THE DRUGS AND CHARMS OF OUR FOREFATHERS.* "Iv will be
difficult for the kindliest temper to give a friendly welcome to the medical philosophy of Saxon days," says the Rev. Mr. Cockayne, in his preface of the new volume issued by the Master of the Rolls. We must humbly express that we differ on the subject from the learned editor. To us it seems impossible not to give a friendly welcome to the medical philosophy of our forefathers, as exhibited in "leechdoms, wortcunning, and star- craft." How dull and dreary, how solemn, stupid, pedantic, and puffy is modern " leechdom," compared with the blessed science of our forefathers long before Holloway's Pills were known; long before ground peas mixed with brickdust were sold as "patent medicines," -with a Greek name; long before clever " leeches " were dubbed knights and baronets, and made five thousand a year by looking learned and gloomy. There was a charming freedom, a most delightful want of humbug, in the treatment of human diseases as practised by our dear old ancestors. No prescriptions in unintelligible monks' Latin ; no bottles with coloured water and hieroglyphic characters staring from doctors' shops ; no mineral poisons, to kill or cure, in finite or infinitesimal doses. " If to a man his wamb [belly] be sore, let him take the juice of waybread the wort, and contrive that it be lukewarm, and swallow it ; then with much loathing the sore will depart away." So says the old Saxon herbarium going by the name of • Leechdoms, Werteunning, and Stareraft oj Early England, being a collection of documents, for the most part never before printed, illustrating the history ofscienco in this country before the Norman Conquest• Collected and edited by the Rev. Oswald Cockayne, M.A., published under the direction of the Master of the Rolla. London : Lougman,1864.
Apuleius. And again :—" For sore of liver, take on Mid- summer's Day the wort called ashthroat, and rub it to dust ; take then five spoons full of the dust, and three draughts of good wine; mix them together ; give this to the sick man to drink; it will benefit much ; also in like manner for many other infirmities.'
Such prescriptions are clearly worth a whole pharmacopoeia. Benighted teetotallers only will doubt that many infirmities can be cured by "three draughts of good wine."
The volume edited by Mr. Cockayne contains only the first instalment of the tripartite subject mentioned on the title-page. It chiefly deals with "Leeeliclom," illustrated from the "Herbarium" of Apuleitta, the work of Dioskorides, the " Medicine de Quad- rapedibus," and some fly-leaves of manuscripts. Apuleius and Dioskorides, whose recipes are thrown together, form the major part of the book, and furnish a list of some hundred ant eighty herbs possessed of healing properties. At the head of the• list stands the herb betony, or bishopwort ; a truly wonderful plant, if we may believe Apuleius. According to him, "it is good whether for the man's soul or for his body ; and it shields him against monstrous nocturnal visitors and against frightful visions and dreams." More than this, the herb possesses even surgical properties. " If a man's head be broken, take the same wort betony, scrape it then and rub it very small to dust, then take by two drachms' weight, and swallow it in hot beer, then the head healeth very quickly after the drink." Also, " If a man become tired' in mickle riding or in micklo goings, let him take then of betony the wort one full drachm ; seethe it in sweetened wine ; let him then drink at night fasting three cups full, then will he be soon nnweai-y." Note the important part played by beer, " hot beer," and cups full of good wine, and " sweetened wine." Scarcely inferior as a powerful remedy to betony, says Apuleius, is the herb called dragons, the arum dracunculus of modern science. When in highest perfection "it is produced of dragons' blood ;" but it also grows " on the tops of mountains, where bowers be, mostly in holy places." An attempt to grow it in pots, -at the Record Office, might be strongly recommended, not only on account of the fitness of the soil, but for its effects. "For wound of all snakes, take roots of this wort dracontium, with wine, and warm it ; give it to drink ; it will remove all the poison." Nay., better still, " for broken bone, take roots of this same wort, and pound them with lard, as if thou wonldst work a poultice ; then it draweth from the body the broken bones." What can be more delightful ?
A very extraordinary herb is sowbread—a good old English name, hidden by botanists under the dull term of cyclamen hedertefolium. Sowbread has some wonderful properties, says. Apuleius. "In case that a man's hair fall off, take this same wort, and put it into the nostrils." There are other means for keeping a man's hair on the top of his head ; but the use of the nose is indispensable. Watercress will do it, though by an out- ward instead of inward application. "In case that a man's hair fall off, take juice of the wort which one nameth nasturtium, and by another named cress ; put it on the nose, the hair shall wax." Should your nose get sore in the process—a danger imminent to those eminent organs called Roman—there is a fresh remedy at hand. It is the herb smearwort, less idiomati- cally denominated aristolochia demands. " For sore of nostrils," says the "Herbarium," take rootof this same wort, and introduce it into the nostrils; quickly it purges them, and leadeth to health.* Worse cases should be treated as follows, likewise with smear- wort :—" In case that to any one an ulcer grow on his nose, take the same wort, and cypress, and dragons, and honey ; pound together, lay thereto ; then will it be soon amended." There is a third cure for broken noses, also serviceable for a broken head. It is to be had in the herb fox's foot, otherwise sparganium: simplex. "For head breach, take the upper part of this same wort, dry it and pound it ; take then by weight as much of wine ; mingle together, lay to the sore ; it then draweth out the broken bones."
The belief that civilization has increased the number of diseases which flesh is heir to, is contradicted in the old herbals of Apuleius and Dioskorides. Three hundred and eighty herbs are put forward as curing as many ailings as known to the best modern M.D. or M.R.C.S.; besides a number of nameless ills not dreamt of by our learned gentlemen in broughams. In par- ticular the stomach, or, as it is called, the womb, or maw, seems to have been subject formerly to an endless string of diseases, to' the healing of which every known herb had to contribute. Poisonings also appear to have been exceedingly numerous, particularly those resulting from the bite of large snakes long since extinct in these islands. It was lucky that with legions of such nasty creatures creeping over the face of the land, our forefathers had many effectual remedies, not only for counteracting their poisonous touch, but even for killing them unseen from a distance. The herb dittany, diptamnus alba, was held to be particularly efficacious in this respect. " If any one swallow poison," says Apuleius, " let him take ooze of this same wort ; let him drink it in wine. So mickle, in fact, is the strength of this wort that not only it by its presence stayeth snakes wheresoever they be handy to it, but by reason of its smell when it is carried by the wind wheresoever it is, and they smell the stench, that is odour, they shall die, or they die, it is said." The last words express slight doubt, but this sceptic feeling evidently does not exist in the case of another herb, the yarrow, or achillea millefolium. We learn that " for bite of snake if any man girdeth himself with this wort, and beareth it on the way with him, he is shielded from every serpent kind." This may be deemed somewhat spiritualistic, to which we reply that in other respects the ancients were more practical than the moderns. Dr. Johnson defines tarantula as "an insect whose bite is only cured by music ; " whereas Apuleius dictates that " against the serpent kind which are called tarantulas take twigs of this same wort yarrow and the leaves, seethe them in wine, then rub them very small, and lay them on the wound if it be willing to unite, and after that take the wort and honey, mingle together, smear the wound therewith." On the face of it, and without scientific investigation, the smearing process of old Apuleius looks more like a safe remedy than the musical cure indicated by our most learned lexicographer.
The various recipes given in the "Medicine de Quadrupedibus " by " Sextus Placitus" are very curious, and closely touch upon the next subject of charms, illustrated in a few pages in Mr. eockayne's volume. " Sextus Placitus," ai the title of his book shows, has nothing to do with plants or herbs, but teaches the employment of remedies drawn from the animal world, "leech- crafts of wild deer or wild beasts." At the head of the list of such medicinal beasts stands the brook or badger, which, if killed under certain conditions, is said to be a truly wonderful remedy. There is, however, great cruelty in the operation. The poor badger is to be caught and his teeth must be taken out while still alive, with the words, "In the name of . . . I thee slay and beat thy teeth out of thee." And again, when cut to pieces, the formula has to be used, "In the name of . . . . I take thee for a leechdom." If these rules be carefully adhered to, every part of the badger is of the greatest use, but particularly bis heart and liver. " Take his liver," says " Sextus Plaeitus," " divide it and delve it down at the turning round of thy land boundaries, and of thy borough wall foundations, and hide the heart at thy borough gates ; then those and thine shall be released in health to go about and home return ; all pestilence shall be driven away, and what was ere done shall naught scatter, and there shall be little mischief from fire." Harts, snakes, hares, and goats, stand next in importance to badgers. " To get Bleep, a goat's horn laid tinder the head turneth waking into sleep ;" and "for headache, a new goat's cheese thereto bound" is to be tried. Little more difficult of essay is a process unknown to Banting. "If the inwards puff up, take goat's blood with grease of the same, and mingle barley groats, and bind this outside the wamb." The bigger animals, according to " Sextus Placitus," are worth much less for healing purposes than the smaller ones, and rather act as charms than medicines. " Let those," he says, " who suffer apparitions eat live flesh ; they will not after that suffer any apparitions." There is a second less elegant remedy,— " For a man haunted by apparitions, work a drink of a white hound's thost, or dung, in bitter ley; wonderfully it healeth." Of a spiritual- istic kind again is the following :—" For a fever, take the right foot shank of a dead black hound, hang it on the arm ; it shaketh off the fever." Modern wisdom has not yet discovered a cure for hydrophobia, but " Sextus Placitus " has one, as simple as it is clever. " For tear of mad hound take the worms which be under a mad hound's tongue, snip them away, lead them round about a fig tree, give them to him who hath been rent ; he will be soon whole."
The subject of charms is only commenced in the present volume, and in the able manner in which it is treated by Mr. Coe,kayne, promises to impart a striking interest to the subse- quent publications. In the examples given, the influence of the Christian religion and the mode in which it was viewed by our forefathers are singularly illustrated. "Abraham and Isaac and
such men" are called upon for a favourable wind ; and the Atha- nasian Creed is recited to cure cattle who suffer of disease of the lungs. To recover stolen goods, Peter, Paul, Patrick, Philip, Mary, Bridget, and Felicitas, are invoked ; while cattle can be brought back only by calling upon the cross of Christ, and saying, "Bethlehem was Night the borough wherein Christ was born." The deep interest connected with these subjects need not be dwelt upon,—they are chinks in the dark wall of the Past which let in a great deal of light.
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