MEDIAEVAL MEDICINE. 



431 



Mugwort to prevent fatigue, a spray being held in the hand or put into 

 the shoe. 



2. Prayers were uttered while collecting the herbs. This was a 

 custom of antiquity grafted on to Christian practices. In a writing by 

 Apuleius (probably of the fourth century) called ' Herbarium, sive de 

 Medicaminibus Herbarum,' " the names of herbs are followed by prayers 

 and incantations to be recited on gathering them, a habit handed down, 

 perhaps, from the old Greek or Tuscan herbalists ; but the monkish 

 transcribers have converted them into Christian by the simple process 

 of slightly altering these prayers," often " replaced by the Creed and 

 Paternoster, which the canons of the Church declared might alone be 

 repeated on such occasions." * 



3. As early Christianity became tainted by paganism in many ways, 

 medicine was by no means exempt. Thus, in the custom of praying to 

 Latona and other deities at the birth of children, the gods and goddesses 

 were replaced by saints. 



Numerous forms of quasi-prayers were uttered as charms by the 

 physician and other attendants. But in the fourteenth century, and 

 probably before that time, the prayer had been apparently repeated orally 

 by persons who, not knowing what the words meant, had rendered them 

 absolutely meaningless. For example : Arcus forcior super nos sedebit 

 semper Maria lux et hora sedule sedebit nator natoribus saxo, &c. ; these 

 words being about a fifth of the whole charm, ending with the direction, 

 " Say this charm thrice and she shall have child soon, if it be her 

 time." 



Another is : " Say Quicunque vult (the Athanasian Creed) thrice and 

 all the Psalms over her." 



4. There were forms of incantations used for exorcising the evil spirit 

 which causes the disease itself ; such were thus : Fuge, fuge, Podagra, &c. ; 

 " Fly, fly, Gout, for Solomon is coming after you ! " f 



5. Narratives or short stories embodying the account of someone who 

 suffered in a similar Way, often of saints or Scriptural persons. Thus, 

 for example, the following is a charm or prayer for the toothache : — 



" 0 blessed Apollonia, the noble martyr, who withstood the tyrant. 

 In the first place they dragged her and tied her strongly. Then, when 

 they broke her teeth with iron hammers, prayed during that torment. 

 Whosoever may call upon thy name when in torment on account of 

 toothache will not feel the pain. Pray for us, 0 blessed Apollonia." 



6. The following is a sort of charm-amulet against loss of memory : — 

 " Marchus + Mathew + Lucas + Johannes. Qui portat ista nomina super 

 eum, nunquam carebit memoria." 



7. As words became charms, so to have a sacred word engraved on a 

 stone or other object became a charm and was worn as an amulet. 



As an example of the supposed value of mere words is the following : 

 "For the goute-sayne [i.e. cure] take the root of Ache and write 

 thereon 3 words + ras + XT + Dominus + , and as long as he be right 



* Withington, Medical History from the Earliest Times, p. 177. 



f Prayers, charms, and magical texts of similar import are found in the ancient 

 Chaldaean literature and fully described by Professor Sayce, Hibbert Lectures, 1887, 

 p. 317, seqq. 



