Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery | Page 5

opinion, medicines were of some value
as remedies, but to effect radical cures the use of magic spells was
desirable.
John Atkins wrote, in "The Navy Surgeon, or a Practical System of
Surgery" (1737), that the best method of employing medical amulets
consisted in adapting them to the patients' imaginations. "Let the
newness and surprise," wrote he, "exceed the invention, and keep up
the humor by a long roll of cures and vouchers; by these and such
means, many distempers, especially of women, who are ill all over, or
know not what they ail, have been cured more by a fancy to the
physician than by his prescription. Quacks again, according to their
boldness and way of addressing, command success by striking the
fancies of an audience."
Edward Berdoe, in the "Origin and Growth of the Healing Art,"
comments on the universality of amuletic symbols and talismans. They
are peculiar to no age or region, and unite in one bond of superstitious
brotherhood the savage and the philosopher, the Sumatran and the

Egyptian, the Briton and the native of Borneo. When a medical written
charm is wholly unintelligible, its curative virtue is thereby much
enhanced. The Anglo-Saxon document known as the Vercelli
manuscript by some means found its way to Lombardy. Its text being
undecipherable, the precious pages of the manuscript were cut up, to
serve as amulets.
Apropos of this subject, Charles M. Barrows, in "Facts and Fictions of
Mental Healing," remarks that whatever acts upon a patient in such a
way as to persuade him to yield himself to the therapeutic force
constantly operative in Nature, is a means of healing. It may be an
amulet, a cabalistic symbol, an incantation, a bread-pill, or even sudden
fright. It may be a drug prescribed by a physician, imposition of hands,
mesmeric passes, the touch of a relic, or visiting a sacred shrine.
Dr. Samuel McComb, in "Religion and Medicine,"[16:1] remarks that
the efficacy of the amulets and charms of savages depends upon the
fact that they are symbols of an inner mental state, the objects to which
the desire or yearning could attach itself--in a word, they are
auto-suggestions, done into wood and stone.
Professor Hugo Münsterberg has said that the less a patient knows
about the nature of suggestion, the more benefit he is likely to
experience therefrom; but that, on the contrary, a physician may obtain
the better results, the more clearly he understands the working of this
therapeutic agent.
It is also doubtless true that much good may result from the
employment of suggestion by a charlatan, in the form of a written
medical charm, both parties being alike profoundly ignorant of the
healing influence involved.
In the Talmud, two kinds of medical amulets are specified, viz: the
"approved" and the "disapproved." An approved amulet is one which
has cured three persons, or which has been made by a man who has
cured three persons by means of other amulets.[17:1] A belief in the
healing power of amulets was very general among the Hebrews in the
later periods of their history. No people in the whole world were more

addicted to the use of medicinal spells, exorcisms, and various
enchantments. The simpler amulets consisted of pieces of paper, with a
few words written upon them, and their use was quite general. Only
one of the approved kind was permitted to be worn abroad on the
Sabbath.[17:2]
The Talmud therefore permits the use of superstitious modes of healing,
the end sought justifying the means, and the power of mental influence
being tacitly recognized. This principle is faithfully carried out to-day,
says a writer in the "Journal of Biblical Literature,"[18:1] in all rural
communities throughout the world. The Hebrew law-makers did not
make a concession to a lower form of religion by endorsing magical
remedies, but merely shared the contemporary belief in the demoniac
origin of disease. The patient was regarded as being in a condition of
enchantment or fascination,--under a spell, to use the popular phrase.
To dissolve such a spell, recourse was had to amulets, written charms,
or the spoken word of command.
FOOTNOTES:
[4:1] Carolus Christianus Krause, De Amuletis Medicis Cogitata
Nonnulla, vol. iii, p. 4. Lipsia, 1758.
[4:2] Jo. Christianus Teutscherus, De Usu et Abusu Amuletorum.
Lipsiensis, 1720.
[4:3] Century Dictionary.
[5:1] John William Draper, History of the Intellectual Development of
Europe, vol. i, p. 392.
[6:1] Chambers's Journal, vol. xvi, p. 57; 1861.
[6:2] George F. Fort, Medical Economy during the Middle Ages, p. 78.
[7:1] The Reliquary, vol. vii, p. 162; 1893.
[7:2] James Townley, The Reasons of the Law of Moses, vol. ii, p. 944.

[7:3] Exercitationum Anatomico-Chirurgicarum Decades Duæ. De
Amuletis. Lugd: Batavorum, 1708.
[7:4] Encyclopédie des Gens du Monde, art. "Amulette."
[8:1] The Catholic Encyclopædia.
[8:2] Elwood Worcester, D.D., Religion and Medicine.