46 Conception, Birth and Infancy in 



are true sons and daughters of trusting ancestors in the days of 

 paganism, will hang from baby's neck, attached to a circlet, a tiny 

 bell, a bronze or gold medal of the Virgin Mary, or a scapulary, a 

 little packet of cloth or leather which contains the name or a tiny 

 likeness of the Madonna, their Madonnina. 243 The packets are 

 called abitini, devozioni, etc. 244 



The amulets that are not in sight on the child's neck or attached 

 to his arm or wrist 245 may be hidden in his swaddling-band: 246 such 

 things as the claw of some animal, amber, and witch stones. 247 

 There, too, the mother may put a bit of bread and salt, and a piece 

 of the lumen Christi, a wax candle, which got its special powers 

 during the religious functions of Holy Week. 248 



Some mothers put their trust in a tiny bag of magic herbs which 

 an expert in witchcraft bids them place under baby's pillow. 

 Pennyroyal, rue, wild marjoram, wormwood, and Johnsroot may 

 be the choice, 249 but anywhere on his person such powerful aver- 

 tives as garlic, leeks, and the erva cacciadiavuli, the herb that 

 chases out the devils, 250 should do the business. The bed itself 

 must have its magic protection. 251 



Among the semi-magical and semi-religious safeguards which 

 Sicilians may use is the abbizze, or, as we might translate it, the 

 ABC, a tract which gets its name from the fact that it contains 

 portions of the alphabet. Scholars have pointed out that the use 

 of these, as also the use of letters of the alphabet traced by the 

 bishop with his pastoral staff in a bed of ashes at the consecration 

 of a cathedral, may be somewhat analogous to the employment of 

 letters on certain tablets which were consecrated to Rehtia, an 

 ancient goddess of the Veneti. 252 



In order to protect the infant from sorcery between its birth and 

 the saving day of baptism, that brief period of special peril, it is 

 advisable to put scissors behind the entrance door and two knives, 

 crossing each other, between the mattresses on which he sleeps. 253 

 Some seek to ward off the influence of the Evil Eye by putting 

 behind the door mattocks, cattle horns, or horseshoes. 254 



However brief and sketchy, the account which we have just 

 given of ancient and modern beliefs in magic and other superstition 

 so far as they are pertinent to the life of a baby, may be of some 

 help as a background to what we now have to say about the doc- 

 toring of young children in the widely separated periods with which 



