BOURKE. ] CORDS USED IN PARTURITION. yal 
of Scotland. They were impressed with several mystical figures; and 
the ceremony of binding them about the woman’s waist was accom- 
panied with words and gestures, which showed the custom to have 
been of great antiquity, and to have come originally from the Druids.’”?! 
“But my girdle shall serve as a riding knit, and a fig for all the 
witches in Christendom.”? The use of girdles in labor must be ancient. 
“Ut mulier concipiat, homo vir si solvat semicinctum suum et eam 
precingat.”* ““Certumest quod partum mirabiliter facilirent, siveinstar 
cinguli cireumdentur corpori.” These girdles were believed to aid labor 
and cure dropsy and urinary troubles.* 
“The following customs of childbirth are noticed in the Traité des 
Superstitions of M. Thiers, vol. 1, p.320: ‘Lors qwune femme est preste 
@accoucher, prendre sa ceinture, aller & ’Eglise, lier la cloche avec cette 
ceinture et la faire sonner trois coups afin que cette femme accouche 
heureusement. Martin de Arles, Archidiacre de Pampelonne (Tract. 
de Superstition) asseure que cette superstition est fort en usage dans 
tout son pays.’”° 
In the next two examples there is to be found corroboration of the 
views advanced by Forlong that these cords (granting that the princi- 
ple upon which they all rest is the same) had originally some relation 
to ophic rites. Brand adds from Levinus Lemnius: “Let the woman 
that travels with her child (isin her labour) be girded with the skin 
that a serpent or a snake casts off, and then she will quickly be delivered.”6 
A serpent’s skin was tied as a belt about a woman in childbirth.” Inde 
puerpere circa collum aut corporem apposito, victoriam in puerperii 
conflictu habuerunt, citissimeque liberate fuerunt.” 7 
The following examples, illustrative of the foregoing, are taken from 
Flemming: The skins of human corpses were drawn off, preferably by 
cobblers, tanned, and made into girdles, called “‘Cingula” or Chiroth- 
ece, which were bound on the left thigh of a woman in labor to expe- 
dite delivery. The efficacy of these was highly extolled, although 
some writers recommended a recourse to tiger’s skin for the purposes 
indicated, This “caro humano” was euphemistically styled “ mummy” 
or “mumia” by Von Helmont and others of the early pharmacists, when 
treating of it as an internal medicament. 
There was a “ Cingulum ex corio humano” bound round patients during 
epileptic attacks, convulsions, childbirth, ete., and another kind of belt de- 
scribed as ‘ex cute humana conficiunt,” and used in contraction of the 
nerves and rheumatism of the joints,’ also bound round the body incramp.? 
! Brand, Pop. Ant., vol. 2, p. 67. 
2 Thid., p. 170. 
’Sextus Placitus, De Medicamentis ex Animalibus, Lyons, 1537, pages not numbered, article “de 
Puello et Puella Virgine.” 
‘ Etmuller, Opera Omnia, Lyons, 1690, vol. 2, p. 279, Schroderii Dilucidati Zoologia. 
® Brand, Pop. Ant., vol. 2, p. 68, footnote. 
®Thbid., p. 67. 
? Paracelsus, Chirurgia Minora, in Opera Omnia, Geneva, 1662, vol. 2, p. 70. 
8 Ibid., p. 174. 
® Beckherius, Medicus Microcosmus, London, 1660, p. 174. 
