234 



NA TURE 



[July 7, 1898 



means of getting rid of it. This seems to be the meaning also 

 of that ancient method of curing disease by the laying on of 

 hands, which is already mentioned in the Kig-veda, though it 

 is also possible that it was intended to press the disease down by 

 means of the hands, in order to make it go out of the body. 

 Some of the charms used with the laying on of hands point to 

 still another explanation. As the priest had to touch the 

 person for whom he was offering prayers and sacrifices, so it 

 was thought that the imprecations could only have effect on a 

 person if there was an actual connection between the medicine- 

 man and the patient. There is a striking similarity between 

 this ancient Hindu custom and the modern practices of faith- 

 healing, in which, after all, prayer has merely been substituted 

 for the ancient charms. 



The two chief resources of folk-medicine, then, are charms 

 and magic rites, the principal object of the latter being to bring 

 the body into contact with some supposed curative substance. 

 These substances are frequently applied in the shape of amulets 

 or talismans. 



The most ancient collection of charms is that found in the 

 Athana-veda, an excellent translation of which, with extracts 

 from the ritual books, has just been published by Prof. Bloom- 

 field in the " Sacred Books of the East" (vol. xlii., 1897). In 

 the medical charms of the Atharva-veda the diseases are always 

 personified. It is only our way of speaking when we say that 

 diseases are supposed to be caused by demons. As a matter of 

 fact the diseases themselves are addressed as personal and 

 demoniacal beings. Thus Fever — " the king of diseases," as it 

 is called in the " Susruta," the great work on Hindu medicine — is 

 addressed as a demon who makes men sallow and inflames them 

 like a searing fire. He is implored to leave the body, threatened 

 with destruction if he does not leave it, and yet at the same 

 time worshipped as a superhuman being. ' ' Having made 

 obeisance to the Fever, I cast him down below." This is a 

 very characteristic way of dealing with evil spirits, which we 

 find among all primitive people. The healing power, too, is 

 addressed as a supernatural being, and invoked to destroy the 

 demon of disease. Thus the plant Kushtha (Costus speciosur), 

 which was always considered by the Hindus as one of the most 

 potent remedies against fever, leprosy, and other diseases, is 

 addressed with such words as : " O plant of unremitting potency, 

 drive thou away the Fever that is spotted, covered with spots, 

 like reddish sediment. " In some of the charms against fever, 

 we meet with vivid descriptions of all the symptoms of malarial 

 fever. We read in one charm : " When thou, being cold, and 

 then again deliriously hot, accompanied by cough, didst cause 

 the sufferer to shake, then, O Fever, thy missiles are terrible : 

 from these surely exempt us ! " And the Kushtha plant is 

 again implored-; "Destroy the Fever that returns on each 

 third day, the one that intermits each third day, the one that 

 continues without intermission, and the autumnal one ; destroy 

 the cold Fever, the hot, him that comes in summer, and him 

 that arrives in the rainy season ! " 



The frequency of fever during the rainy season probably 

 accounts for the belief that lightning is the cause of fever, as 

 well as of headache and cough. A very symbolical cure of 

 fever consists in making the patient drink gruel made of roasted 

 grain, the dregs of the gruel being afterwards poured from a 

 copper vessel over the head of the patient into fire, which must 

 be taken from a forest-fire. A forest-fire is supposed to have 

 originated from lightning, and that the cure of a disease is 

 effected by that which causes it, is an almost universal belief. 

 Both the roasted grain and the copper vessel are symbolical of 

 the heat of fever. Here we have the rudiments of homoeopathy. 

 Another magic rite is intended as a remedy against cold fever. 

 By means of a blue and a red thread a frog is tied to the couch 

 on which the patient reclines, and a charm is recited in which 

 the fever is invoked to enter into the frog. The frog represents 

 the cold element, and the cold fever is expected to pass into the 

 cold frog. A very similar charm is met with in Bohemia, where 

 the peasants, in order to cure chills of fever, catch a green frog, 

 sew it into a bag, and hang it around the neck of the patient. 



The cure of a disease by making it enter into some animal, 

 is one of the most general devices of medical witchcraft both in 

 India and elsewhere. According to Jewish law, a living bird is 

 " let loose into the open field with the contagion of leprosy." 

 Jaundice is cured, in parts of Germany, by making it pass into 

 a lizard. In ancient India, jaundice was cured by seating the 

 patient on a couch beneath which yellow birds were tied. The 

 yellow disease was expected to settle on the yellow birds. 



NO. 14.97, VOL. 58] 



The principle of curing a disease by something similar to its 

 cause or symptoms is also apparent in the cure of excessive 

 discharges by means of water. Dropsy — the disease sent by 

 Varuna, the god of the sea and ot the waters — is naturally 

 cured best by the use of water. A very simple cure of dropsy 

 consists in sprinkling water over the patient's head by means of 

 twenty-one [three times seven) tufts of sacred grass (Poa cynos- 

 ttroides), together with reeds taken from the thatch of a house. 

 The water sprinkled on the body is supposed to cure the water 

 in the body. 



But there must have been many other reasons, too, which 

 pointed to water as a great healing power. To the present day 

 the Hindus look upon rivers as divine beings, or as the abode of 

 spirits. And we may credit even the ancient Hindus with a 

 certain knowledge of medicinal springs. Nor is it surprising 

 that in a tropical climate the rain waters were hailed as "divine 

 physicians." And it may be that actual experience of the 

 beneficent influence of water on health suggested the eulogy 

 found in a Vedic charm : "The waters verily are healing, the 

 waters chase away disease, the waters cure all diseases." 



That dropsy is ascribed to Varuna, one of the great go Is of 

 the Hindu pantheon, is quite exceptional. For, as a rule, 

 diseases are caused by godlings rather than by gods. More 

 especially, all such diseases as mania, fits, epilepsy, convulsions, 

 &c., are ascribed to possession by Rakshas (devils) and Pisachas 

 (goblins). Even in the scientific works on medicine, e.g. in the 

 "Charaka-samhita," assaults of evil spirits and possession by 

 demons are enumerated among the causes of disease. In the 

 Atharva-veda -we find a special class of charms, the so-called 

 "driving-out charms," which are considered as most effective 

 remedies against possession. 



But the most powerful enemy and destroyer of all devils is 

 the Fire. "Slayer of fiends" is one of the most common 

 epithets of Agni, the god of fire. Hence we find that Fire is 

 invoked in charms against mania to free from madness him who 

 has " been robbed of sense by the devils." Sacrifices to the 

 god of fire, burning of fragrant substances, and fumigation are 

 among the principal rites against possession by demons. 



Besides the Rakshas and Pisachas (devils and goblins) whose 

 special province it is to cause all kinds of mischief, we find in 

 ancient India also the world-wide belief in incubi and succubi, 

 who pay nocturnal visits to mortal men and women. These are 

 the Apsaras and Gandharvas of Hindu mythology, who corre- 

 spond to the elves and nightmares of Teutonic belief. They 

 are really godlings of nature. Rivers and trees are their natural 

 abodes, which they only leave in order to allure mortals and 

 injure them by unnatural intercourse. To drive these spirits 

 away the fragrant plant ajasringi ' ' goat's horn " { OJina pinnxta) 

 is used, and certain charms are pronounced. According to 

 Teutonic belief also fragrant herbs [e.g. Origmwn antirrhinum, 

 Hypericum perforatum, and especially thyme) are excellent 

 means for frightening away devils and witches, as well as nymphs 

 and elves. 



That the spirits of trees and waters are occasionally identified 

 with the spirits of disease, may to some extent account for the 

 healing power ascribed to water and trees. In fact, the far- 

 spread custom of transferring diseases to trees seems to have 

 originated from a desire of infecting the spirit of a tree with 

 a disease which may have been caused by the same or an allied 

 spirit. Amulets as a protection against diseases, hostile sorcery, 

 evil eye, and other calamities are frequently taken from trees. 

 Thus, an amulet consisting of splinters from ten kinds of holy 

 trees was considered by the ancient Hindus as a potent remedy 

 against hereditary disease, and also against possession by demons. 

 Nine kinds of wood are used for a similar purpose in German 

 folk-medicine. 



As these malevolent spirits are the sworn enemies of mankind, 

 it is only natural that they should be most anxious to injure the 

 new-born infant, and even the embryo. Numerous, therefore, 

 are the charms and rites concerned with the protection of 

 mother and child against the attacks of evil spirits. Hence the 

 custom of keeping a fire or a light burning in the lying-in room 

 — a custom found among tribes of the Malay Peninsula, pre- 

 scribed in the sacred books of the Parsis, and still practised in 

 Germany, as it was in ancient Rome. In ancient India, the 

 rule was to keep a fire burning near the door of the lying-in 

 room, in which mustard-seeds and rice-chaff were sacrificed every 

 morning and evening for ten days. Visitors, too, were requested 

 to throw mustard-seeds and rice-chaff into the fire before entering 

 the room. 



