We have noted somewhat in detail the elements of the miraculous in primitive medicine and have seen how, as the race becomes more civilized the form in which these elements appear changes from extremely crude to more refined and intellectual types. With the beginning of the scientific age many of the superstitions of primitive life were shattered; but the human mind by no means disconcerted by this fact simply adjusted itself to the situation by the invention of new means for the exercise of its faculty of credulity, or continued to hold its former beliefs in spite of contradictions.
While modern scientific thought has dislodged much of the old primitive thought, students of anthropology and folklore in recent years have revealed to us some startling facts regarding the persistence of such beliefs. Even in the midst of highly civilized communities, in our own country for example, are still to be found many of the superstitions of primitive peoples, not merely treasured up in memory as tales of a past generation, but used and believed in as sincerely and thoroughly as at any previous age.
The fact that medical science makes use of many plant and mineral substances, and surrounds their use with a measure of secrecy and mystery, has perhaps contributed to the retention of very much of the plant lore that has been accumulating for centuries. Such men as Folkard (36) and Dyer (27), and in America Mrs. Bergen (6), have gathered and put into accessible form the immense folklore of plants. The former mentions the names of no less than 1,400 plants that have been in many ages endowed with remarkable powers as charms, amulets, counter charms, means of divination, etc. As medicines the virtues of many have been extolled far beyond and often even in direct opposition to their known qualities.
These same superstitions are all about us in a more or less definite form as is shown by Mrs. Bergen's (5) studies in the current folklore of America in which one finds such statements as the following : "In a town fifteen miles from Boston, the teacher has advised the pupils to wear nutmegs about the neck to prevent cold sores. Feb., 1892" (p. 100). The same remedy was employed for the two-year-old daughter of a New Hampshire legislator in 1893. In Maryland the belief has some currency that "biliousness may be cured by boring three holes in a carefully selected tree, and walking three times around it, saying `Go away bilious!"' (5)
The same facts with regard to animal lore have been found by Jühling (51) in Germany and Mrs. Bergen (6) in our own country. The former mentions no less than 115 species and varieties of animals made use of in German folk medicine alone and records the methods of employing their flesh, blood, etc., in actual practice at the present time. Many of these accounts present a picture dark indeed to one unaccustomed to noting the things upon which common humanity places its reliance in time of dire necessity. To give a single example of an animal remedy current in Labrador and in somewhat altered form in Indiana and Illinois. "Three lice taken in jelly nine days running, or put on buttered bread, will cure the yellow jaundice." (6, p. 69.) In the introduction of Jühling's work (51) it is stated that whereas in the accepted pharmacopoeia of Germany at present only 13 remedies of animal origin are mentioned, even as lately as the time of the Thirty Years' War the "Dresden Pharmacopie" contained 190. Newell says in the introduction to Mrs. Bergen's work (6, p. 6) "Michael Ettmuller, in his "Opera Medica" (1708), devoted nine folio pages to medical preparations from the human body and its excreta, of which those obtained from hair, nails, sweat and ear wax are the least filthy."
When we find many absurd animal remedies used by the medical profession even as late as the middle of the eighteenth century it is not so surprising to find them used today among the unenlightened populace who as a rule must depend on household remedies. A comparative study of ancient and modern scientific medicine shows that as the science advances the number of efficacious remedies from both plant and animal world decreases rather than increases and that many remedies found the beginning of their use in superstition.
Miracles of Healing
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By Charles W. Waddle (1909)
Primitive Christian Worship
Hereditary genius
