JEWISH FOLK-MEDICINE.
MEDICINE-MONGERING of one kind and another has always been a Jewish speciality, and from the time of the Babylonian quacks, whose prescriptions may be found in the Talmud, down to the present day, the orthodox Jew has stuck to his belief in popular remedies and occult-physicking with all the pertinacity of his pertinacious race. Western Hebrews have emancipated themselves more or less from these and cognate superstitious notions ; but in South-Eastern Europe, and mere especially in Palestine, folk-medicine, as it is euphemisti- cally called, flourishes in this nineteenth century among all classes and sections of Jews to an extent simply incredible to those unacquainted with the inner life of Oriental Jewdom. In the congenial atmosphere of Eastern ghetti, the materia medics of archaic and Old-avorld quackery is still in high repute ; clogs' liver, cow-heel, earth-worms, hares' feet, goats' fat, live ants, human bones, cocks' wings, doves' dung, powdered mummy, wolves' entrails, and parings of asses' hoofs rank high among approved remedies in cases of sickness. And, if variety be, as the adage asserts, charming, then the popular pharmacopceia of the Oriental Jew may undoubtedly lay claim to that quality, since its contents range from dog's-head broth to the dew that falls upon Elijah's grave on Mount Carmel, and from a stew of fishes' eyes to a poultice of goats' excrement. The chief repositories of the system of occult medicine among the Jews are the so-styled " Gabbetes," elderly persons who attend the sick and dying, and perform the last offices for the dead. There are few ills to which flesh—Jewish flesh—is heir but they have a remedy for, whether it be a wart on the nose or a fit of colic, a low fever or a brutal husband. And where they are at fault there is always some " chosid " or " pious-man " who can furnish forth an appropriate prescription or mystic formula of due efficacy.
In cases of obstinate and long-standing illness the grand specific among the Jews of Turkey and Palestine is the" Indolka" or "Indolkado." This is a kind of ceremony, oblation and prayer rolled into one, and a most curious sample of genuine folk- medicine. The house in which the patient is lying is cleared from top to bottom, and everybody, relatives and friends included, leaves it. Even strangers living in the same court quit it for the time being. When all are gone, and the sufferer is quite alone, an elderly woman accustomed to the business enters the sick chamber, and sees that there are no religious books about, and nothing that can suggest devout thought. She then procures some wheat, barley, salt, sugar, water, honey, and fat, as well as six eggs. About midnight she takes the ingredients, ex- cepting the eggs, mixes them all tegether, and spreads a little round about the bed, on the threshold, andin each of the four corners, repeating all the time the following formula :—" I implore of you, you Masters, to have pity and compassion upon the soul of So-and-so, eon of So-and-so ; forgive the sin he has committed against you, and restore his soul, his strength, and his health ; let this honey sweeten your mouth, this wheat feed your cattle, and this salt create peace and love between you and us." She then breaks an egg in each corner, prostrates herself upon the floor and kisses it, exclaiming, "Let this soul be instead of that." The ceremony is repeated three, seven, or nine nights, according as the patient recovers or no. It is an expensive remedy, the charge of the person undertaking it being twenty francs. Poor people content themselves with simply putting a little salt and water on the doorstep, and repeating the same words. In more serious cases recourse is bad to the " Indolka Gedolah," a somewhat similar ceremony. The -house is nicely arranged, the sick person dressed in new white gar- ments, wax-tapers are lighted, and sweet-smelling apices are
strewed about the chamber. At midnight a black cock is slaughtered and the blood is smeared upon doorpost and walls, while the formula, "This soul for that," is repeated as before. In some instances the ceremony is performed in every house which the sufferer has occupied in the course of his life, in order that the offended powers, to whom the disease is, of course, ascribed, may be properly mollified.
For common ailments the Jew has a wide choice of simple and inexpensive remedies. If suffering from an ordinary attack of feverishness in spring or autumn, he has only to go to the
nearest stream, procure a black ant and a piece of hollow reed, and then put the ant inside the reed, securely closing both ends. He must throw this into the water, saying, "My load upon thee and thy load upon me." If this should not effect a cure, he is recommended to anoint himself with an unguent of suet soaked in the milk of a woman suckling a male child. For a bilious attack, the sufferer has to drink night and morning a tumbler of water, with a live grasshopper in it. In this complaint, too, the ordinary red earth-worm is in high repute. It is gathered after heavy rain, roasted over a fire and pounded, and then taken in wine. If the attack culminate in jaundice, the patient takes an apple, fasting, on three consecutive mornings ; with the first he swallows nine gnats, with the second six, and with the third, again, three. This is regarded as an infallible specific. Eye affections are very prevalent among the Jews of South-Eastern Europe and Syria ; and those afflicted with ophthalmia or partial blind- ness invariably try an old recipe dating from Talmudic times, and strongly recommended by the orthodox. The sufferer gon into the street, and a friend ties one end of a cord to his left leg. The other end is attached to a dog, preferably black. Seven pieces of meat, obtained from seven different houses, are then eaten by the patient, the dog is set loose, and the person performing the ceremony calls out,—" Blindness of So-and-so, sou of So-and-so, depart from him into the eyes of the dog." For simple cases of sore eyes, a poultice of dove's dung mingled with honey is extremely popular. For toothache there are several infallible cures. An elderly person takes a nail and hammers it into the wall of the room, repeating the words, " Adar Gar Vedar Gar," and then adds,—" Even as this nail is firm in the wall and is not felt., so let the teeth of So- and-so, son of So-and-so, be firm in his mouth, and give him neither pain nor uneasiness." The following formula, repeated three times, is also highly recommended :—" Gadash, Galash, Galsh Yegad Ugdar Galish Gadish." The meaning of these words and their application we have never been able to dis- cover. Some Jews who suffer from toothache go to a tree near, cut a thin slip of wood from under the bark, and put it in the hollow of the aching tooth, so as to cause blood to flow. The splinter is then re-inserted in the tree, with the words " Dobruwetter maladik."
Owing to bad food, bad water, and dirty surroundings. Eastern Jews are very liable to boils and abscesses ; and the popular remedies in these cases are more remarkable for their actual nastiness than for their possible efficacy. The great curative agent, in fact, is dogs' excrement, tempered sometimes with honey, sometimes with fat or oil. An outward appli- cation of this stuff, in conjunction with a medicine of ox-tail ashes in wine, is considered the thing. For hoarse- ness and complaints of the throat and air passages, an approved prescription is to take a new plate, write on it with ink the three mystic names, compounded of the Hebrew letters, "Am, Yod, A leph," "Van, Teth," and" Teth, Yod, Koph " ; then wash them out with wine, and after adding three grains of a citron used at the Tabernacle festival, drink the beverage. Fits, epileptic and ordinary, are treated after the following fashion : —The patient's head is covered, and a pious neighbour stands by the bedside, while the " practitioner " called in recites this invocation,—" In the name of the Lord of Israel, in the name of the angel Raphael, and in the name of the Hosts of Heaven, and in the name of the One hidden and concealed, I adjure you to quit the body of So-and-so, the son of So-and-so, to quit him at once and without doing him hurt ; and if you do not go, I curse you with the curse of the Tribunal above and of the Tribunal below, and with the curse of Joshua, the son of Nun." In cases of severe prostration and debility, pounded mummy and human bones are administered; but this is considered a very dangerous medicine, and great precautions are taken to prevent evil spirits interfering with the patient, or hindering his recovery. The mummy is pounded in a mortar—or if human
bones are employed, they are first calcined—and beaten up with honey and spice. The compound is then put into a new vessel, never before used for any purpose whatever, and placed outside the house, on top of the roof, overnight, so that the heavy dew may fall upon it. It is then divided in nine portions and taken on nine successive nights. On the last evening, and before the medicine is administered, the sick person is washed and dressed in white garments from head to foot. And as this is considered the critical period, two men or women sit up all night in the room, in order to keep off the demons who are on the watch for their prey. If it be a man who is sick, no woman is suffered to enter the house during the whole nine days. When all other reme- dies fail, it is sometimes the custom among Palestinian Jews to take the patient to the grave of Elijah the Prophet on Mount Carmel, and leave him there alone three days and nights.
The maladies of children are quite a speciality of Jewish folk-medicine. There is no complaint incidental to youth but the Jewish medicine-monger has the cure at his or her fingers' ends. Indeed, long before the child is born, the mother- expectant is the recipient of many little attentions designed to ensure the safety and health of her offspring. The elderly ladies who attend to these matters procure a small quantity of dung or clay, and put it in a pot under the bed for three nights. In a second vessel they then place some wheat and pieces of bread, and in a third a very small quantity of water. The ingredients are then kneaded together and formed into the shape of a dog, or any other animal agreed upon. This is considered useful as a precaution against fright or mishap during accouche- ment. If an infant after birth show signs of weakness or disease, it is taken to a newly-married man—one married not more than a fortnight. He bites as gently as may be the infant's little finger, and kisses it on the forehead. A little water is then poured over the child's neck, and the man drinks it, thus charming away the little one's complaint. In default of a newly married person, the father of a child born within three weeks is competent to act. During circumcision and after, bleeding is sometimes troublesome, in which case there is the following curious formula to be recited, with the infant's face towards the north :—" Seven brothers strove one with another, they wounded one another, and they bandaged one another, so that no blood came ; in like manner stay the blood of this child, the son of So-and-so, and grant him a speedy recovery." If a child, as it grows older, show signs of debility or wasting, a dog's head is boiled in a cauldron of water, and the body well washed in the broth thus prepared. For tape-worm in children, there is an invocation used running thus :—" In the name of Abra- ham, Isaac, and Jacob ! Three worms plagued Job and consumed his flesh ; one was red, one black, and one white, yet of all was he relieved. Even so relieve the son of So-and-so from the worms that infest and consume him." Young people liable to fits are held to be benefited by mixing with their food a small quantity of wolf's liver, calcined and pounded until fine as flour, especially if, in addition, they have a hair of a black dog sewn in their garments. The " formulas " used in such cases are, however, like the items of an auctioneer's cata- logues, too numerous to mention.
As a matter of delicacy, nothing has been said of popular remedies for female ailments. Easterns are not over-nice in referring to such things, and any attempt to deal with the complaints and cures included in this division of Jewish folk-medicine would prove embarrassing. Be it, therefore, understood that the popular medicine of the Jews by no means neglects the fairer half of the community, and prescribes for their special behoof and benefit such delicacies as fishes' eyes pounded and mixed with wine, radishes in cream, cocks'-wings roasted and pounded, saffron soaked in goats'-fat, wire-worms in wine ; poultices, emulsions, and liniments of every con- ceivable degree of nastiness, and prayer-formulas innumerable. As a curiosity —though not a " remedy " in the usual sense of the word—a common Jewish recipe for improving a brutal husband may conclude these jottings. Let the wife cut the nails of her fingers and toes, burn them in a fire, preserve the ash, and then when her husband is not looking, let her put this ash in a plate of food before him, so that be eat it. Then she must take some garment of her husband which is all black, tie a stone in it tightly, and say these words :—" As this stone is bound so that it cannot move, so may my husband, So-and-so, son of So-and-so, be bound in his tongue that it cannot curse me, and in his arms that they cannot hurt me."
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