, 

 poetry and song became associated with magic. 

 Incantation, enchant, are derived from a Latin 

 root, meaning simply 'to sing;' and charm is only 

 a disguised form of the Latin carmen, a song. A 

 spell is merely something said, a tale, and hence 

 a form of words used as a charm. Conjuring, 

 exorcising, blessing, and cursing, all rested on a 

 belief in the mysterious power of words solemnly 

 conceived and passionately uttered. 



There is in the human voice, especially in its 

 more lofty utterances, an actual power of a very 

 wonderful kind to stir men's hearts. When to 



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